I started crying when the halls were silent. Shoes off. A man was kneeling at the end of the room, head touching the floor before coming back up.
The walls were tiled, the ceilings domed, rising stories and stories above my head.
We don’t build things like this any more, I thought.
What have we lost?
I was in a mosque, and not even one of the impressive ones like the Blue Mosque. Just a regular mosque.
I'm not Muslim, and I didn’t feel the eerie presences sometimes felt in cathedrals, the voices whispering just beyond the veil of consciousness. But it was hard not to be amazed at what humans had done here.
And what we have ceased to do now.
I started crying.
What have we lost in the modern world that we don’t make things like this any more? Art and work blended, the labor of generations before it was ready for use. Humans building treasures for their grandchildren to labor on for their grandchildren to use.
We traded beauty for efficiency. Labors of lifetimes for quarterly reports.
My first thought was that capitalism is better than what they had. They built monuments of the ages because they had no need for profit. They weren’t making the world "better" like capitalism does.
But I realized that this was a sweet lie. As I sit in the courtyard typing this out, hundreds of people come in and go out. They take pictures and leave, mostly. But every one of them stays somewhere, eats something, travels.
These monuments, some built thousands of years ago, have been greater drivers of capitalism here than arguably anything manmade. Ever. Can you imagine the financial wealth that comes from literal millenia of tourism?
We have lost something we once had. We traded art for low risk: 4 year presidencies, quarterly reports. These things guard well the handrails of society. They are fine instruments, and great at what they were built for, but we haven't factored in the cost that comes from trading people for data.
We lose the century-, millenia-long view of history and the future. I don’t think we've found a better system than capitalism, but I think a quiet rebellion is in order.
People, you and I, must take a millenia-long view of our work. Keep the 4-year presidencies and the quarterly reports. But you and I, as individuals, must strive to make an impact that resounds across history. Then maybe the institutions will follow.
This is the only way I can think of to unify art and work again. The only way to bring life back into our cold world
The walls were tiled, the ceilings domed, rising stories and stories above my head.
We don’t build things like this any more, I thought.
What have we lost?
I was in a mosque, and not even one of the impressive ones like the Blue Mosque. Just a regular mosque.
I'm not Muslim, and I didn’t feel the eerie presences sometimes felt in cathedrals, the voices whispering just beyond the veil of consciousness. But it was hard not to be amazed at what humans had done here.
And what we have ceased to do now.
I started crying.
What have we lost in the modern world that we don’t make things like this any more? Art and work blended, the labor of generations before it was ready for use. Humans building treasures for their grandchildren to labor on for their grandchildren to use.
We traded beauty for efficiency. Labors of lifetimes for quarterly reports.
My first thought was that capitalism is better than what they had. They built monuments of the ages because they had no need for profit. They weren’t making the world "better" like capitalism does.
But I realized that this was a sweet lie. As I sit in the courtyard typing this out, hundreds of people come in and go out. They take pictures and leave, mostly. But every one of them stays somewhere, eats something, travels.
These monuments, some built thousands of years ago, have been greater drivers of capitalism here than arguably anything manmade. Ever. Can you imagine the financial wealth that comes from literal millenia of tourism?
We have lost something we once had. We traded art for low risk: 4 year presidencies, quarterly reports. These things guard well the handrails of society. They are fine instruments, and great at what they were built for, but we haven't factored in the cost that comes from trading people for data.
We lose the century-, millenia-long view of history and the future. I don’t think we've found a better system than capitalism, but I think a quiet rebellion is in order.
People, you and I, must take a millenia-long view of our work. Keep the 4-year presidencies and the quarterly reports. But you and I, as individuals, must strive to make an impact that resounds across history. Then maybe the institutions will follow.
This is the only way I can think of to unify art and work again. The only way to bring life back into our cold world