The wings of the past

‘Flying’. What a beautiful word. Just a century ago, incredible as it seems, it was related to dreams, birds mental journeys expressed in thoughts on paper, or the fertile imagination of those unaccustomed to receiving any news outside art, literature and folk tales, while today it means nothing less than physical transfer of individuals from one side of the planet to the other. What I find most curious is the stress and intense irritation many of us feel at airports. Can you imagine someone in the future grumbling because they have to wait an hour for teletransportation? Our vain sense of superiority as a species robs us of our capacity for surprise, for admiration of all we have created and our minds have managed to attain.

It’s quite a challenge to allow our fears to take flight, and start to feel there’s something infinite beyond the obligatory stimuli and the incessant flow of vetted information we swallow up today. What has become of metaphysics and language? What became of those great men who shone in poetry, music or art? Are we really ready for a world hurtling at full speed towards no goal at all? Is today’s stress the product or mere chance? Society is flying onwards in giant leaps, its nonconformity permutating time and time again, but the change has been too giddy, and the technological revolution we are experiencing is faster than the collective mind of a human species that has been left in a sea of doubts, stunned, gaping and dazed. Let us continue to indulge the imagination, like those countries of the past; let us put ourselves in the place of others; let us tell true stories, so that it is not always prettiness that wins the day; let us appreciate, let us deliberate and let us proceed… but please, let’s keep flying. Don’t let’s stop!