Published: 4 November 2024

Erasers

Erasers

Erasers are quite wonderful and also scary when you think about their purpose, which is to remove something as if it was never there. We use the eraser to return the paper to its original state of blankness.

The function of the eraser extends to the erasure of the actual eraser through usage.

Does the eraser precede and perhaps inspire the erasure of thoughts considered indecent, sacrilegious, traitorous? Or does the need to remove such thoughts lead to the invention of the eraser?

Even if the eraser is invented to remove mistakes, isn’t it inevitable it will inspire the thought to remove anything or anyone that can be described as a mistake?

Incidentally, this thought about erasure only pertains to paper, lead and rubber. Cuneiform tablets, could of course, be re-worked when wet simply by smoothing over the clay and writing again. Wax tablets also contain the function of erasure within them.

When engraving in stone, we rarely consider the erasure caused by water and time. When we think of civilization, we find it difficult to remember erased cities, peoples, histories. The evidence of their existence erased as if they never existed.

More Essays:

Fermi’s paradox

First, it’s not a paradox. A paradox goes something like this: {X|x = ~x} That’s not what Fermi is proposing.
If you’re not familiar with Fermi’s paradox, here’s Wikipedia’s summation:
“The Fermi paradox is a conflict between the argument that scale and probability seem to favor intelligent life being common in the universe, and the total lack of evidence of intelligent life having ever arisen anywhere other than on Earth.”
I think it’s time to put the Fermi paradox to rest.

Mnemosyne

It strikes me, thinking about the Titans, that the ancient Greeks assigned, not timeless attributes to their gods, but those attributes they considered most worthy. Light figures largely, as does water, but it is the mind that seems to be equivalent to these,

City Lights

I was thinking today the most emotional moment I’ve witnessed in film is the ending of City Lights. The Tramp stands, looks at the once blind girl in her florist shop, and his face is like a river filled with a mix of emotions only Chaplin could convey silently. But that is not the moment.

Singing

Sight is instantaneous and hence illusory and easily confused. Ask any magician.
Hearing is visceral and moves through our body at a speed we can experience.

windows

There is no worse fate than being captive in a windowless room. If the room is small, all the worse. It must be said within our core being, windows promise escape.

Related

The Wall

The Wall

Walk with me.
Meet the wall.
The wall is the end.
Deep, dense,
charcoal melt into
rusted metal door black,

read more
Step in the soil

Step in the soil

Roots are steps in soil. Steps to rise
upon. Steps attended by dark life, earth being
what roots must dig into. To bury these seeds
knowing they will rise again. To bury hands
in rich dirt knowing things will grow well here.
To bury one’s face in a bouquet of lilac without
allowing one blossom to touch your skin.

read more
ducks cannibals skunks porcupines

ducks cannibals skunks porcupines

a fable
There once was a village of well fed cannibals. The area they lived in had lots of food for everyone, from fruit to fish in the streams, good roots, seeds and nuts, and people to hunt. Originally, there had been a lot of people in the area.
As I said, this village of cannibals was well fed. A time came when there weren’t many people left to hunt. If people did move in, they lived in forts, had weapons and acted very fierce whenever the cannibals visited.
Some of the cannibals were hurt by that attitude.
“You try to be friends and see what happens!”
“It’s as if they don’t want to be eaten! And I have this new recipe I can’t wait to try out!”
Now that there were no people left to eat, the cannibals started to feel hungry. That’s when it began.

read more

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