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:

Singing

Sight is instantaneous, illusory and easily confused. Ask any magician.
Our eyes connect directly to our brain. Our visual processing occurs at incomprehensible speeds, passing through various parts of our brain electric speed, and most of those internal mental processors are developed to cut down the incoming information

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.

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

oh to be hated

oh to be hated

to inspire such a feeling within someone
I must really get under your skin
to think about someone, a lot
whether to know what to do, or not
if anything special will be required
yesterday, I was no one, but today I‘m
someone, because I was chosen by you

read more

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *