Page 173: Money and Conflict

He could see, in Gödelian terms, how money was just an abstract model of our value reality and, to paraphrase Nadeau and Kafatos, that there would never be a one-to-one correspondance between money-as-value theory and our value reality. In other words: the conflict that we feel by using money as we do exists as psychological reality due to the unprovability and incompleteness of money as a model of value.

Page 43: Paracelsus

That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as it exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it... We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself.

Page 41: Ordinary Day

It was an otherwise ordinary day. Somewhere in this world there was a war being fought and somewhere else there were prayers for peace. Somewhere in this world was the gift of life and somewhere else was the senseless taking of another. And somewhere in this world, on this day, a man wrote to a publisher in the hope of getting his book published.

Page 39: Aristophanes

He said there's just one way for the human race to flourish. He said we must bring love to its perfect conclusion, so that mankind can recover his original nature.

Page 35: Like Trees

We are like trees. Every year as we pass through the seasons and the wind and rain falls onto our bodies, and the sunlight filters through our skin, and as we absorb the experiences of our lives, we add another ring. With a tree you can see these rings, but with us they are hidden deep within our minds, within our psyche. In essence, what is our continuous journey of maturation all about? I can say that these experiences are in my memory. But where is my memory? Is it really just a collection of neurons in my head?

Page 34: Societal Paradigm

You must pursue your own ideals of happiness. There is no objective, societal paradigm. The only paradigm is your subjective analysis of what makes you happy and you must pursue it, otherwise you will slowly die an internal death of such paralysing force that you will come to see your unhappy, unfulfilled state as the norm, until one day you wake up in a cold sweat and you realise that you are dead.

Page 33: Clutter

Vian motions for us to sit down on one of the four seats and asks us to place our hands on the central magnetic rock. It feels warm to the touch. He places his forehead slowly onto the Navel, takes a deep breath and begins to meditate. We close our eyes and follow suit. It is windy today. I can feel the light spray of the salty ocean drops falling onto my face as I sit in self-imposed darkness and silence. It is soothing, peaceful, quiet. It is not very often that you get the opportunity to take time out of your life, to assess what is important and what is not. I feel that this simple action here is very important. In some inexplicable way, it is more important than owning material possessions, because it has something to do with who I am. It has something to do with taking care of the self and not the external world, which so clutters everyone's daily lives with irrelevance.

Page 31: We are the Mirror

Philosophy is wont to describe all perception as a copy of the real thing. For example, you look at a flower, the light travels from that flower to your eyes, gets processed in your brain and you 'see' it. You're seeing a copy, so the argument goes: a copy of a scene that's made in your head. But even this is inadequate because if you try to define 'copy' in the context of what I just said you realise that the term itself will inevitably fail to deliver a descriptive accuracy of the whole event, and that's without even taking into consideration that the theory of light is just that: a theory with all of its associated failings. Of course, it is entirely possible that the world you perceive to be out there isn't actually out there at all. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. Is it really you, or are you the reflection that will never be able to see back to what the real you is? Sometimes I think that we are the mirror and everything else is a reflection of us.

Page 29: The Diminishing Motivation to Survive

The diminishing motivation to survive - it's the malaise of modern man. So we fill our lives with projects and deadlines and performance assessments in bland offices, wondering why our spirits are slowly dying every day on that bus into work. How can they not help but die, when we were designed to be living on the edge every day: hiding from bears and boars; killing lions to prove our manhood; climbing up trees for a vantage point from whence to view our advancing tribal enemies. Our survival instincts are slowly diminishing. We're a species in crisis. We are the first species in crisis, in a strange no-man's land of living in a body full of instincts hewn over millenia, but existing in a society where those instincts seem hardly relevant at all. But they're there, simmering under the surface, causing conflict, waiting to boil over. Natural selection had better hurry up.

Page 27: Colossi of Memnon

Yes. Now I remember. This image is from that book: that book of wonders. It was an old, dusty tome, sitting high on a shelf above the Lancashire chest. It was a thick book, with an embossed picture of the Colossi of Memnon stamped into its red leather cover. It was passed down to my mother many years ago and in return she passed it onto me because of all those memories she had of her youngest son dragging it down off the bookshelf. And in the middle pages of that book is a fading black and white image of this exact view at Rano Raraku. What a volume that was. It seems that I spent half my childhood with my face buried in the pictures, sniffling past the mite-ridden leaves, wondering what it would be like to see that massive golden boulder perched on the edge of that cliff. How did it get there? Why didn't it fall?

Page 26: Mortality

...this is what will happen to all of us. We'll cease to exist, be buried in the ground or burnt to dust. Our minds are quite amazing, for we understand our mortality completely, and yet we spend most of our lives ignoring it absolutely, driven to survive as best we can.

Page 25: Scotland

Why Easter Island should remind me of the north-west coast of Scotland I have no idea. The peculiarities of the weather, the intensity of the light filtering through the stratocumulus clouds, the strength of the salty breezes, the lack of people: it's a confluence of factors that trigger some notion of familiarity.

Page 24: Face Buried in the Ground

As I look at one of the moai, toppled, forlorn, its face half-buried in the ground, I can't help but have an emotional attachment to what it represents: the frailty of the human race perhaps. One minute you're standing proud, surveying all that is around you, revered by many, then you suddenly find yourself with your face buried in the ground.

Page 23: Brocken spectre

Whatever it is that constitutes the meaning in our individual lives may just be a Brocken spectre that casts its shadow into the drama of our lives - a blurry image of the desires of our selves projected onto a foggy canvas.

Page 20: Epictetus

'If you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others as such as it really is, then no one will ever compel or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you will not be harmed.'

Page 19: Making One's Mark

Why on Earth do we want to make a mark: an indelible stamp that spans across space and time? It shouts out across the centuries: 'I was here! I existed! I lived!' It affirms the mantra: 'I don't want to reach the end of my life and find out that it meant nothing.' And we come to see this mark, to admire it, to confirm that existence, to acknowledge it in some way. Why? Am I connected to it? In so much as I'm human, and the culture that produced these statues was human, then I am connected to that degree. But it has more depth to it than that. It is deeper than that. It sinks into the bone. What the nature of that depth is though I cannot enunciate as yet. I'm trying to find out.

Page 18: Introverts and Extroverts

He has one of his sketch books open with a picture on one page called 'Introvert' - an exquisite Rotring drawing of a man relieving himself in close proximity to a urinal. On the opposite page under the title 'Extrovert', his alter ego stands ten feet back, gushing a fountain of water into the trough. I'm laughing my head off. That drawing kills me every time. Next thing, we're packing up the Austin Cambridge with some tatty old suitcases and heading off down Vedas Lane, towards the horizon. Goodbye cruel world. Au Revoir: we're escaping, didn't you know?

Page 17: The Navel of the World

So, here we are, at Aeropuerto Mataveri, the official entry to Te Pito O Te Henua: The Navel of the World. Yes, this is where we all come from; we have an umbilical connection to this place; this stranded singular sod alone in a vast ocean. And in a way I feel like I've been born again. I am a newborn coming into the world. I'm at the start of a journey and I don't know what that journey holds for me. Although we have planned to a certain degree, the forthcoming trials and tribulations that this journey will entail are a mystery waiting to be discovered. And that is terribly exciting. It fills you with nervous anticipation and makes you happier than you could imagine at the same time. All journeys in life start like this. They have a yin and yang quality about them. They impress upon you diametrically opposed feelings: fearful yet brave; sad to leave, yet happy to go; cautious yet confident; jumping out of the well of knowledge into the cloud of unknowing.

Page 16: Something Wrong With the World.

So where better to start by summing up the whole Weltanschauung of the trip by beginning at the beginning itself: to commence as a stranger with a clear mind, and to do this as far removed from the rest of society as possible. There are some things however that I can't avoid about what I've left behind, that may have been the catalyst for being here in the first place. With every book read, every selfish act seen, every media flash swirling around in my visual cortex, it all leads down the same dead-end street. There's a small possibility that I'm not the problem after all. And if I'm not the problem, if there's not something wrong with me, is there something terribly wrong with this world?

Page 15: Leaving Something Behind

'I can't help feeling that we're leaving something behind. Whether it's something we've forgotten or a book we should have picked up, or someone we should have said goodbye to, I don't know. All I know is that in this dream we're leaving. And I have a feeling of dread, an empty feeling of loss almost. I want to go back. Where ever this road is going, I don't want to go there. Then I look out to the green lagoon on the right-hand side of the road. It's temptingly inviting, but painfully out of reach now. Then, all of a sudden, they're here - the messengers: the immaculate portents of things to be. Here they come!'