The origin of a nation
"Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?" William Blake "Then others would come, tigers, Blake’s fiery tiger; Then would come other golds, the loving metal that was Zeus, the ring that every nine nights begets nine rings, and these, nine, and there is no end." Jorge Luis Borges I remembered Borges this morning while a building crumbled in Bangkok. I watched him with such clarity on the phone screen, paused the video, and remembered Borges saying that the most devastating tiger was gold, but the origin was Blake, who must have seen it first, terribly reflected in the creation of someone or something. Blake asked again and again about its origin. The origin is singular, the beginning slowly threads itself, looking everywhere, hesitantly picking the lesser details and the greater circumstances of the created artifact. I rewind the video and think of that beautiful building that took centuries...