tsvetoslav shalev

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

– John 1:1, King James’s Bible

As a devout, non-militant atheist, I find this verse a fantastic opening to one not-so-great a book. Λόγος (Logos) the Greek word variously meaning “ground”, “plea”, “opinion”, “expectation”, “word”, “speech”, “account”, “reason”, “proportion”, and “discourse” (Wikipedia) is something I deeply care about, unlike Theos (deity, god). I am a firm believer in wording as it pertains not just to Semantics, but also beautifully designed with phonaesthetics and sound symbolism in mind. In other words, if I were to refactor these holy texts, I’d probably keep everything up to the first coma and not a word more. I am winking, but you cannot see me.

I just spent my weekend, most of Monday and Tuesday binge-watching The Expanse. An Amazon original, the sci-fi series follows the lives and experiences of way too many characters, in a world torn by strife, where not even the existence of ancient aliens seems a glue strong enough to unite humanity. If the show was a cake, its closest approximation, I think, would be a chocolate sponge, filled with chocolate ganache and smothered in dark chocolate fondant. Yes, in terms of character development, The Expanse has the density of a Neutron star, sprinkled here and there, with the occasional sci-fi nerdism. Like most, Firefly left a gaping hole in my generation, when it comes to quality mainstream content about humanity’s potential endeavors in space, so these series are greatly appreciated. Now, it’s Star Citizen’s turn. Just teasing! There were a number of memorable moments from my time watching the show, but none left as lasting an impression on me, as the brief intermission I took on Monday afternoon. After 30 hours of almost non-stop ingestion of skilled storytelling, I decided to check the news from around the world as a means to unwind. Just some of the highlights from that day – new escalation in tensions between China and India, anti-government protests in Russia, anti-lockdown protests in the Netherlands, marches in Australia, criminal negligence in the US with regards to the wrongdoings of the last administration, new strains of COVID and people in South America not just dying en masse but also having to fill their own oxygen tanks if they expected to be treated. And so much more. As input from the screen and headphones flooded my senses, reality and imagination suddenly collided in my mind, and for an instant, I feared I wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the two. I locked my Windows 10 account, stood up from my desk and went into the kitchen to catch a breather. Sleep-deprived, head abuzz with all this information, took me a good half an hour before I could get my bearings straight while munching on a soft-boiled egg and cold sausage leftovers from the previous day. Remember to chew well. True, the writing of The Expanse is fantastic, the cinematography actually decent, but the images, the sounds, the words on the news from that day, rang of fiction that nearly eclipsed what James Holden and his crew were going through. I pity those who have willingly or unwittingly impoverished themselves of the capacity to appreciate competence. I mean, what is going on here? We’ve all seen various themes from the last two decades about cataclysmic events, viruses and injustice. Why are we so hell-bent on causing more damage short-term, instead of working towards something more concrete and meaningful in the long term? Has humankind reached a mental and psychological threshold? Could it be that the availability of information propagating without intellectual supervision or formal review, is actually hurting us? What more could be done to aid Enlightenment today, as viewed through the lens of Mr Steven Pinker’s writing? What about love? Yeah, what about it.

The cynical Bulgarian in me is well aware that nobody gets out of life, alive, but I do not wish to be a statistic, a victim of circumstance, a ruiner. In my relationships with the world without, I err on the side of cautious optimism. Still, I have made up my mind long ago to place trust in the hands of the great many who study diligently, who apply themselves with care to nurture social harmony, who work tirelessly so I don’t have to constantly worry about figuring out how to navigate the myriad complexities of living and even dying, whenever that is. Yeah.

P.S. Everybody love everybody, come on!