16 January

We would look at this pic and see that the most complex and evolved life is living in the village, in the valley. Michel Serres reverses that entirely. “Animals, trees and stones...Reckon now the progressive ages of the inhabitants and components of the Earth. When awareness vanishes in the hearts of animals, and movement stops, time retraces its steps from fauna to flora, from animals to plants, and from plants to cold rocks. As people get older, some acquire no more than the memory of their old age, spanning back no more than a century; others add the memory of their readings, which may take them back some thousands of years; but those who know how to be quiet, and who are able to stop and watch and study animals, trees and stones, go back billions of years, to acquire the ultimate truth, the truth which made animals lose their speech, plants their movement, and rocks their life activity. Thus, since the origins of time, cliffs, mountains and lakes have watched - unmoving, silent and inert - the portion of earth where they came to a stop; then trees stopped moving and took root there; and animals fell silent, lost in ecstasy. All old, like me, and struck motionless before the beauty of the world. Now, by dint of contemplation, silence and immobility, these inhabitants of the world are now what compose its beauty, the last truth. When my life finally comes to an end, when I finally lay aside my pen for all time, setting aside burning desire, and speech, and standing upright, and all sign of life, then and only then will I enter into the beauty of this world, to augment it."