World 1: Playing hockey on a frozen river in Beijing despite heavy smog.
World 2: Playing hockey at an elevation of 5,500 feet in the mountains in British Columbia, Canada.
Post inspiration:
“Man will survive,” I said to myself touched with slight horror. “God should pity the world. Man will survive.” All that passionate energy which in my own life, after many stumbling, had lodged me in these great silent halls, suddenly seemed dissipated and lost. I was as empty and filled with light as a milkweed pod whose substance has evaporated into the silvery autumn air. I thought of the beautiful ruined courts of an Aztec city in which I once stood, I drew my hand over the bust of Hermes that I knew with surety would find a second burial in the earth. More ghostly, more insubstantial than the hunting pack which roams the world and its dark thickets forever, I felt the dissolving power of the light which falls across the lost columns and bleaching mosaics. Beauty man has, but in the very act of possession he is dissolved. I saw in my hand against the statue the projected shriveling of the skin. Each man repeats history – endless and forever.
Nor has any civilization sustained beauty without returning it to the earth. But perhaps man will eventually achieve this victory, I thought doubtfully, standing a little longer in the timeliness eternal light that flowed from the great sculpture. Perhaps. Perhaps he will, I thought again, and went on my way toward darkness.
~ Loren Eiseley, “Paw Marks and Buried Towns” from The Night Country
Sources:
- Photo 1: wsj.com photo of the day – Jason Lee / Reuters (Dec 29, 2015)
- Photo 2: NY Times – Hockey in the Mountains, a High Point in Their Lives (Dec 5, 2015)
- Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) was an American anthropologist, educator, philosopher, and natural science writer, who taught and published books from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Live & Learn 
Happy Christmas to you and yours David
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Thank you Michael. Happy Holidays to you and your family as well.
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i love the contrast in the pictures, and the miracles in both of them.
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For a change Shinto, we are on opposite sides. I love the contrast, I see gloom in the top photo.
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to me, they both show the strength of human spirit.
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There you go, seeing the light. I LIKE it.
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Look at the difference in the skies of the photos. Scary to think of what we are doing to this beautiful world.
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Yes. Sad in many ways…frightening in others.
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quite a contrast; but also shows a commonality in spirit
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Yes, despite the differences in air and sky…
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“I was as empty and filled with light as a milkweed pod whose substance has evaporated into the silvery autumn air.” She is an amazing writer.
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He is…yes… 🙂
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