No man ever steps in the same river twice
Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher born in 544 B.C. said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
Heraclitus, my friend, I know you've been gone
For two and a half thousand years but we are of one mind:
Sceptical, Seeking, Secular.
On a road through Physics and Mathematics
To a Singularity of belief
Foretold.in the black hole of consciousness,
Redolent of those who strove for purity
And exclusivity in the monasteries of long ago.
.......
It is the quirkiy, the odd, the hanging by a thread
That attracts us still to writers from the ancient world,
Before Christ, before Mohamed.
Clinging to an individuality of belief
That, ironically, links us, each to each,
To the centre of the world
Magnificent Byzantium
The most wonderful city of Constantinople
Packed full of beauty beyond measure
Neglected by the liberal west
At their endless cost.
.......
We wait patiently for the prophecies
To come true
And for the murderers and desecrators
To be cast into the endless sea,
The ocean of time's despair,
Which is patiently waiting
To meet them there.
John Marks
Tue 18th Jun 2019 14:58
Thanks Martin but, as you say, we need really to thank Heraclitus. The 'west' is reluctant to acknowledge our debt to the civilizations of Greece, Egypt, Carthage, Mesopotamia and Rome. Maybe, as you imply, because it would reveal how unoriginal our thinking, in terms of art and culture, so often is. I think we have made progress in Physics especially through the work of Albert Einstein who famously acknowledged that "Imagination is more important than knowledge." John?