Turning over the last page of sophie's world, i found myself profoundly troubled, vehement with wonder and doubts. is that what those philosophers called "agnst"? that turning point from which one would be able to detach himself from "aesthetic state" to "ethic state" or even further, "religious state"?

That "BIG BANG" theory moved me especially, with all those possibilities and uncertainties. whether galaxies will one day go contracting to one spot again or whether they are just forever travelling apart? whether, before this big bang, there had been another big bang, another solar system, another earth, another me? or, will there be another after? once so firm was my faith in God, (or those mysterious powers operating the universe at least) that i never gave a second thought about an immortal soul, an ever-lasting, never-dying entity that would certainly continue to live on after my demise, but what if ("O, what an if!" as Darwin once exclaimed), just what if, the whole universe started from nothing but a stone, at a size no bigger than an orange that could be well held within a hand, and there has been no god, no mysterious unexplainable supernatural powers, and everybody is simply being thrown upon this blue planet, at random, and happened to be strong enough to be the fitter one and survived the nature's selection? O what an if indeed!

How wonderful, and how terrible, when Aristotle Galileo and millions of other astronomers peered through their telescopes and beheld, at that fleeting second, what they had witnessed, every and all, were nothing but past, ancient past, with aeons of years eclipsed! In other words, when we, sometimes, gaze deep into the deep blue vault and sighed to ourselves how beautiful it is with all those little diamonds twinkling on, the truth is, in all possibilities, those twinkling stars have ceased to exist; we are swooning over nothing more than a reflection. 

that is maddening!

countless times, human beings probe deep down into space in their little space shuttles and ships, hoping that they would discover another living planet, encounter some other alien lives; they are perhaps hoping in vain. for the moment they spot it through their polished lens billions of years has gone by through which everything has toppled and crumbled and coated with thick dusts, and not least for every second all galaxies are with gaining rapidity dashing away from one another as one aftermath of the big bang, to such an extend that human capacity may never reach. Perhaps not before us, nor perhaps after us, but for now, this moment, we are the only one, isolated in a universe of darkness and wilderness, all alone.

urgh... this gives prickling at the back of my neck. I figure i belong to the Renaissance; my good old soul cannot survive this cold logical world.

throughout history people had believed that there must be an afterlife and their entire journey on earth can sometimes be a preparation for it. but as Darwin executed Adam and Eve and our telescopes disappointed our hopes, as Nietzsche put it, god may well be dead had it existed.

so why, then, should i care, "what matters our creative toil, when, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?" indeed why should i, if we are all stardust, came from dust, and to dust shall we return?

ah... i think i need some soft breeze and mellow sunshine, some icecream and an warm afternoon with uninterruptable Renaissance indolence...