A time when time was not Darkness cannot say: “I precede the coming light”, but there is a sense in which light can say, “Darkness preceded me”. Doubtless there is an event, X, in the future, by reference to which we may say that we are at present in a category of Not-X, but until X occurs, the category of Not-X is without reality. Only X can give reality to Not-X; that is to say, Not-Being depends for its reality upon Being. In this way we may faintly see how the creation of Time may be said automatically to create a time when Time was not, and how the Being of God can be said to create a Not-Being that is not God. Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker darknesslighttimebeing
Thin ice Today the 'depth of our being' stands on thin ice. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses coldbeing
The utter nothingness of being Everything written symbols can say has already passed by. They are like tracks left by animals. That is why the masters of meditation refuse to accept that writings are final. The aim is to reach true being by means of those tracks, those letters, those signs - but reality itself is not a sign, and it leaves no tracks. It doesn’t come to us by way of letters or words. We can go toward it, by following those words and letters back to what they came from. But so long as we are preoccupied with symbols, theories and opinions, we will fail to reach the principle. "But when we give up symbols and opinions, aren’t we left in the utter nothingness of being?" Yes. Kimura Kyūho, On the Mysteries of Swordsmanship The Elements of Typographic Style zenmeaningsymbolsbeingreality
What will be has always been A Quote by Louis Kahn understandinggroup.com Ruins, Rub-outs, and Trash timebeing
How Websites Die An Article by Wesley Aptekar-Cassels notebook.wesleyac.com I recently started compiling a list of defunct blogging platforms. It’s been interesting to see how websites die — from domain parking pages to timeouts to blank pages to outdated TLS cipher errors, there are a multitude of different ways. It leaves no sign of its past self behindThis obsession with permanence
It leaves no sign of its past self behind When buildings are torn down and rebuilt, the ghost of the old building is often visible in the new one — strangely angled walls and rooms, which make sense only in the context of the space as a living organism. On the web, there are no such restrictions: when a website dies, it leaves no sign of its past self behind. deathwwwarchitecturebuilding
This obsession with permanence I think a lot about the lifecycle of websites. I’m frustrated by so much of the short-term thinking I see in the world today, and the way we think about websites is a part of that: it’s “normal” for them to just go up in smoke as soon as their authors stop paying attention. People switch platforms and providers and break links without a second thought. It pains me to see people build websites with no feeling of obligation to them — when you put something out into the world, it is your responsibility to care for it. At the same time, I wonder if this obsession with permanence is misplaced. care