After Descartes yesterday, Pascal is a must today. Between the « cogito » of the former and « les pensées » of the latter there might be room for one thought... I wish I could have been there there when they famously once met for dinner. Real food for thought 😉.
In echo to the «order of the universe» Pascal asked: «Because finally what is man in nature? A nothingness with regard to infinity, a whole with respect to nothingness, a medium between nothing and everything. Infinitely far from understanding the extremes...also incapable of seeing the nothingness from which it is drawn, and the infinite where it is engulfed.»
Let me abuse this thought. And its meaning. Knowingly. Between the minuscule Covid and the giant Climate Change we seem lost and scared. Pascal again: «Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but it’s a thinking reed. The whole universe must not arm itself to crush it: ... a drop of water is enough to kill it. But when the universe crushes him, man would be even more noble than what kills him, because he knows he is dying, and the advantage that the universe has over him, the universe does not know nothing»
We are not going to die. The reed will bend then straighten again. Provided we don’t crush its thinking capacity!
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