from
Mobility Lounge
A globalist is a parasite that must keep moving to survive.
Nair had frequently seen Indian families on the floor of the lounge, every night around 11 p.m. Reclining in circles, they waited for the Mumbai flight, surrounded by the scattered remains of cigarette ends and the unswept paper cups of the day. Always in the same patient poses as though that were traditional for them, families with their subdued murmurs conducting group matters on the floor in public. Something about the observation windows attracted them. What exactly the key was had eluded Nair so far, but he could always find the latest batch of in-transit families on the same spot each night, waiting for the return to the old country.
Another thing about the families—they seemed oblivious to what anyone else could see was going on around them. It was almost impressive—how defiantly they stuck to their mode. Refusing to give in, to be other than they were. For instance, they might have resorted to using the lounge chairs; unfortunately the spot they chose happened to be on the route of the waxing machine. Every night the machine came suddenly around the corner, whirling up, and caught them by surprise.
You are a globalist, a parasite, and you must move on to survive.
The waxing machine was preceded by its nightly beeping of alarms, but the families usually waited until it was almost too late. Then, at the last second, the outermost circle of young males leapt up, and attempted to wave the driver out of their path. But the driver had seen this every night—for so many years now—he invariably drove in a straight line. It was a principle with him, to force these people to dash out of the way at last minute. Not because it gave him pleasure, but because he had calculated all the favors he would need to do every night if he gave in once. The driver turned a blind eye to the families, their masks of outrage and terror, and stared fixedly ahead and drove through their ranks, unabated, around the next corner. After which, settling on their spot of floor again, the families got on with their excited discussion about these bloody rude foreigners. Five minutes later, it was like nothing had happened. They were relaxing in the familiar postures again. More laws of nature observable anywhere from the outside.
The fundamental point is that the Age of Information is the Age of Limits. The imagination has been constrained by facts. Number One Fact is the impossibility of ever escaping the planet. We might aspire to something beyond, at least to the knowledge of how to get there, but space is the fantasy of an overpopulated village. We will never escape the small point on which we stand. Not as we are. To attempt to reach beyond yourself first you must experience the limits. Like the impossible dream of a rich man who can’t buy a solution: here we are and here we shall remain. All we can ever hope to know in our lifetime is a fragment of the solution. The Age of Information is an exercise in limits.
Nair was often unable to sleep at night. He walked around for an hour or two, trying to exhaust himself. This condition of wakefulness . . . He couldn’t stand being in his room. He observed the synchronization of the clocks at midnight, clocks throughout the facility switching over from one day to the next all at the same time. The moment of synchronization was a beautiful sight to behold. Maybe things really would one day be unified. There was always the hope of that. Maybe the world would reset itself eventually, all at once, daily to zero.
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