ON & BEYOND

Burgundy isn’t what it was 20 years ago, not that I was there to witness it, but I did see the change through 2 decades of my existence. From drugged filled dilapidated projects to gunshots at 3am, the neighborhood has slowly evolved into a melting pot of talented young entrepreneurs. Walk three corners from the slums, and find yourself stepping on Notre Dame street. Attracting the likes of new Artists and Designers, the street is crowded with newly opened art galleries and of course the notoriously known, freshly opened Burgundy Pub.

It was Fred’s 31st. The colloquy between Fred, Nick, Angelo and I eventually and naturally drifted toward the topic of the economic crisis. Somehow it reminded me of Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael. Quinn explains that the evolution of humanity can be comparable to the story of a silly pilot trying to fly. Humanity since its induction to earth, got off the wrong foot. In fact, what the pilot did, as he explains in his story, was jump off a cliff in belief that being in the air was to fly. Instead of engineering the correct machinery to bring him up to the sky, our pilot chose the effortless way to be in the air. So, according to Quinn, humanity never really evolved and this pilot never really flew; humanity, like the pilot, jumped off a cliff and at every second, we get closer and closer to reaching the bottom of the cliff. Where does this tie in with the economic crisis? The self-proclaimed “elite” nations of modern society achieved their status by borrowing capital and accumulating the interest off loans from the borrowed money: Wrong idea from the start. Any economic specialist could have speculated the risk , but obviously, at the time, the Elites became rich and ran the global market, not for long though…. What now? I’d say they’ve reached the pit. What next? The elites will discover another cliff, one that is higher than the last, one that will make their “flight” more “everlasting”…

In other news: “[...]word is you can buy whole neighborhoods in both Florida and in California. Banks are selling them for pretty cheap. Like no neighbors. The middle class was an illusion and now that illusion is getting flushed down the toilet.”