Erase nations

The first thing I did this morning as I got to the lab was asking my friend from Moscow if all her family and friends were ok after this morning's terrorist attack on the subway there. Thankfully, she had already gotten in touch with them to confirm that they were all safe and sound.

A few weeks ago, I similarly asked my Chilean friend on our floor if all his family was all right after the earthquakes there. Before that, it was an earthquake in China, the terrorist attacks in London...

Not to dwell on horrible things that happen in the world, but it made me think of the inter-connectedness of everything. NYC is a global village of 8 million people, all somehow connected to the rest of the world making all the little pieces of the puzzle fit tightly together at the end. The puzzle of people I guess. I was thinking about this on my way home on the subway. In a lot of the subway cars, there are paintings, cartoons with some sort of subway-related theme on them. The one I stood next to today was of an imaginary bug-city: bugs of all different colors and shapes are in an underground tunnel, sitting on various other bug-looking things, which make up a sort of train. All the bugs are chatting away, waiting for their station, either the tulip or the lilly above ground. Not unlike on its real-world counterpart. The essence of NYC.

It made me think about Hungary, then when I got home, I started watching The English Patient. My favorite movie. This is from the book:

"There were rivers of desert tribes, the most beautiful humans I've met in my life. We were German, English, Hungarian, African - all of us insignificant to them. Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations... The desert could not be claimed or owned - it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names long before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East... All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith... The places water came to and touched... I didn't want my name against such beautiful names. Erase the family name! Erase nations! I was taught such things by the desert."

It says everything, no more words needed.

I can't even watch the movie to the end now, it makes me cry like a baby every time!