A portrait of <n>Swami Vivekananda</n>, taken in Chicago in 1893 during the <n>Parliament of the World's Religions</n>.

Devenir immortel, et puis mourir.

“When I examine closely my early childhood, I realise that my memory of words reaches back far farther than my memory of the flesh. In the average person, I imagine, the body precedes language. In my case, words came first of all; then-belatedly, with every appearance of extreme reluctance, and already clothed in concepts-came the flesh. It was already, as goes without saying, sadly wasted by words.
First comes the pillar of plain wood, then the white ants that feed on it. But for me, the white ants were there from the start, and the pillar of plain wood emerged tardily, already half eaten away.
Let the reader not chide me for comparing my own trade to the white ant. In its essence, any art that relies on words makes use of their ability to eat away-of their corrosive function-just as etching depends on the corrosive power of nitric acid. Yet the simile is not accurate enough; for the copper and the nitric acid used in etching are on a par with each other, both being extracted from nature, while the relation of words to reality is not that of the acid to the plate.
Words are a medium that reduces reality to abstraction for transmission to our reason, and in their power to corrode reality inevitably lurks the danger that the words themselves will be corroded too. It might be more appropriate, in fact, to liken their action to that of excess stomach fluids that digest and gradually eat away the stomach itself.

Many people will express disbelief that such a process could already be at work in a person's earliest years. But that, beyond doubt, is what happened to me personally, thereby laying the ground for two contradictory tendencies within myself. One was the determination to press
ahead loyally with the corrosive function of words, and to make that my life's work. The other was the desire to encounter reality in some field where words should play no part at all.
In a more "healthy" process of development, the two tendencies can often work together without conflict, even in the case of a born writer, giving rise to a highly desirable state of affairs in which a training in words leads to a fresh discovery of reality. But the emphasis here is on rediscovery; if this is to happen, it is necessary, at the outset of life, to have possessed, the reality of the flesh still unsullied by words. And that is quite different from what happened to me.

My composition teacher would often show his displeasure with my work, which was innocent of any words that might be taken as corresponding to reality. It seems that, in my childish way, I had an unconscious presentiment of the subtle, fastidious laws of words, and was aware of the necessity of avoiding as far as possible coming into contact with reality via words if one was to profit from their positive corrosive function and escape their negative aspect—if, to put it more simply, one was to maintain the purity of words. I knew instinctively that the only possibility was to maintain a constant watch on the corrosive action lest it suddenly come up against some object that it might corrode.
The natural corollary of such a tendency was that I should openly admit the existence of reality and the body only in fields where words had no part whatsoever; thus reality and the body became synonymous for me, the objects, almost, of a kind of fetishism. Without doubt, too, I was quite unconsciously expanding my interest in words to embrace this interest also; and this type of fetishism corresponded exactly to my fetish for words.”

Photograph of a <n>Tiger</n> by <n>Marie Englhard</n>.

An aerial view of <n>Lençóis Maranhenses National Park</n> in Brazil, photographed by <n>George Steinmetz</n>.

AI artwork by <n>Prateek Arora</n> from the series <n>Indian Sci-Fi</n>.

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of human-kind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”

<n>RY X</n> performs for <n>Cercle</n> at <n>Lençóis Maranhenses National Park</n> in Brazil, 2022. Photo by <n>Raul Aragão</n>.

An animated GIF by digital artist <n>Dave Whyte</n>.

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Actor <n>Sean Penn</n> as photographer <n>Sean O'Connell</n> in <n>Ben Stiller</n>'s 2013 film <n>The Secret Life of Walter Mitty</n>.

Sagara Pran Talamalala | सागरा प्राण तळमळला

Light installation by production designer <n>Mark Digby</n> for the television series <n>Devs</n>.

The <n>Cybertruck 'Mars edition'</n>, a fan-made concept with <n>SpaceX</n> branding, was shared by <n>Elon Musk</n>.

Commission a Sculpture | Monumental Labs

Sports Club in New York City on the Upper West Side - Equinox

<n>The Rotunda</n> at the <n>University of Virginia</n>, designed by architect <n>Thomas Jefferson</n>. Photo by <n>Staib</n>.

Promotional material for <n>Tame Impala</n>'s 2021 tour, the <n>Phase 1 Rushium Trials</n>.

A 1661 celestial map by cartographer <n>Andreas Cellarius</n> from his atlas <n>Harmonia Macrocosmica</n>.

A still of <n>Son Gohan</n> from the anime series <n>Dragon Ball Z</n>, created by <n>Akira Toriyama</n>.

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Digital collage <n>NASA // Dataset Drawing no.02</n>, inspired by <n>NASA</n> and the music of <n>POND</n>.

<n>Nomizo Falls</n> in Kimitsu, Japan. Photo by <n>Hiroki.Nose</n>.