Aeon

A note from the author: I wrote this essay with Claude. The drafting was a collaboration, and so were several of the ideas, since AI tools have changed how I work in ways that bear directly on the argument. Before 1846, the scope of what a surgeon could attempt was bounded by what a conscious patient could endure in minutes.

The US musician and filmmaker John D Boswell (aka melodysheep) is known for his cinematic explorations of the cosmos, which combine 3D renderings of deep space with original electronic compositions. In Timelapse of the Universe, he takes viewers on a voyage from the birth of the Universe to the present day, with humanity’s existence occupying only a brief flash at the very end of the timeline.

This week I have been in the city of Hangzhou in China for a workshop. Every morning, I have walked the shore of Xihu, or West Lake, the graceful expanse of water lapping the city’s western edge. Looking out across the water from the promenade, lined with thick-branched camphor trees, I see layers of forested hills and majestic pagodas rise softly through the mist. The human structures enhance the harmony of the hills and water.

Listen to this essay 19 minute listen Between 2010 and 2011, Los Zetas kidnapped dozens of migrants coming from Central America. Their campaign of terror earned them the reputation of Mexico’s most deadly criminal organisation. In the eastern state of Tamaulipas, in the municipality of San Fernando, authorities found mass graves.

Listen to this essay 31 minute listen ‘When do we get to the fire-tamers?’ my 10-year-old daughter asks from the backseat. Rain splatters against the windscreen. As we drive across salt marshes, a chill sea wind blows over the north-westerly French peninsula where we live; the tide is rising. By the road, in flooded fields, trees mirror in rippling water. The world doubles. ‘Soon,’ I say. Ten minutes later, inside a lost farmhouse ringed by red geraniums, an elderly Breton woman whispers to a stone.

What does it mean to live an authentic life? This is a question that a man who goes by the name of Hat has had plenty of time to contemplate, since he left his previous identity and a comfortable yet, to him, stifling life behind.

Born into an elite Japanese family, the photographer Akihiko Okamura (1929-85) was an unlikely candidate to become one of the most perceptive chroniclers of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. A collaboration between Photo Museum Ireland and the Akihiko Okamura Archive, The Memories of Others traces how the photographer came to create original and thoughtful depictions of the decades-long sectarian conflict, many of which remained largely unseen until recently.

The Iranian-British filmmaker Maryam Mohajer is known for animations inspired by her childhood in Tehran and rendered in her distinctive two-dimensional style. Drawn from ‘childhood memories and shared stories’, her celebrated short And Granny Would Dance is told from the perspective of six-year-old Marmar, who glimpses a strange and fascinating adult world of stories and jokes shared between her grandmother’s friends over cards and tea.

Deeply embedded in the ideals of justice and fairness is the idea that we ought to get what we deserve. Deservingness is thus an intuitively compelling concept, because we want the world to be intelligible. If the good suffer and the wicked flourish, then the world not only becomes a painful place to live in, it also becomes a place of moral chaos. Even if the world is bountifully unjust, it remains a necessary illusion that people get what they deserve.

Listen to this essay 30 minute listen Last autumn, my mother was in a near-fatal car crash, when a massive electric BMW veered across the centre line and hit her head-on. After getting the call, I rushed to the trauma hospital and waited for the helicopter that was bringing her in. In a small, cube-shaped room I sat stunned for what felt like hours, staring at the door’s hinges.