No Renaissance?!

Today has just been a really bad day. Yesterday wasn't so great - ended up with a crazy headache from staying up too late writing the 'house of mourning/house of feasting' post. But even with that it was still kind of manageable.

Today I woke up feeling really insecure. The voices of 'not enough' were whispering/screaming in my ear a plenty & I was all twisted up about a number of random things. Then work was just totally frustrating. Seems like quality takes second place to just getting a job done & a tick in the box. No one's interested in hearing details, bullet points are the best you can get. & I guess you hope that it you make it simple enough, no one will ask questions & find where the bodies are buried. That & it's sort of easier for my american counterparts to get me to do some of their work for them....

.... so anyhow, in the middle of all this, I end up talking with one of my co-workers about her art & such (check out http://www.sevenages.com/bellearti/mainNav/aboutD1.cfm). She talks about the renaissance & how incredible a time that was & i ask her (likely the wrong thing to ask on a day like today), "do you think we'll ever have another renaissance?". Upon hearing her emphatic "NO", i full on have to turn away & start choking down the tears. I don't know whether it's tiredness, or the frustrations of the day, but I just about lost it & started weeping in front of her.... (managed to hold it back, but not by much).

I don't know what it is about that that breaks me so badly. I have this little dream in my head that we as humanity gets one last chance, one last shot at creating a little bit of beauty on this planet before it all becomes engulfed by the coming dark. There is something so beautiful about that one last ray of sunlight before the night, that one last flickering flame of joy & definance before we're all snuffed out (or before we give into our depravity & trade off the last of our creative natures or anything else that reminds us we're 'made in the image of God').

Maybe it's the above. Maybe it's like hearing there's no more chance for beauty in the world. Maybe it's like hearing that humanity has lost their potential for greatness..... maybe any of this is why that 'no' felt so much like a kick in the groin. Maybe it's just that on a day like today, I needed to hear that there was hope of something more & it's heartbreaking to think that this is all there is..... It would be excruciating to live without hope.