"If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously"
- Ian Malcolm Jurrasic Park
Before Columbus discovered America, the Spanish prided their country as being the last point of terra- firma on earth to the west. You could venture no further.
With the sun slanted to the west, Spain triumphed in claiming the ends of the earth and parting the infinite sea with the limits of man.
If Spain was the "land of the setting sun," Spain was "Ne Plus Ultra"- no more beyond.
"Ne Plus Ultra," and all the pride and glory it upheld meant Spain crowned the earth. Spain was the top, and that was on period, at least as far as Ferdinand and Isabella were concerned.
Courtesy of Reddit 😂
Of course- a little Schmuck named Christopher Columbus dared to offend Spain's vanity, and in the name of "god, gold, and glory" he sailed west.
History- would prevail.
When Columbus returned with the New World in his hands, the Spanish would concede their self righteous emblem as the gatekeepers of the earth, surrendering to a new attitude of boundless exploration.
Enthralled by the prospect of new riches, the Spanish tore the "ne" off their sanctimonious motto, changing it to “plus ultra” -- “more beyond. Spain ushered in a new persuasion: the limit does not exist.
That function, and the relentless zeal it incited, would lay the groundwork for two centuries of unbridled American ambition. "Plus ultra" would carry itself through centuries of colonization, through the subjugation of over twelve million Native Americans. It would echo through "Manifest Destiny", paving way for a trail of tears.
Two hundred years of atrocities would be written off in the name of ambition.
"Plus ultra", a pillar of the New World, and the American dream, would char everything in its path. For generations it would justify holy inquisition, invasion, and genocide. It would breed an attitude of self righteous exceptionalism and entitlement that still manifests today.
From "Columbus In America"
From "Columbus in America"
From "Columbus in America"
From "Columbus in America"
From "Columbus in America"
From "Columbus in America"
From "Columbus in America"
From "Columbus in America"
A "Plus Ultra" State of Mind
Fast forward: perhaps the shadow of Columbus is no more pronounced than in New York City a city that is undeniably pillared on the cancerous madness of "Plus Ultra".
From the 19th century to now- New York has served as a microcosm for our rapacious attitude. Everybody pushing towards the rapture of the dream of tomorrow- New York suffers mass diagnosis of chronic dissatisfaction- megalomania, onto the next best thing!
Both the tragedy and allure of New York is in that dissatisfaction! The soul of New York is a raging hunger, a burning urge, an itch never satisfied, a flywheel constantly propelling us forward. Dissatisfaction- is enshrined, beautified- in the “celluloid skyline.”
The history of New York is a narrative shaped by desire: desire for excitement, fantasy, mystery, lust-but the city is also shaped by a longer shadow- ego.
“You're The Top” said Cole Porter! But then they built up-taller, bigger.
Developers get checked by the fire code but more often then not they bite back, weasel their way out of it, and keep building. And that's the crux of unfettered desire -that it's elastic. The closer we come to reaching "the top"-"the top" rises. The very same rapacious appetite that propels us, always leaves us- starved. It’s taught us that fullness/satisfaction- what does that breed? rust and ultimately a bulldozer or wrecking ball to replace it with something shinier.
The blurry line between greed and ambition is an age- old morass that we still can't seem to grasp. And for that reason, Columbus Day is still murky territory.
This year has served to remind us that Americans lack a unified interpretation of their history. In a revisionist version of American history, Columbus is a fixture of ambition. In truth-he was a ruthless imperialist. But America cannot agree on the truth! In America the truth is both fragile and contentious.
This year, Columbus Day ironically coincides with a racial reckoning and a pandemic that is proving the United States delusional in its invincible fortitude.
The New Yorker
Our desires are insatiable, but our earth is finite, posing ego against truth, ambition and all its glaring contradictions against science.
America has wings of plastic- it's high on a drug and is destined to crash and implode if it doesn't change course. Behind America's iron curtain is a heart of glass that is shattering at the mercy of truth!
The beauty in the American dream is that it dares to break all bounds, but our earth is not boundless, and so striving must be redefined. The limit does exist, but our limit does not, and it needs to.
The New York Times: The Climate Clock in Union Square
Yesterday's heroes have flung us forward, but tomorrows heroes will keep us grounded.
Tomorrow's heroes are not voyagers or astronauts- they are teachers and scientists, the blueprint of our cities written not merely by money hungry developers but by those who dwell in it.
Tomorrow's heroes will not be driven by desire but will save us from desire, they will save us from ourselves.
“Making it big” and “having it all” will forever be pillars of American spirit but ambition no longer greets a wide-open frontier- it greets rising water and ravaging fires.
All I'm saying, is five hundred some years later, it might be time to throw the "Ne" back onto "Plus Ultra"- before it's too late.
And as for New York City- the nucleus of ambition- it might be the eye of a hurricane.
In the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald "New York [has] all the iridescence of the beginning of the world" - but if we look closely, it also broods the end of the world, it's celluloid skyline, stygian and grey, and yet, somehow- still beautiful in its suffering.
