This snapshot was taken last night at the dining table shortly before going to bed. It captures a transient moment in time which will not happen again. It was then and gone forever in the boundless vastness of time. The shot was taken in Panama City, Panama on a Thursday evening, November 14, 2013 at 08:12:14 p.m. (-5 GMT). Temperature was 77 degrees Fahrenheit. In the background—like a ghost—you can see me reflected on the screen of an Apple iPad.
The small prayer in the caption of the picture, is known as the Breton Fisherman’s Prayer, who are fishermen from Brittany, an administrative region in western France.
The Breton Fisherman’s Prayer was engraved on a brass plaque and presented to President John F. Kennedy by U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover. The admiral would subsequently presented the same type of plaque to all new commanders of Polaris submarines.
President Kennedy favored this quote and used it in his remarks at the dedication of the East Coast Memorial to the Missing at Sea, May 23, 1963. He kept the plaque on his desk in the Oval Office.
The snapshot symbolizes how small we are in the infinite vastness of time and space. Our life here is but a dot in the ocean of nothingness. Yet, how arrogant we sometimes are. Good Day.
Lingua Franca 