Conversation that falls chronologically at the end of the story

“You and I are a little like alchemists are we not, Christian, pouring a little of ourselves into one another, to see what distills out, to see what’s left, ultimately friend or foe in crystalline form. “

{the scenes with Dhyey and Christian talking in Dhyey’s office are spread out in the narrative but actually fall together as one conversation  chronologically at the end of the story, where Napoleon, other detectives and officers come to arrest Dhyey. 

Quora response to questions re Americans, "roots" and authenticity

It occurs to me most Americans are doubly detached from a time worn and established culture. (Life in the vacuum of manifest destiny became the reverse, a compression of looking for internal frontiers of meaning.) That is to say it was an easy way out of the anxiety of alienation to pine for ancestry but worse it further detached one from rural life—the earth itself—to sentimentalize it such that few Americans could actually survive if they had to grow their own food. There are movements these days though to regain that connection, to establish an agrarian lifestyle through intermittent farmers’ markets, permanent community gardens and such. The problem now partially is the resistance of civil offices and the food industry against residents storing rain water or husbanding in urban areas. Anyway, it could be said that the expression of having blood ethnic roots is greatly emphasized when there is want for visible roots, a many centuries old history embodied in architecture for example—the proofs that ancestors were here can best be had when life remains in one place or is easily found by a short railway trip. Just some thoughts on that, sorry… but, yes, many Americans do seem at a loss for a heritage amongst the hordes of strangers; thus the recent advertisements of DNA tests to find one’s continental and ethnic origins.


Authenticity.  My only thought here is that considering the complicated history of shifting territorial borders of central and eastern Europe outsiders might assume one had to hold faster, so to speak, to ethnic or cultural norms. Regardless, how could an outsider know what is intrinsically Romanian or what have you? It might be said that a non-Romanian etc may merely recognize some unfamiliar attributes, or rather the person in question brings to mind stereotyped images. So, perhaps the obsession, or rather the insecurity of the claim reveals the reverse of the question, a lack of self-assuredness. Why do we compare our centeredness. Should it even matter? Authenticity could even be evidence of a deliberate individuality as opposed to a specific cultural homogeneity.

Dhyey's obsession w all things glass

It is significant and an irony that the good doctor Dhyey of Neuroboros becomes blind overtime because of his obsession with the history of glass, mirrors, lenses, microscopes and hourglasses.

Ukraine

Looking at a topographical map of Ukraine I can't help but notice it appeared to me a wounded creature attempting to crawl from the steppes in the east up through forests to the Carpathians in the west.

Planned score for Neuroboros includes a piece based on a book about Pan

I’ve been planning to write a kind of ode to Pan, which would be a continuation of a consciousness theme started in We Can Do Better, and yet ultimately one of the Neuroboros soundtrack pieces. Just not there yet with the lyrics. It’ll be based on the book, The Cult of Pan In Ancient Greece ( by Philippe Borgeaud ), which I’ve studied  thoroughly and will be reading it again to refresh my memory of important passages. 

[... I’m basically portraying Pan as Borgeaud’s archetypal liminal figure. Pan, caught, physically speaking, between animal and human as a terrestrial being and torn from deity, is somewhat like Christ caught between subterranean or chthonic death as a human and eternity in a Godly infinite void.  Pan and Christ though overlap—or are circumvented by Lucifer, (light), and Satan (fire) along with God’s heavenly blinding light which Dante describes so beautifully in his Paradiso.  And thus the two figures represent two facets of the origins of consciousness, looking out with a numinous gaze, then as inward with self empowered awareness.]