By Eric Le Roy
Here in Varna, Bulgaria, the city planners seem to have lost their minds…unless they have something up their sleeves that I don’t know about. Very possible, that. Fun fact: Bulgaria is losing population faster than any other country in Europe, and a 23% drop in population is predicted by 2050.
It’s for the usual reasons: declining birth rates that cannot keep up with … Read the rest
By Eric Le Roy
I have seen my life move like an arrow from one point to the next, its tail feathers fluttering like lost breath, a jet stream of spit. It’s hard to believe I was once a baby. Harder still to comprehend this mysterious, though inevitable, failure of the physical instruments of life that have propelled me this far. I rose, I arched, I flattened, I … Read the rest
Content 18+ Let us begin with a paradox. You, dear reader, are more likely to meet your end slipping in the shower or choking on a sausage than while soaring through the skies in a steel-winged marvel piloted by professionals. And yet, faced with a boarding gate at Budapest Airport, palms sweat and hearts flutter. Why?
Fear. That ancient sentinel that once helped our ancestors survive saber-toothed tigers and venomous … Read the rest
By Eric Le Roy
Content 18+ In response to Artem’s essay called “Death by Banana Peel”, I decided – as is my custom – to hunt for a good quote to more or less sum up my own position. So I looked up “Famous quotes about Fear”. Surely, given that fear is an emotion universally felt and dealt with in countless ways, there would be a lot … Read the rest
Content 18+ Human beings have always harbored a profound affection for nostalgia. We carefully cherish relics, meticulously preserve artifacts, and laboriously attempt to recreate the past, investing it with an almost spiritual passion—typically reserved for matters of immense importance or significant unease. Today, the phrase “traditional values” has emerged prominently as the soothing balm generously applied to society’s wounds, anxieties born from rapid technological, cultural, and social transformations. Beneath its … Read the rest
