A monad = Luke Skywalker's helmet


This morning, while passing through the Hietalahti graveyard with its monumental tombstones I had the strangest realization. You know how in the back of your mind, there are pictures representing abstract things that you take for granted but never really realize that you have? In my case, last week a colleague Aki-Mauri Huhtinen used the word "monad" to characterize an issue. I hadn't heard the word in a long time. The strongest recollection of monads was from the time I was nineteen, just getting into philosophy by reading Esa Saarinen's book on the history of philosophy.


Today, 13 years later, I realized that in making sense of the difficult concept, I had associated with the conceo the image of the closed helmet Luke Skywalker wears in Star Wars while practicing his lightsaber moves. This was probably because of the notion that "monads are windowless". It is funny how the consciousness is layered. You are aware of an association on one level, yet it may never really surface.

I am reading another Neil Peart road novel, Landscape with Drums, where he accounts for life on the road on Rush's 30th anniversary tour. Strange how somebody else's mundane experiences can transport you into another place. I guess we all long to be somebody else. Maybe that's why people watch Big Brother, too.

The Hietaniemi graveyard is another pleasant recent find. The
monuments that people have built for themselves are astounding, at least in our subdued, protestant culture. One family actually has a tomb carved into a hillside with a granite
archway and an imposing padlock.

Passing through the cemetary each morning on my way to work, I cannot help but wonder the Freudian nature of it all: in the cramped space, the monuments compete like skycrapers for attention in a metropolis. In the end, the largest one is the winner.