Eyjafjallajökul erupting ©2010 Marco Fulle

It occurs to me that the recent eruption of (the delightfully difficult to pronounce) Eyjafjallajökul volcano was one of those rare events where the virtual reality that is human culture – and in which most of us live almost all of the time – was punctured. For a moment we broke the surface of virtuality and, coming up into ‘reality’, we all looked at each other puzzled, and confused – not really believing that this far away – almost mythical – event, could possibly be causing ‘real’ effects on our lives… Of course, almost immediately we sank back under, the surface closing over our heads, as we focused on close ups of people stranded, queueing, being cheated by hotels, turning ‘disaster’ into triumph by suddenly finding we could get joy out of helping each other out – or in taking the opportunity of unexpectedly extending our holidays… You’ve got to love us, human beings – at least, we can love ourselves – I’m not sure that the other inhabitants of this planet are likely to love us much…

Everything is back to business as usual. No lessons learned. Let’s hope that the next time our virtuality is punctured, it’s by something that we can as easily forget…