It seems that, against the age-old controversies between specialists, it stems from the source of the river Breg, but the water that irrigates the meadow from which the Breg rises comes from a pipe, planted straight into the ground.
An old woman who lives in a house on top of the meadow has attached a hollow trunk to the pipe, which forms a kind of gutter. Is it therefore necessary to conclude that the Danube originates from a gutter? In this matter the first foundation is missing, the base that holds everything together; even the gutter that feeds the spring is fed by the spring]
Anonymous
The Danube that both is and is not, that is born in several places of several parents, reminds us that, thanks to the complex, hidden fabric to which we owe our existence, each of us is a Noteentiendo [a form of not understanding you], as are the people from Prague with German names or the Viennese with Czech ones. But on this evening, along the river which they tell us sometimes disappears in summer, the step which treads with mine is as unmistakable as that watercourse, and in the flow of it, as I follow the curve of the banks, perhaps I know who I am.
Claudio Magris, Danube, 1986
What if we are looking for the source of a river and we find out that it is a gutter, collecting rainwater?
Invitations to contemplate these words and play with your thoughts
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What if “Nature” does not exist
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Cross Idea
When governments pursue growth as a goal in itself, they undertake desperate and damaging measures to make it happen. They chase cheap energy and keep issuing licences for fossil fuels and opening coal mines. They say they're cutting red tape in the name of business innovation, but they end up unde …
Cross Idea
The source of a river and the fear of the forest, what do they have in common? At first glance, both the river and the forest appear as quintessential elements of nature. However, these texts reveal that neither is as purely natural as they seem.
The river, instead of emerging from a pristine spring, begins in a drainage channel. The forest, feared due to historical conflicts between Romans and so-called barbarians, represents the clash of different cultures. In both cases the boundary between nature and culture becomes blurred, transcending the nature and culture divive.
As such, the river’s origin cannot be confined within the borders of a single state; it transcends national boundaries, its source eluding precise location as it flows from country to country. Similarly, the forest—dreaded as the realm beyond civilization—paradoxically becomes the place where civilization itself is born.
