As you may know, last night was Oscar night in Hollywood.  For those who follow the Oscars, it was of course a visual feast:  the the parade of "celebrities" on the red carpet adorning the entrance to the auditorium prior to the ceremony; the interviews with numerous movie stars; the vignettes splashed on the auditorium screen, and more.  Magazines that cover "celebrities" found much fodder for their next issue.

    For the rest of us, however, the Oscars come and go as if nothing has happened.  By next year, the movies and stars which excelled this year will be forgotten, and the new winners will be forgotten promptly in the following year as well.  We wonder:  what is the point?  The movies made money, the stars made money, people were entertained, the culture grew some more furrows, and then we move on to the next thing.  It's gone as quickly as it has come.
     

    So goes much of Western culture.  It passes over and through us almost seamlessly, as if it had never happened, as if we had never experienced it at all.  Thanks to the magic of soundbites, Andy Warhol's famous fifteen minutes of fame have shrunk to less than a minute, as evanescent as they can possibly be.  We barely know they were here.

    Yet we keep moving on, keep pursuing our life dreams, perhaps thinking about one of the leading characters in the novel Perks of Being a Wallflower's wish that he not lapse into "oblivion."  We strive for presence, for presence is all, in an epistemologically empty cosmos, we have.  It's almost enough to make one wish for a God, for then, and only then, will any of the Oscars ever have any lasting point.
    

    Indeed, for then, and only then, even after every movie has run, every star has passed on, and all has turned to dust, this presence, more powerful and intense than we can presently imagine, will continue still.