SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
– G’day sir, how are you?
– Well, I’m very jetlagged. It’s not often I’m here grabbing a coffee while the sun sets. But I guess it’s an experience. And what a sunset this is – this beautiful orange cast all over the harbour, and it’s heading to dip right between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. What a view.
The sunset really is the most beautiful thing in the world, isn’t it? Maybe it’s an evolutionary thing. Maybe it’s because, deep down, when the first humans, or monkeys, or whatever, watched it and they thought – they really thought – shit, this might be the last time we ever see the sun. The last time we see the giver of all life, which all culture revolves around. And the world became dark, and cold, and uncertain. And scary.
So we sit there and we watch it, helpless to do anything else, and we find it beautiful, because we are trying to hold on to every last second of light, every last grain or pixel of this image, just in case all that turns out to be true. And I think that’s why, when we watch a sunset with someone, we are saying: “If the sun never comes up again, well, I’m glad I watched it go down with you.” Maybe you’ll watch this one with me?
Hey, where’d you go?