One of the things I have been reading a fair bit about lately is the supposition that we are all, in varying degrees hard wired with a 'god-chip', that there is a part of our evolutionary adaption that enables us to create a belief system regardless of circumstance. So, theoretically even a child reared in a bubble with no contact at all with the outside world would conjure up a deity of some form or another.

This is all fairly well-trodden ground. However it did get me thinking on the near parrallel possibility of an 'eden-chip', that along with our desire to believe in some form of order or machination to the universal unfolding, we seem to also have an ingrained nostalgia or longing for an imaginary idyll. This eden can be an abstract place, like Eden itself, or one's childhood, or an idea that nature was wilder and more beautiful than now; or it could be something even less tangible, such as Wabi Sabi, as mentioned by Brit.

It seems that we need some Eden to keep us going, to get us out of bed in the morning. And we grab little handfuls of it where we can - looking at the sunset, stroking a loving pet, leafing through old photographs. In fact, it is this eden that prisoners or soldiers must conjour up far more readily than a remote and seemingly uncaring god. Or is eden God?

And what eden would belong to a boy in a bubble?