Walking past the television to get a banana, I hear an expert say, “The worst is yet to come.” So many years of institutional rot are catching up to us. People make comparisons to Rome.

I remember gazing up at the oculus while families and lovers whipped me around as they snapped self-portraits. Soon I was dizzy and stupid because I could not comprehend how such a thing was constructed two thousand years ago. Such a place might never be created again. We no longer build to humble our pride.