Category: Wisdom
Aurora Borealis
Besides family members, there are other Instagram accounts I follow, such as iflscience, lightsnature, lovely_earthshotz, iss (Space Station), setiinstitute, starlitlandscapes, nasa, and others. Recently, one of them posted an aurora borealis video that not only blew my mind but brought tears to my eyes. I thought, “If anyone wanted proof there’s a god…” Of course, I know the scientific explanation of how these lights are created. But, the fact that such mesmerizing beauty can result from a few cosmic particles interacting with a few other particles seemed to raise the question, “Why should it be that way?” This reminded me of the old adage about a tree falling in the forest, whether it makes a sound if there’s nobody there to hear it. Would the incredible beauty of the northern lights exist if there was nobody there to see it? If one generalizes from that question to all of the other beauty that exists in nature on our little planet, not to mention the cosmos, perhaps one would discern an answer to the age old question, “Why are we here?” Seems obvious to me at the moment.
Snow, Snow, Rain, Whatever
Since the last post, we had a couple more snows, some sleet and freezing rain, and yesterday rain with thunder ‘n’ lightning. There was actual sunshine today, but still cold and, combined with the wind, the sunshine was kind of misleading.
I remember the weather last Thursday because that’s the day I had an appointment with the retina specialist over in Kansas City. We were concerned enough about getting stuck in K.C. due to frozen roads that we took overnight bags along with us. It was just starting to turn to sleet when we left the doctor’s office around 3:00. We got back to Lawrence on merely wet roads. However, the K.C. folks who hit the roads and highways for rush hour weren’t so lucky. They went sliding into each other and off the roads right and left.
I was at the retina doc because I had this “after image” as if somebody had flashed a penlight in front of my face, except nobody had. What the doc found was a retinal hemorrhage. This was the same eye that had the torn retina three years ago. The doc did a retinal angiogram (who knew of such a thing?) to see if the hemorrhage was still hemorrhaging; it wasn’t. He said it should clear up and sent us on our way, into the weather. It still hasn’t gone away (the retinal hemorrhage – the weather went away as noted above). I understood it wouldn’t be an overnight thing. After all, it had been a couple of weeks since I first noticed it. Y’know, it occurs to me if I would’ve seen him the day I first noticed it, it might’ve still been leaking and he might’ve done something drastic like zapping it with a lazer (laser?). Hmm.
I wonder. Over the past few years it seems like there’ve been al lot of things where procrastination worked out fine. It’s like the better course of action is to do nothing and let the problem go away on its own. This seems like a risky proposition. On the other hand, there’s risk in action. I guess you just never know for sure except in hindsight.
A hindsight viewer. Whoever can invent that should get rich, I’d think. I expect some people would say life would be boring if you could always see how something is going to turn out; the thrill and excitement of making choices in the face of the unknown making life worth living. Bullshit to that, is my thought.
And on that note, I think I’ve procrastinated enough at your expense and I should turn my attention to some of the work I’ve been putting off.
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November 15, 2020
General, Life, Wisdom
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John Chappell
I’ve seen these hundreds, nay, thousands of times on websites, but only recently did the truly ominous implication strike me so bluntly. It’s like the ultimate personal surrender, the terminal consignment of self, the final relinquishment of free will. You either SUBMIT or you don’t, there are no options, there’s no in-between. There’s often small print at the bottom that says something similar to this one. As is well known, understood, and expected, nobody clicks off to some other page to read whatever it is before they SUBMIT. Maybe you should think about it. I’m going to. Even so, there’s still no guarantee that what one is about to SUBMIT to will have anything to do with one’s expectations. Just remember, once you SUBMIT, THAT’S IT. Have you ever seen an UN-SUBMIT button afterwards? I didn’t think so.