We are here

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8zrlOGKI2E

...and we worry about what clothes to wear today.

Seriously, think about what those links show you. Turn off your TV and stereo, take a little while away from distraction, and consider it. All this grandeur, absolutely extravagant in it's fine detail. Think of it, whole galaxy clusters made of mere atoms! Clouds of stars containing in their invisible reaches of space trees and bacteria, you and me! To have created a single atom would have been enough. Where before there was nothing, now, a holy something. That alone could have astonished God so much as to find his creation complete. But instead, we have galaxies and solar systems spinning in infinity, millions of species evolved from a single prehistoric cell that once blindly groped its way through an empty sea.

The telescope and the microscope are gifts to humanity, and we should take a moment to thank their long dead inventors. On the one hand, we got a major demotion, no longer the center of it all, not even of our own solar system. The cosmos expanded beyond any glimmer of understanding. Then the bottom fell out, as microscopic worlds of paramecia, bacteria, and later atoms and quarks became apparent. Who are we amid all this?

I'll tell you what. We are everything. We and everything around us is made of stardust, the ashes of a dead star. We are made up of those atoms, we are a civilization of cells, all grown from a single one in the womb, and earlier, in the sea. We grow ourselves, it's our finest work. All the matter that we see and that we are is pure energy condensed into particles, energy vibrating slow and stable. We look up at the stars, and if we feel small, we can still feel a part of it, for we are. We all came from the same place, are made of the same stuff. We're entitled to see it, feel wonder at it; we're lucky.

Now we know how small we are. But we also know that we are a very finely crafted detail amid a great vastness. From a galaxy's perspective, a cell, a human, is an impossibility, an absurdity. We're invisible to it. We don't matter in the slightest. But we're here, and in an incredibly intricate way. The only thing that should shrink to insignificance is our problems and fears. Created out of nothing, evolved through timescales out of understanding, detailed down to the smallest levels, we are here.

Winter Observations

A few winter observations:

Here in southeast Michigan we got hit with an ice storm a few days ago, like much of the rest of the country. Once again, I find myself enjoying what other people find irritating. I just can't ignore the sense of beauty an ice-covered world bestows, even if I have to scrape my windshield, slip on ice, and freeze my ass off. I like how trees covered with ice, so weighted down that some of them fall over, when flooded with sunlight almost seem to be floating. I like how at sunset it's like autumn all over again, with orange light for leaves in the ice-sheathed branches. I like the crackling sound in the air when those branches are hit by the wind. I like watching squirrels slide off the roof.

Speaking of animals and such, you don't see a lot of crows anymore. Not around here anyways, thanks to West Nile Virus. I remember one autumn watching for several minutes as a giant flock passed overhead. Must have been two or three hundred of them, just a continual stream of crows stretching across the sky. Now it's rare to see even a couple. It's a shame, I always liked 'em. Huge, noisy, cocky black birds-- what's not to like? The last few days I've finally been seeing some, a flock of maybe 20-30 of them. It's good to see they're bouncing back, or at least I hope they are.

The box of hot cocoa I bought expounds on the healthy anti-oxidants present in cocoa, going on to say it's part of a healthy lifestyle to drink their product. Meanwhile, it's full of corn syrup solids, artificial flavorings, and hydrogenated oils. It's ok, I know this and choose to drink it anyways. But be up front about it, Nestle. Hot chocolate made with that stuff is not good for you, and it's alright to admit that. People will still drink hot chocolate.

On a completely unrelated note, remember the tale about the tortise and the hare? Can someone please explain to me why is that used as an admonition not to race ahead in things? First of all, it's a race, you're supposed to run. But more importantly, the only thing it teaches is not to take a nap until after you win the race. The hare had the tortise beaten from the word go, if only he weren't so lazy. This fable should not be used to teach "life is a marathon, not a sprint", it should be used to say "hurry up and get back to work, sleep profits nothing and you'll have plenty of time for it when your dead".

On second thought, maybe it's a good thing people misunderstand this...

Time wasted

Last night I was thinking about how busy my life has become. Working two jobs at about 50-55 hours a week, plus 3 classes. I don't completely mind it, though it means I have little time to do the things I want to do. Amazingly, work and school are not high on my list of "fun things to do with your life". Yet as it is, I figure roughly at least 75% of my time is dedicated to those two things (not counting sleep). Not in a technical sense, but including time getting ready for school or work, commuting to and from class, etc, I have very little time for my own interests. It's sad really, to sell your life out from underneath oneself. What a waste, right?

Anyways, I was thinking about how busy our lives are. And so full of distractions. Even when I do have time, it's so easily pissed away. Maybe I get online to check my email and see a news story that captures my interest. I go to Wikipdeia to look into some detail, and get lost on that site for an hour or two following links. TV is also great distraction and waste of time. Imagine what it would be like if we didn't have all this bullshit diverting our attention? Imagine what kind of creations we could be making. Think of the poetry or stories not written, the paintings not painted, the carvings not carved; think of the creative minds everywhere going to waste thanks to the passivity of "entertainment." There's a quote I heard once that went something like "it is through creation, not possession, that life is revealed."

I mentioned a few entries back about writing a book. Well, I finally got started, maybe 40 pages in, but damn it's hard to really get anything written sometimes. Not only is most of my time already booked solid, but the time I do have I want to divide among so many different things. It angers me not to be able to do any of them to my satisfaction. There's several books I want to read, a woodcarving I'm trying to finish, the afore-mentioned book... I haven't ridden my bike in weeks, and I rarely even go out anymore. I fear I'm going to get burned out and start making rash decisions.

I think I secretly hope I will.

Higher Education?

I think college has absolutely nothing to do with education, except in fields like medicine and law, which have always been very knowledge-intensive. Ok, I'll allow that you learn some useful things in college, and certainly a lot of interesting things. But really I think most of higher education is pointless.

For most people, college ends up being about two things: social networking and a document saying you went. I believe those two things are the underlying reasons universities even exist. The latter is obvious, you need the diploma saying you went. It's a stated goal and well understood. But the fact that the knowledge behind that piece of paper is irrelevant isn't quite as orthodox. Even with sayings like "C's get degrees" people still seem to think they're learning necessary information. You aren't. Almost no employer looks at your grades, to see how well you did in school. Why? Because they generally know it's irrelevant, book knowledge doesn't translate to the working world for the most part. You learn what you need to know by doing it, not by reading about it.

The social networking part is less overtly stated, though I bet most people intuitively understand it. It's certainly clear in the business degrees, but I bet it's true of most disciplines. In the world, it's always about who you know, not what you know. They say you'll probably meet your future spouse in college, a lot of your lifelong friends, and obviously you'll get job offers there, at least you'll get your start that way. But as a place of actual learning, college isn't important. I learn far more on my own than I ever do in college, and about things I actually care about. Maybe most people don't read as much as I do, but they can if they want to. No one is held back from exploring their interests, for free, on the internet or at the library. You don't have to pay incredible amounts of money to learn, and you don't have to waste time, money, and stress struggling to pass classes in subjects you don't care about but which the university gods have decreed are requirements for graduation.

This is why I think we need to go back to a sort of apprenticeship method of education. Fuck the book learning, or at least make it take a backseat to hands-on learning. It should start right out of elementary school, when students would normally go to high school. Why wait until people are already adults to start training them for their life? This way, you could study what you are interested in and enjoy, and devote yourself to it, rather than waste 4 years in high school just to qualify for wasting 4-6 years in college, just so you can start working in your mid-twenties and finally learn how to do what you want to do.

Save the universities for doctors, lawyers, and such, like it was a century or two ago. Free up our intellectual energies from the pointless requirements. Why should an engineering student have to take a phys-ed class in college? Why should someone who wants to study business have to take biology? What in the world is an english major doing taking calculus? There's the argument that these classes "round out an education" but I think that's bullshit. It's a waste of time and money for the student who just wants to be able to work at their chosen interest. I think the whole thing is a racket. Tuitions are sky high, required books cost hundreds of dollars, and the requirements just keep getting more ridiculous, forcing more pointless information into the heads of students, only to be forgotten after the next test.

I don't even know why the hell I went back. I have a feeling it was more for everyone else than for myself.