believe it or not, the only place i ever use a computer is in my office. other than my brand new shiny mac desktop, i am technologically and media-logically impoverished. i don’t have a computer or even basic cable in my apartment. so these days, i come by information only from being told by others. and it’s usually such old news that i’m amused by their surprise when i express ignorance.
i certainly didn’t know about any proton collider until last night. i didn’t even know about hurricane ike until a day and a half ago, which is extra pitiful because i live in austin. and this morning i shunned work to do some reading. my eyes bulge at everything i read.
smashing together protons and such?! to try and recreate post big bang conditions for the purpose of understanding how the universe was created?! do we really need to know? trying to recreate particle events within the confines of our tiny, already-melting snowglobe doesn’t strike a harmonious chord in my gut. it makes me eyes want to well up and i can’t explain why. i’m not scared of magnitude. i’m not afraid of progress. but i don’t have to be a savant to know that seven trillion electron volts is one volt too many if those scientists lose even an ounce of control. their excitement and self-satisfaction are alarming. bunch of reckless dorks. slow, methodical, well-researched, brilliantly dorky recklessness. this is my favorite quote from the new york times article posted on the 10th: “The only thing physicists agree on is that they do not know what will happen — what laws and particles will prevail — when the collisions reach the energies just after the Big Bang.” um…pretty blatant admission of unwitting genius.
and this hurricane business is the immediate concern. people are travelling into town from the coast and the doomsday headlines have everyone on high alert. it’s pretty consistent that hurricane season tends to cast a shadow on 9/11.
i went outside a little earlier and the sky was blue, the air was still, and it was HOT. now, the clouds are getting dense, the humidity is thicker, and the wind is picking up. it’s like preparing to enter the first circle of hell, only it’s the outer rainbands of a seastorm the size of the state its about to hit.
i don’t know what to think. i just hope come monday, my birthday, that all is well. it feels ominous to even say…
True, I talk of dreams
Which are the children of an idle brain
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy
Which is as thin of substance as the air
This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.
… ah me. everything is everything, folks.
