Guest Postus Toastus: The Honor Is Mine

Hey, everyone! Hear ye, Hear ye!

Today I have the honor of guestposting over at The Dayton Time. The lovely Pamela a.k.a. 'The Missus' and wife of The Mister, graciously invited me over while they celebrate the birth of their 4th child, Elliott Samuel Dayton. So please stop by there, leave some love for them. Oh, and I wrote a post, too!

Elementary Physics for the Wee Lass

I don’t know where she gets it. Okay, maybe a little because I’m a geek. Still, her recall for such things is astounding.

Wee Lass and I were on our way to day care the other morning, a very cold day in the aftermath of the 8” of snow we had received earlier in the week. The sun was out, very brisk and the breeze was plucking leaves and bending needles. She was watching the trees go by and chattering away about leaves and trees and snow and ice. Then she paused, and said:

“Daddy, what’s that two word?”
“What word?”
“That two word.”
“Two word? Two word for what?”

Wee Lass sighs. In the rearview mirror, I can see her staring at me with the same look one gives harmless but annoying idiots when they obviously have demonstrated their idiocy. She didn’t roll her eyes, but I swear I heard an exasperated sigh.

“You ‘member, the two word. For the water to ice, ice to water.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Daddy! You know, when the ice changes to the water, or the snow to the ice…”

Huh?

“…or the water to mist…”

She chattered on for about another minute until it finally dawned on me. She was trying to remember “phase change”.

Jay-zus, at a time when I am lucky to remember my own name, or how not to get lost on the way to the liquor store, er, grocery store, my daughter is calling up physics terms! What is even more astounding, I know she heard me say that phrase once when I was trying to explain ice to her. I’m a dork like that, can’t look at ice without thinking of phase changes. And I wasn’t even all that interested in physics in my younger days.

But she heard me say it once. Once. And that was probably about two weeks prior to this day.

“You mean phase change, sweet pea?”
“Yes, Daddy, phr-, phff-…phrase change!” she said with a big smile. Then she proceeded to explain to me all the things that had phase changes, which included the aforementioned ice and water and mist. Then she said:

“…birds hatching and like seeds to flowers…”

“No, dear, seeds to flowers aren’t a…” then I caught myself. Seeds to flowers? While a seed turning into a flower isn’t exactly the strict definition of a phase change (I told you I am a dork), the idea behind it is similar: something undergoes a reorganization of itself and turns into something else. Pretty powerful stuff for such a young person to recognize.

I’ll have to keep an eye on that kid, she could be trouble later…

Whiskey, Jesus and the Search for Sensible Solutions

This post is dedicated to the good soul Braja Sevaki (Lost and Found in India) and her husband Jahnudvipa and the driver that was taking them to the airport. In case you had not heard, they were in a terrible car accident (see HERE). Please let us all continue to pray for their speedy recovery.

Persuaded, paraded, inebriated, and down
Still aware of everything life carries on without
'Cause there's one too many faces with dollar sign smiles
Got to find the shortest path to the bar for a while

The Universe is not a place conducive to life making sense, except in some limited ways related to basic physics and chemistry and other narrowed fields of study. A thrown rock will hit something, and something may be damaged. Fire will burn a lot of which it touches. Slamming the door on a hand will hurt. These are things that are known. But we understand physics and chemistry and most other things only because we limit the field of study, to make it easier to parse the information. Inevitably, the chosen set of information will be incomplete because it does not, and cannot, include every possibility.

This would seem to go a long way towards explaining why the agglomeration of events that we call life very often doesn’t make sense, no matter how hard we try to explain it.

There's a trouble around, it's never far away
The same trouble's been around for a life and a day
I can't forget the sound, 'cause it's here to stay
The sound of people chasing money and money getting away

The current Global Financial Economic Crisis serves as a good example. It strains credulity to believe that anyone, even alleged financial experts, truly understands what is going on. Things are so complicated, interrelated and intertwined. It is impossible to know with certainty the effects on the system arising from disturbances within the individual parts. Broad guesses can be made, but fine-grain detail is a whole other matter, and there are the effects of synergy to consider.

It is this far-reaching uncertainty, this inability to completely make known the unknown, and having to act without knowing that drives people into the arms of anxiety. Or even mad in some cases. Understandable, really. Humans like problems to have tidy solutions. They like information in neat, discrete packets that are easy to understand and digest. Pity, really.

Life just isn’t like that. The significant events that shape us, good and bad, often leave us wondering just what the hell happened. Or more importantly, they leave us wondering WHY the hell did things happen. The death of a loved one. A broken marriage. A horrible car crash: these are the things that wound us, take our breath away and leave us in a heap trying to make sense of the nonsensical. This is where we get desperate for solutions.

In between the dirt and disgust there must be
Some air to breathe and something to believe
Liquor and guns the sign says quite plain
Somehow life goes on in a place so insane

Solutions. Desperate people will grasp at anything that seems to offer a solution to the problem of their pain. Since their respective inventions, alcohol and religion have been hugely popular among humans in general, as potential solutions to their problems. It is not difficult, at least in the United States, to get access to both. It also isn’t hard to see their appeal. Both offer at least the appearance of a solution to one’s problems. On a temporary basis, this is true. Indulgence in one or both can temporarily numb a person to past awfulness or impending doom.

There is always a morning after, when the head is pounding, the mouth full of cotton and the body shaking from whatever substance had been swallowed the night before. And then the remorse sets in, and the awful knowledge that the source of your pain, the problem, the thing that didn’t make sense before is still there. Sitting on you. Not making sense.

This is not an endorsement or a condemnation of any set of solutions. Whiskey is arguably more fun than Jesus; on the other hand, it might be said that Jesus has more salubrious effects on ones’ health. In the end, too much of either doesn’t make sense, just like the Universe.

Jack Daniels and Jesus Christ: odd bedfellows it seems. As a permanent solution, each path seems just as nonsensical as the universal problems they purport to solve. They can only offer temporary solutions to permanent problems. That’s okay, too, they don’t have to work forever.

They just have to work for Now.

A long way from happiness
In a three-hour-away town
Whiskey bottle over Jesus
Not forever, just for now
Not forever, just for now

(Italicized lyrics from “Whiskey Bottle” by Uncle Tupelo, from the album No Depression)

Believe It