The World Makes Sense

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Time

There’s something pretty interesting about time. It’s a concept, law, enemy, friend, goliath and midget. It exists, but not physically. It can be altered by our perceptible reality, and by many accounts is our perceptible reality. Things happen inside of time. But things can happen at different times inside of time? The logic of it is monstrous. Think of a black hole. Or, don’t do that if you’re scared of the reality of our little spot in space. They’re spooky things. Anyways, think of a black hole if you’re comfortable with the implications they have on our reality. Then think about one of those implications. Time is a victim of black holes. Their gravity is so strong, they literally suck in time. If you get stuck in a black hole, time will lose meaning. The closer you get, the slower you go, and it is a hell of a trip, apparently.

But hey, that’s far up and away in space. Something we ~~definetely~~ don’t need to worry about. Ok, sure. But hey, how about this. Look at time from a closer perspective. Say… Earth’s orbit? Look at Scott Kelley. Spent a whole year in space. And thanks to the weirdly wobbily timey wimey nonsense of relativity, he aged 5 miliseconds slower than us earthly anchored fools. That’s right girlfriends, look a whole 5 miliseconds younger with this simple trick. His older brother Mark used to be 6 minutes older than him, but then the ol’ Scottster pulled off a truly stellar manouver and aged at a slower rate due to time dilation science stuff.

Bottle that and sell it I tell you.

But, if you remain a skeptic at the absurdity of time, try our own Earth. Here, luckily for those of us who don’t know Einstein’s middle name (psyche, he didn’t have one), we’re only going to be addressing what we ourselves as humans have done with time. For example, the Gregorian Calendar. It’s a pretty neat thing, runs the whole world. And that’s the weirdness of it. Time is so decisively important and bizzare, somehow we’ve all agreed that good ol’ Gregory XIII (who’s pre-Pope name was Ugo, but that looked bad on the tin) happened to nail it with his commissioned design, and everyone else in the world has since adopted it. Aside from the fact that it’s pretty cool that the context of the times means that a Pope gave us an extra day commonly associated with frogs every four years, that means that somehow humanity figured out a common system for something that’s been universally adopted. Universally! Sure, the Chinese Lunar Calendar holds a symbolic prescense and North Korea gets away with saying it’s the year 109 (because of course they do), but everyone has agreed that time is good this way.

And it’s not just calendars either! Seconds are universal! So are hours! Days! Weeks! Even the concept of a year is universal! The way humanity has evolved culturally and politically means that we’ve found a system of measurement we can agree on. And it’s for something mostly intangible and incredibly inane but also so big, universal and measurable.

But the US still thinks using someone’s foot is a good system of measurement. Whaddaya know?

The World Makes Sense

Context

What a fun word that one is eh? Context. Sounds like a corporation. Or a laxative. Or maybe even someone somehow misspelling content. Don’t worry, you’ll never see that sort of mistake in my blug.

But, as funny and linguistically odd it is (I mean, is it a text trying to con me? Wait, is that how they sneak in the laxatives?), context matters. Which isn’t exactly a resounding and earth shattering conclusion to draw, but it’s a vital little lesson to learn. It plays into the greater reasoning behind information as a whole.

Take for example what could be described as the most notable moral dilemna ever, not because it’s a particularly difficult dilemna (it doesn’t make you think, most people know the answer as soon as they hear it) but because it has such versatility to it:

What do you do if you catch someone stealing to help their family?

On paper, you either pardon them because you think they have good justification for it, or you punish them because you believe… well, that side of the argument has a lot more variety (crime merits punishment, alternative means, yadda yadda yadda). Both can be argued for, but the gut instinct of a reader is usually the answer they will go with. That gut instinct is going to roll us back around to context and why the dilemna is used often.

What if the thief was a convicted criminal beforehand? What if the person they stole the food from was also poor? What if there was no alternative for the thief that didn’t involve an unnaceptable outcome? What if the thief used physical violence to commit the crime?

The wonderful thing about these is that they can be layered on top of each other. Stacked and stacked until you stop having an easy decision and start having a dilemma worthy of a 7th grade debate class.

That my friends, is life. That, is context. Any number of factors can be at play. And often we make decisions without context, simply because we don’t know it exists, or don’t think it matters. Here’s the thing though!

That’s okay!

We’re only human, and the truth is we aren’t always ideal. This doesn‘t entitle you to ignoring context and justifying rash decisions or actions by claiming you didn’t know the whole story.

What it does entitle you to is the knowledge that there is a full story and you need to try your best to find it. Learn from mistakes and all that. Because context does matter in the end.

Humans are allowed to make mistakes. Except the one where we don’t learn from them.

The World Makes Sense.

Ideas (The Bio Post)

Have you ever had an idea? I mean, to be fair, it’s kind of a stupid question. Very needless. Rhetorical, but not in the fun way. Of course you’ve had an idea. You had the mindbogglingly bad idea of clicking the link to the blog for starters. It counts. An idea is more than a thought, it’s the backing behind one. Every time you think to yourself:

“Wow, I could really go for a grilled cheese”

You’re producing an idea. That idea is to eat a grilled cheese. Mhhh, look at that. Bread perfectly grilled, cheese oozing in a way that provides a fantastic little texture to the bread. No herring anywhere nearby. That’s a good sandwhich. And as you think about it, you get a nagging to do it. To make yourself a grilled delight. So, if I’ve tingled your tastebuds in an inspiring way, go do that. Food for thought.

So, that thought you had, developed into an idea you had which then became an action. And then, the cycle repeats. So, your action of clicking the blog led you to the thought of “I wonder who the author is?”. That produced the idea that you should check this post. Which you then put into action by reading this post.

And that’s what this blog is. A chain of thoughts and ideas that I put into action here. Themes? None of that. Sanity? On occasion. This my friends, is a pure unadalterated look into my brain(with the considerable exception of personal details).

So, here’s my forgone conclusion.

The World Makes Sense