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Messy Metaphors: From Space, Before Time, Epic Battles, The End
Posted by Lizzie
on
Friday, August 21, 2009
First in our series of summer related blogs from other people (because summer is nearly almost over and that's awful) is this contribution from Desiree! And it's WONDERFUL!
I watched The Universe on the History Channel (to referred to as H.C.) the other night. It was an episode concentrating first on time travel, and then redirecting the subject to anti-matter. I can't describe how it got from A to E, or the connection between the two made in the episode; i zoned out somewhere between B and D, thinking about how paradoxical time travel really is.
That, however, is not the point of this blog, the in-between. The subject I'm concerned with is anti-matter and its destructive relationship with its counterpart, matter.
Scientists, historians, pretentious genius' were called upon by the H.C. to explain this literally explosive, obliterating reaction. They postulate that, before Time began, before the Big Bang, anti-matter and particles of matter were all that made the universe. They were almost equal in proportion. Like an epic battle of yore (let's say, the Battle of 1066 when William the Conquerer defeated the saxons of england on Senlac Hill, six miles from Hastings. It was the definitive battle for the Norman's; it's also my favorite!), they met and, being complete opposites, negated each other. Matter won by a lone proton/electron/whatever (i'm no science major) and the stars (and later, we humans) were born! Huzzah!
SO: When anti-matter and matter come in contact with each other, they both are wiped from existence. Not even microscopic dust is left behind.
After exhaustively explaining the analogy/metaphor I am about to make, here it is:
This summer has been, to use a MUCH over-used phrase, a "rollercoaster." So much good and so much bad, all colliding inside of me. Like anti-matter and matter (remember, kids?), the awful, wrenching, heart-breaking feelings collided, explosively, with the wonderful, crazy, happiness of the last few months and left nothing behind. (I could also make a connection to The Neverending Story II, in which The Emptiness takes over Fantasia and makes things hollow, even stupid Bastien, but it wouldn't make as much sense). And that nothing, that apathy, was like self-actualization. I've reached self-actualization through an explosive collision of every emotion i can possibly, humanly expect to feel. And The Living Is Easy. Or as easy as one can expect for a sentient being....
Apathy is looked down upon as a vile thing one doesn't ever want to achieve on a regular basis. I remember, a long time ago, Liz and I longed to be rid of our apathy and feel like other people felt. We made a pact, a countdown, to Valentine's Day, on which we would destroy, totally, our apathetic ways and become fully realized human beings. And then I became twenty years old and craved and cried and begged for apathy to come back to me. I would have bought it gifts! Gave money! Done anything to feel (or NOT feel) its cold, empty embrace. And when it finally skulked back to me at 5am one July morning while i was sitting on the stoop, dragging at a cigarette, staring at the lightening sky, I realized Myself.
I stood apart from myself and looked at everything i've done, and planned to do, and wished for, and loved....and found something that I still can't figure out... A weird new sense of self; a sense that where i go, and what i say, and what i do, is meant and I'm going the right way. Sort of. There is always a detour or two. And bad traffic. And messy metaphors to explain things i could never normally explain.
Maslow defined self-actualization, basically, as the realization of one's full potential. I've realized. And with realization comes a responsibility to get what i want.
World, watch out.... I am going to walk all over you.
(ps. self-actualization is exhausting)
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I watched The Universe on the History Channel (to referred to as H.C.) the other night. It was an episode concentrating first on time travel, and then redirecting the subject to anti-matter. I can't describe how it got from A to E, or the connection between the two made in the episode; i zoned out somewhere between B and D, thinking about how paradoxical time travel really is.
That, however, is not the point of this blog, the in-between. The subject I'm concerned with is anti-matter and its destructive relationship with its counterpart, matter.
Scientists, historians, pretentious genius' were called upon by the H.C. to explain this literally explosive, obliterating reaction. They postulate that, before Time began, before the Big Bang, anti-matter and particles of matter were all that made the universe. They were almost equal in proportion. Like an epic battle of yore (let's say, the Battle of 1066 when William the Conquerer defeated the saxons of england on Senlac Hill, six miles from Hastings. It was the definitive battle for the Norman's; it's also my favorite!), they met and, being complete opposites, negated each other. Matter won by a lone proton/electron/whatever (i'm no science major) and the stars (and later, we humans) were born! Huzzah!
SO: When anti-matter and matter come in contact with each other, they both are wiped from existence. Not even microscopic dust is left behind.
After exhaustively explaining the analogy/metaphor I am about to make, here it is:
This summer has been, to use a MUCH over-used phrase, a "rollercoaster." So much good and so much bad, all colliding inside of me. Like anti-matter and matter (remember, kids?), the awful, wrenching, heart-breaking feelings collided, explosively, with the wonderful, crazy, happiness of the last few months and left nothing behind. (I could also make a connection to The Neverending Story II, in which The Emptiness takes over Fantasia and makes things hollow, even stupid Bastien, but it wouldn't make as much sense). And that nothing, that apathy, was like self-actualization. I've reached self-actualization through an explosive collision of every emotion i can possibly, humanly expect to feel. And The Living Is Easy. Or as easy as one can expect for a sentient being....
Apathy is looked down upon as a vile thing one doesn't ever want to achieve on a regular basis. I remember, a long time ago, Liz and I longed to be rid of our apathy and feel like other people felt. We made a pact, a countdown, to Valentine's Day, on which we would destroy, totally, our apathetic ways and become fully realized human beings. And then I became twenty years old and craved and cried and begged for apathy to come back to me. I would have bought it gifts! Gave money! Done anything to feel (or NOT feel) its cold, empty embrace. And when it finally skulked back to me at 5am one July morning while i was sitting on the stoop, dragging at a cigarette, staring at the lightening sky, I realized Myself.
I stood apart from myself and looked at everything i've done, and planned to do, and wished for, and loved....and found something that I still can't figure out... A weird new sense of self; a sense that where i go, and what i say, and what i do, is meant and I'm going the right way. Sort of. There is always a detour or two. And bad traffic. And messy metaphors to explain things i could never normally explain.
Maslow defined self-actualization, basically, as the realization of one's full potential. I've realized. And with realization comes a responsibility to get what i want.
World, watch out.... I am going to walk all over you.
(ps. self-actualization is exhausting)
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