During the Planetary Science conference this year, one of the main headline makers, one of a pair of scientists who rocked the community by discovering that the gullies in the craters on Mars may have had running water in the last six years, was unable to come to Houston to present his results because he had the flu.

Another presenter couldn't be there because his aunt was dying.

And as I sat there in my chair near the back of the auditorium, my notebook covered in doodles and sleep heavy in my eyes, it occurred to me that no matter how famous you are, no matter how many Phd's you have, no matter how many people have to kowtow to you on a daily basis, your carnal self, your body, still has the ability to trump every other concern. You are still a veritable slave to your health. Like that quote that I put in here before from Marcel Proust:

"It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body."

And wrapped up in our mortality is the fact that you can gain as much knowledge as you would like during a lifetime, and stack up degrees all you want, but when you die, all of that work that you put in learning all of that stuff, is gone. For nothing. I wonder if parents feel that way, if they have the terrible misfortune of losing a child. What if they've just put this kid through college, through law school maybe. All that money, all that time and effort, 24 or so years of worrying about the little guy, building him into a balanced, capable, employable human being so that he's ready to take control of the rest of his life and in an instant it's all for nothing. Of course that isn't true. Think of all the lives you've touched, just in the short years you've already lived? Sometimes I think the noblest ambition is to seek to be at least a mostly happy memory in the minds of all you've met. Everybody, even random people on the street or in the bank or at a restaurant. You can't make everyone happy, usually if you try to do that you eventually make the people you love much more sad. That's why it's a 'mostly'. Because if you make someone sad temporarily because you love them and it's best, they will eventually see that. As far as all this knowledge that you're gaining... perhaps if you have long been a professor and you've published dozens of papers, then all that knowledge was for something and it will live on. But most of the time we aren't professors who publish in the field or industry innovators who release a world-changing product on the market. All of that knowledge seems to serve to make us money so that we can get by. Just get by. Is that enough? I think in the end, the most important thing that you can do with knowledge is pass it on to someone else, keep passing it on, generation after generation, so that it will never die.

Can you imagine how much faster our civilization might have progressed if instead of dying, we lived for hundreds of years and just piled knowledge on top of knowledge? As it is it's like trying to get out into the ocean, with every five steps you take forward you are washed four steps back. However, there is that old saying... "Science progresses one funeral at a time."... that is, you sometimes need people to die so that other people with new ideas can explore them without being crushed by The Institution. This is why children are important, even if at first they don't seem to be a financially sound endeavor. You'll never make your money back on them, that's for sure, but money is another one of those things that you just can't take with you when you go.

---

In other news, I've been playing some crazy soccer, I might join the rugby team, and I am now one of two department representatives to the Graduate School Council. ::the EVIL coun-cil!::

mood: sore
watching: About a Boy
listening to: Keith Urban- Live to Love Another Day

Summers come and summers go, and I keep walking down this road
It's all right, it's ok
I'll live to love another day.

RAH RAH RAH GOOO SCIENCE


I thought of you today. Not sure why, but I remember thinking of you today.

And I'm not a big keith urban fan, but that song is beautiful.
» Dilated on 2007-05-22 11:05:58

But we ARE piling knowledge upon knowledge. Just some of it slips away, that's all. We can't help it if Wolfgang, Albert, and Galileo couldn't give us ALL of their bright apples. I'd like to think that my suffering-s have had meaning...if only for my happiness one day. That it's for the smile I'll wear in my coffin. :)
» Silver-dot- on 2007-05-23 12:17:16

Hmmm. You could interpret that as "Killing off our scientists one by one will technologically advance our civilization".

What a morbid and funny thought. :P
» randomjunk on 2007-05-23 02:12:47

Thanks for your comment =) I do what you mentioned, minus the throwing the noodle at the cupboard, and my noodles tend to come out mushy. Not always, but sometimes. It's frustrating when I'm cutting it close to lunch time for Aubree.
» money4blogging on 2007-05-23 09:43:46

The Secret
I have been BEYOND reading the secret. That has become my new bible. I listen to the audio book to fall asleep at night I am listening to it during REM. I guess that is why I was even more disappointed. I mean, I set it out there and I even cleaned out my desk and my drawers and cubbards like I am ready to leave. I was sending the messages... Asking, Believing but not receiving.
» kkama67 on 2007-05-24 03:18:06

I would say that you can't kill a cactus, but you can. I have before. I will admit that it's not easy to, so it'd definately be worth a shot! Just make sure you have a sunny window to put it in =)
» money4blogging on 2007-05-24 09:42:48

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