Week Two

Reflections on UNCERTAINTY...It is a major dichotomy of things that are certain, and things that are uncertain.  We know the earth spins on an axis, which planets exist in our solar system..things are so certain these days that we basically have maps for anywhere we would like to travel, where we will hike according to weather being predicted, and whether our unborn babies will be male or female.  At the same time, the weather for tomorrow may totally turn out to be incorrect.  The flu vaccine given every year is based on last year's data and incorrect for new strains of the flu that have come out since.  Not basic principles, but things like the "Big Bang" theory and other discoveries are uncertain because new discoveries are always being made and old theories are always being modified.  We could die tomorrow due to health, the instability of a neighbor, or due to natural disaster.  I don't relate to these things as scare tactics and reasons not to live my life, but reasons TO live my life.  Life and the universe being uncertain is what make OUR lives so interesting.  

CAUSALITY...I believe we ARE causing things into existence by the way we observe them.  After returning from Guatemala and having lived there for 4 months, I observed that the books I read concerning the Maya people in the region were not quite similar to the experiences I was having and people I met.  How could so many non-Maya living in the small barrios not bring to pass the things they wrote would happen.  My point is that there is always cause and effect, and we cannot remove ourselves or be totally neutral no matter how hard we try.  I believe that to a certain extent, we control through our own actions, what our futures will hold.  Whether we do this consciously or unconsciously, we make choices that affect our lives on a daily basis, the near distant future, and especially lives of our children and generations to come.

Is the UNIVERSE WEIRD?  I think so...from weird black matter that is matter, but we cannot see it because it does not reflect light but makes up 80% of matter or something crazy like that?  to weird crazy fishies that live in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean, to aliens that may or may not exist..I guess I've never thought of the universe as being weird, but from Saturn to supernovae..so many unexplainable things about it don't exactly make it "normal".  But then, what is normal?  Who knows...with how beautiful our universe is, including our constellations, shooting stars, moon and tides... it is possibly the least weird in our galaxy.