As most of you probably already don’t know, I spent a lot of time in my pre- and early-teen years pondering my mortality. Not that I was at all suicidal, but I did think about the possibility of instantaneous death quite frequently and probably not for the reasons you may be able to come up with.
Sundays at my house were a special day. We wore special clothes, ate special meals, had special toys, and even read special books (it wasn’t until later that I realized the term ‘special’ was usually reserved for buses). It was one of these ‘special’ books that was the impetus for my somewhat morbid thoughts and, despite what you may be thinking, it wasn’t a spiritual book at all. It was a book about our universe, aptly named ‘Our Universe’.
Describing in great detail the scientific world’s theory of the big bang and progressing through the planets within our own solar system, the book illustrates such marvels as black holes, asteroid fields, and Jupiter. It also describes the life-cycle of stars, which is really fascinating until you realize our Sun is one of said stars.
This book could have just as easily been named Why a Huge Ball of Burning Gas Will Eventually Go Supernova, Engulf the Earth, and Vaporize You.
You can see how an 11-year old would be very worried about this. Especially considering that I skimmed a lot and don’t remember reading anything about a time frame for the Sun’s inevitable explosion-implosion. Also, the book was published in 1980 (before science existed) so it may very well have ended with 'and we’ll never know when... but it could be tomorrow'.
When faced with an inescapable stellar explosion, it’s fairly easy to accept your mortality. That may be why I work for a company actively designing systems to flee the surly bonds of Earth.
5 comments:
That's it! You've hit on the secret that those who are proporting Global Warming didn't want anyone to know. The earth isn't really undergoing "global warming..." it's that the sun is about to impact the earth. We should all jump on one of your methods of fleeing and flee as fast as we can fly!
Hey, let's see pictures of your visit from Mom and Dad and a new post...please?
Question..why do they call it a word verification when it's not really a word? Just a bunch of random letters put together?
So I'm guessing that you're only going to post once a month??? Or maybe your readership has gone down...
I need a new Justin and Melissa laugh!
And my "word verification" has vowels and consanents; still don't think ododb is a word...
I think you and my husband Patrick would get along great.
post.
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