the Universal Mime

“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.”

from Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

When people are in grief or hardship, you often hear them ask things such as, “Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?”

But there is a rule which every culture of every age of the earth has weaved into its ethical framework, which, in practice, we find cannot be otherwise.

In Eastern religions and philosophies, it is called karma.

In Western culture, it can be summed up with a phrase from the Christian Bible; namely: “You reap what you sow.”

What I mean to say is: If you live your life built around clichés, you will get clichés in response.

If you are looking for a “light at the end of the tunnel,” then yes, you will find one. But most probably that is all you will find. You will not find the sun, but rather a flashlight, a flickering fluorescent bulb. There will always be artificial lights amidst—and at the end of—cliché tunnels, but never the sun or moon or stars or every manner of light which nature has provided for you already.

Clichés are not a comfort. They are an imitation of comfort, a distraction from reality. They are a black canvas strewn high over our heads with small holes poked through it: you think you are seeing the stars, but you are only seeing emptiness.

The universe always pays you back in kind.

You must ask—and answer for—yourself: What will be my payout?

If you seek mimicry, the universe will be a mime for you.

But if you seek truth and reality, then the universe will peel back its layers, slowly, one at a time, bit for bit, allowing you to see the clockwork behind it.

In this way, life heaps fewer surprises on us than we would have ourselves believe, and yet, more justice.

No, life does not always seem fair. But sometimes, when faced with adversity or—what seem on the surface to be—unfair situations, it is helpful to remember that how you respond to these times is another link in the infinite causal chain of universal reciprocity.

And it is helpful also to remember that society does not understand this or support this.

But the universe does not reward society with its fits and clichés; rather, it rewards individuals with their personal accomplishments and temperaments.

And, in time, it will reward you precisely as you have rewarded it.

If you want to be treated with kindness, be kind.

If you want to see beauty, make beauty.

If you want to be paid generously, give freely.

“These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

from Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some Facts About Space, pt 2: Stars

So here’s part two of my exciting facts-about-space blog! This time I’m going to focus on things a bit further out there: some of the really crazy stuff you may not have known about our neighboring stars.

A Neutron Star the size of a pea would weigh about as much as a small mountain.

There are many different types of stars. Neutron stars—which are actually the “leftovers” of massive stars after they go supernova—have the peculiar trait of being the most dense of all star types. Of course, Neutron Stars don’t come as small as the size of a pea, but that’s just to give you an idea of how heavy they are. Talk about a jawbreaker…

Neutron Stars have an average diameter of only 24 kilometers.

Yep, that’s a radius of only about 15 miles. In other words, the entire star would fit inside of just about any major city you’ve ever been to.

The smallest main-sequence (i.e. “normal”) star we know of is only about 20% larger than Jupiter.

It’s called OGLE-TR-122, and it’s barely big enough to even be considered a star. That poor little runt star—it doesn’t even get a proper name, just a “designation.”

The largest star we know of is bigger than the orbit of Jupiter around our sun.

It’s called NML Cygni, and it’s about 1,650 times larger than our sun. Think about it this way: we haven’t yet been able to send a human as far as Jupiter. If we lived on a planet the size of NML Cygni, it’s quite possible that we still wouldn’t even be able to travel all the way around it (like we can do relatively easily with Earth). And keep in mind: that’s the largest star we know of yet…

The oldest object in space that we know of is about 13.2 billion years old.

It’s a star called HE 1523-0901, and it lives here in our friendly neighborhood Milky Way Galaxy. To put it in perspective, the average lifespan of a star usually reaches only 10 billion years old. Also, considering that our universe is only about 13.75 billions years old, HE 1523-0901 has been around since almost the very beginning of the universe itself. But if this great-grandpa of stars wants to sit you on its lap to tell you war stories, don’t let it—though it’s smaller than our sun, it’s still a burning ball of gas and nuclear reactions, after all.

The nearest star to us is Proxima Centauri…

…but it’s still 4.24 light years from Earth. Then again, in another 26,700 years, it will have moved closer to us, and only be about 3.11 light years away. Who knows?—maybe by then we’ll have figured out a way to travel that far.

Polaris is the North Star now, but it won’t always be.

We refer to Polaris as the “North Star” because it sits almost due north from our celestial north pole. But with the way the heavens are turning, around the year 3000, it will no longer sit in that position. By then, another star named Gamma Cephei will be our new north star. Hopefully this won’t confuse our sailors too much when the time comes…

When the star Betelgeuse “dies”/goes supernova, the explosion will likely be bright enough to see in the middle of the day.

In fact, scientists believe it will be visible by naked eye in the middle of the day for the duration of several months. The unfortunate thing is that this could happen anytime within the next million years—so we probably won’t actually get to see it.

Black Holes aren’t holes.

Calling them “holes” is way off base. What we call “black holes” are actually stars. Yes, stars—like the Sun, like Polaris, like all those little dots in the night sky that we arrange into constellations.

Every star and planet has something called an “escape speed.” This is the speed that an object needs to be traveling in order to shake itself free of that star or planet’s gravity (and, therefore, be able to leave the star or planet). That said, a black hole is a star whose escape speed is faster than the speed of light. That’s why we think of them as vacuums—once something falls into a black hole’s field of gravity, it can never leave again. And that’s why they’re black—even light can’t leave the star, so it would “appear” perfectly dark.

Astronomers believe that there may be such a thing as “white holes” as well.

Though a white hole hasn’t been discovered yet, astrophysical equations imply that these oddities exist somewhere out there. As you might suspect, they act pretty much like the opposite of a black hole: rather than not allowing anything to leave their field of gravity, white holes will constantly be shedding everything from itself, to the point that nothing at all (not even light) would be able to enter the star. Talk about the ultimate extrovert…

* * *

That’s all I’ve got for you this time around (there may or may not be a part 3 to this…). Of course there are thousands of other cool tidbits that I haven’t shared, with many more facts appearing every day. But—hey—I’ve done enough research for you already: maybe it’s time for you to do some investigating of your own. ;)

Some Facts About Space to Make You Feel Better About Doomsday, pt 1

Our Solar System

In light of all this “Doomsday” talk that has been building up to today, I thought it’d be nice to show that space isn’t all bad and scary—there are some pretty fascinating things about it too.

So here you go, just a small collection of random facts about space that are some of my personal favorites. This time around (yes, there will be a “next time around”), I’m going to focus just on things within our own solar system:

Our solar system has 13 planets.

You were probably always taught that we had 9 planets. Then you heard Pluto was downgraded to a “dwarf planet.” Because of this, some people like to say our solar system now has 8 planets (poor Pluto—he’s still a planet, even if just a runt of one). But Pluto is not the only dwarf planet. There are four others aside from it: Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris (in fact, it was the discovery of Eris that prompted astronomers to redefine the term “planet,” ultimately downgrading Pluto). And no, I didn’t make up those names. They really are just that odd.

Ceres is located between Mars and Jupiter.

All of the dwarf planets are located at the far end of our solar system except for Ceres, which exists in the asteroid belt separating the first four planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) from the outer planets (Jupiter and beyond). In fact, Ceres was originally considered an asteroid until the term “dwarf planet” was invented and its status was upgraded. Congratulations, Ceres!

“Earth” isn’t actually the name of our planet.

Well, okay, I guess that depends on how you look at it. Really though, “Earth” is an astronomy term that really just means “planet.” We call our planet “Earth” because—well, let’s face it: who has the right to name a planet that 7 billion people share?

…in fact, the Sun’s “name” works the same way.

“Sun” is just a term for a star that sits in the middle of a solar system (keep in mind some stars don’t have solar systems—so those stars are not suns). That’s why people call it the Sun instead of just Sun (without the in front of it)—because it’s a title, not a name. If you’re ever faced with the Sun though, try to refer to it as respectfully as possible. He’s very big and fiery.

…and the same with the Moon.

A moon is something that orbits a planet, and I guess the early astronomers were just lazy about naming our moon. Many planets have moons (some even have several moons)—most of which have cool names instead of just titles. Our poor little satellite.

400 is an important number for the Sun and the Moon.

You already know that the Sun is much larger than the Moon. But you wouldn’t guess that just by looking at the sky with your naked eye. This is because, though the Sun is about 400 times larger than the Moon, the Moon is about 400 times closer to the Earth than is the Sun—making them appear to be the same size. What a happy coincidence.

The Moon is tidally locked with the Earth.

This means that the way the moon’s gravity and the earth’s gravity interact causes the moon to remain stationary in relation to the earth. In other words, every time you look up at the moon, you’re looking at the same side of it—no matter what time of day or night it is, or where in the world you are. This is where the phrase “dark side of the moon” comes from: because we never see the other side of the moon from the Earth. Maybe Pink Floyd was on to something…

Jupiter has 67 moons.

That pretty much sums it up. Just…wow.

One of Jupiter’s moons is likely covered in a giant ocean.

The surface of Europa is covered in a thick layer of water ice. Beneath this icy exterior is an ocean that goes about 62 miles deep (in contrast, the deepest part of Earth’s ocean only goes about 7 miles deep). All that to say, Europa is certainly not a place you’d want to go swimming. Brr…

That big red spot you see on Jupiter is actually a storm.

Think of it like the most insane hurricane you can imagine. In fact, the red storm—which is Jupiter’s most identifiable feature—is so large that you could fit two or three of our home Earths in it. Batten down the hatches.

If the Earth was not tilted on its axis, we would have no seasons.

If the earth was situated straight up and down (with the north pole sitting at the very top and the south pole at the very bottom), the entire face of the earth would likely have a tropical climate all year long. So next time someone tells you that Jesus is the reason for the season, tell them that, actually, the fact that the Earth is tilted about 45 degrees on its axis is the reason for the season.

* * *

So there you have it! Interesting stuff. J Tune in next time for some cool facts about deep space…

Golden Birthdays

This was the train of thought I experienced while driving to work this morning:

I work with a girl who is 20 years old, and her birthday is August 20. This means that this past birthday was her “golden” birthday (when the age you’re turning matches the date you were born).

I have the latest possible golden birthday: the 31^st.

But that’s fine. It doesn’t really matter much to me.

But then I thought about people born on February 29^th, and I thought that would be a really cool golden birthday if it happened to actually land on February 29^th (as opposed to having to celebrate it on, say, February 28^th  or March 1^st), because that would be a meaningful golden birthday.

Then I thought, “In fact, that’d be so rare and historic that it would probably be on the news” (or, at the very least, on Yahoo! News, which features articles about everything). I mean, they always talk about when some kid turns 12 years old at 12:12pm on 12/12/2012, and stuff like that. Why not mention someone turning 29 years old on February 29^th?

For a moment I thought that maybe it’s just never ever happened before. In that case, the first time would be historic.

And then…

And then, suddenly, I realized the sad, cold truth: It isn’t possible to turn 29 years old on February 29^th.

Since February 29^th only happens every four years, if you have that birthday, your “birthday” will only occur on years when your age is divisible by four. So your birthday will fall on the day you turn 28 years old, but then not again until you’re 32.

You poor, poor people born on February 29^th. You’ll never have a golden birthday. My deepest condolences. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.

How My Mind Works

(Recently, I undertook a data-entry project at work that involved getting people’s contact information off of business cards. This idea began when I came across the business card for a bookkeeper…)

You know what’s a funny word? Bookkeeping. It has three double letters in a row. I can’t think of another word that does that. It reminds me of Charlotte’s Web—there’s that crazy goose that is always trying to spell things, and he always spells everything with double letters. You know what I’m talking about: Double E, double A, double R…And then there’s Charlotte, that cute but creepy spider that somehow knows how to spell everything. I mean, I guess the fact that Charlotte can spell isn’t any stranger than a goose who can speak, so that crazy goose isn’t really the weirdest part. It’s a children’s book anyway—strange things can happen in children’s books. Like Pinocchio—WEIRD. Not at all like the Disney cartoon. I mean, I haven’t read the book myself, but my wife told me about it and it sounds insane. That Carlos Collodi was one crazy Italian dude. Kind of like Mario (of the Super Mario Bros. variety). Do you even remember that Mario was a plumber living in Brooklyn? What happened to that? Now he doesn’t seem to have any occupation other than Super Hero (even Batman/Bruce Wayne has a job outside of his heroism—geez…), and now he lives in the Mushroom Kingdom. What happened to Brooklyn? I shouldn’t complain though, because the Super Mario games have gotten amazing. I’m currently working on playing through Super Mario Galaxy, which is a very fun, unique game. I’ve already played Super Mario Galaxy 2 (I got both the games as gifts, but out of order). Galaxy 2 was better, but the first one certainly has its charm. In fact, to be perfectly fair, the story of Super Mario Galaxy was one of the major inspirations for my most recent children’s book, which has a lot to do with astronomy. And my children’s book has some weird/surreal things in it too, so I shouldn’t complain about Charlotte’s Web. I didn’t really care for Charlotte’s Web that much though. But, to be honest, I didn’t really like pretty much any books back when I read it, so—who knows?—maybe it’s not so bad. I’d say maybe I should re-read it nowadays, but let’s face it: I know I’m not going to. There are too many other great books left to read without going back to the old ones, the ones that I didn’t really like the first time. It makes you wonder though: how many things have I experienced that I didn’t properly appreciate in its time, but maybe I would appreciate them now, but since I didn’t like them the first time around, my mind has been tainted against them, and so now I’ll never experience them, even though I could quite enjoy them now? I think this might happen a lot with books and movies, for example. The first time I read Till We Have Faces, I actually didn’t much care for it, but then I had occasion to read it a second time, and it’s become one of my very favorite books. So I’m glad I took the time/risk to re-read it, because now I love it. What other things am I missing out on? And of course, there’s the opposite: sometimes you experience something once and LOVE it, and then when you go back for a second time, it’s like the magic is just gone. Like Disneyland. I used to love Disneyland as a kid. Although, to be fair, all throughout growing up in Southern California, I preferred Knott’s Berry Farm—but, to be quite frank, looking back I think I preferred Knott’s because I just wanted to be different than everyone else, who always seemed to favor Disneyland. This same concept applied to holidays when I was younger: everyone’s favorite holiday was always Christmas, so I said mine was Easter. Easter has its charm, to be sure, but really, it’s probably not actually better than Christmas. Nowadays I sometimes say Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, but the truth is I don’t really care for Thanksgiving that much either. It sounds good in theory, but in reality—eh. I guess I just don’t like holidays in general. Christmas is still nice though. Disneyland is still nice too; I’m sure I’ll go there again sometime, if for no reason other than to take my son Emerson, who was named after one of my very favorite authors, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson never wrote any children’s books, but he’s still pretty good. As far as I know, he never wrote any fiction either. He’s a really good author—a lot of the inspiration for my own writing comes from him (even though I mostly focus on fiction). I kind of hope that if my Emerson (the one who I wrote my most recent children’s book for) agrees with the ideals of Ralph Waldo, I think he’ll be alright, because Ralph Waldo certainly knew what was up when it came to just about everything—kind of like Abraham Lincoln, which I know now because I saw the new movie Lincoln and it was amazing and Daniel Day-Lewis was unbelievable as Abe, and both Abe and Ralph Waldo hated slavery with a passion and anybody who can hate something so bad with such a fervor is bound to be a great guy, and I think my son will be a great guy, and maybe starting him with the right books will be a good start. I hated reading when I was younger, but I think I turned out okay, and maybe if Emerson loves reading he’ll be ahead of the game, and can pass me up, which is really what I think most parents want: to be outlived and outshined by their kids. At least that’s what I want, and I feel like what I want in this case is normal, so I assume that this must be what most people want, but who knows really.

the Blue House

There is a small blue house just down the street from the center of the city. The business sector suddenly ends, and then there is a row of houses, just like that. The blue one is the third or fourth house down from the cut-off between business and residential.

As far as I know, the house is not for sale. At least, there are no signs in the yard indicating that it is. And yet, I can’t help but think that I would like to live there. You thought so too, and said as much when we were last there in the city. We agreed that we would probably be quite happy in that small blue house.

* * *

I finally got the chance to show you around the city. We were on foot, so I didn’t get to show you much of it. But there is enough of interest within just a few city blocks to make it worth the visit.

Not long after we began walking, we stumbled upon a certain street, one that has become rather special in my mind. I almost forgot the street was there until we were actually upon it. I told you that whenever I come here in my dreams, for some reason I often dream about this street.

Who knows what dreams mean, really, but the street feels important because of its prominence in my dreams. Dreams can do that: add meaning to something that would otherwise be inconsequential. The street always looks a bit different, of course—different stores and restaurants, different neon signs and intersections—but déjà vu tells me that it is always the same street, even if it is re-imagined by my mind each time.

We went into a small bookstore on the street and quickly split ways, looking in different sections for books that interested us. You were looking for British classics, and I was hoping to find a section devoted to the Oxford World’s Classics series. No such section existed—it turned out—but it was just as well.

I turned my attention to looking for a book by a foreign author whose name I can’t even spell, let alone pronounce. Pierdoit? Peridot? Peirot? His first name was Andres…or, at least, something that started with an A. They didn’t have anything by him—it was a rather small bookstore, after all, and he’s a decently obscure author. French, if I recall. The thought came to mind that perhaps I was confusing this author with Georges Perec, but then that didn’t sound right.

After a few minutes of looking around on our own, you and I found each other again. You had found a book you wanted to buy, something by Jane Austen. Even though you already had a copy of it at home, this was a special edition. And anyway, it would be a good memento for your visit to the city. I also told you that this was the store where I bought my first copy of Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, and, for that reason, the store held a special nostalgia for me.

After we left the bookstore, we continued down the street. It must have snowed the night before, because the further away from the city center we got, the more snow and ice there was on the ground. Though I’m not much of an ice skater, still, we decided to skate along the sidewalk and the street, me in my black Converse, you in your yellow. It was while we were skating that we came across the small blue house, the one we wanted to buy, the house where we would be happy.

And then we started heading back into the city, and I woke up.

Oh, London—do you even exist?

PS
Not all is lost: for what it’s worth, you really do have yellow Converse.

London: a Short Story (or Two-?)

Every time I’m in London, there is a particular restaurant I like to go to. This is a bit odd, because generally I don’t much care for the food in London. But there is that one restaurant I never let myself miss—in fact, just to make sure I get a chance to eat there during my visit to London, I might just go straight there from the aeroport.

I know exactly how to get to this restaurant from various parts of town. Up ahead to the next corner, turn right, and it’s only two blocks down the street from there. I’m not very familiar with the layout of London (it’s a big city and I’ve not been there very many times), but I never have trouble finding this restaurant whenever I’m in town.

Despite the fact that I don’t much care for the food in London, there are, of course, exceptions to this. They use Irish beef at most of their burger joints, which is very different from—and I’d say better than—American beef. Even the McDonald’s restaurants are better in London, not only because of the Irish beef, but also because they serve Cadbury Crème Egg McFlurry’s and curly fries. That said, as odd as it may sound, McDonald’s is still worth a visit whenever I’m in London.

I find it of special interest how sometimes our dreams can taint our memories, sometimes even making the two nearly indistinguishable.

An example: My first time in London, there was a specific McDonald’s I went to. I no longer remember exactly where in the city it was, but I want to say it was on a side-street off of Trafalgar Square. The other buildings all around it weren’t very distinctly marked—I suppose they must have been residences, though I’m really not sure. While at this McDonald’s, I remember thinking I’d rather work at a McDonald’s in London than have a nicer, higher-paying job in the U.S.

But here’s where it gets fuzzy:

I rather clearly remember ordering a Happy Meal in that specific McDonald’s and getting a Super Mario Bros.-based toy. It was, if I recall, a Lakitu in his cloud on wheels (for those of you familiar with the Super Mario Bros. games, you’ll recall that Lakitu is the turtle-ish creature that moves around in the cloud and throws the spike balls down at you from above. In later Mario games, he also serves as the "cameraman").

This may sound alright so far, but here’s the problem with this memory:

Yes, I’m pretty certain that this Lakitu toy is real, but it came out over ten years before the first time I was in London. In fact, I have another memory of when I got that toy, but it was in California, at a McDonald’s inside of a mall. I was with my parents—I couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old. Of course I no longer have the toy.

How did this memory get mixed up with my memory of the McDonald’s in London? I think a dream must have connected them, though it’s hard to say. But now, for whatever reason, I can’t think of that specific McDonald’s in London without thinking of the Lakitu toy, and the memory gets all muddled.

But back to this special restaurant in London…

Though I always know how to get to the restaurant when I’m in town (and though I’ve been there several times), I could never give anyone else directions to it. I don’t know the name of the street it is on. In fact, I don’t even know the name of it. When I look at the sign hanging above the front door, I can’t read it. The first letter seems to be a ‘P’, but the rest is hazy…

…the classic sign of a dream.

When I woke up, I realized that the restaurant isn’t even real.

Shortly after waking up, I met with a friend at a New Mexican restaurant here in town and told all of this to her. I told it to her just as I’m telling it now, acting as though the restaurant is real before I finally drop the surprise that it’s not real; it was all a dream. I feel like it’s more fun/dramatic/interesting that way, I suppose.

Interestingly, I’ve dreamed about the restaurant several times though. She, too, thought this was interesting: Is it a sign? Does it mean something? Is the restaurant actually real, and I’ve actually been there, but I’m just not remembering it from reality?

I told her that I don’t think any of these things are the case. The entire premise was a bit silly anyway—me thinking that every time I’m in London I go to this one specific restaurant. In fact, I’ve only been to London twice. Two times hardly qualifies as saying something happens every time.

Mind you, I’ve had many dreams about London. And in those dreams, yes: I’ve gone to restaurants. And parks and malls and bus stations and aeroports and special city streets. The dreams of the malls are the most interesting, because I always happen to know where the malls are (I never stumble upon them by mistake, unlike every other type of place in my London-dreams), and they usually have crazy layouts and architecture and stores.

Also, this is especially odd because there are no malls in London.

In fact, before going to the restaurant, I went to one of these whacky malls. Weird.

A question: Is there an archetype for dream symbolism regarding unique malls or restaurants?

Anyway.

The other thing odd about the entire London-dream-restaurant idea is that the restaurant was a New Mexican restaurant. I don’t like New Mexican food. And there are no New Mexican restaurants in London. At least, as far as I know, there are no New Mexican restaurants in London. I certainly can’t imagine there being one (though my psyche may disagree with me on that).

While sitting there with my friend, she asked when the more recent of the two times was that I had been to London. I told her it was last night.

Wait.

That doesn’t make sense.

And just how did I get to this restaurant with her? I don’t remember waking up or getting ready or agreeing to meet her or driving here. In fact, this girl isn’t even a friend of mine…

It turns out I’ve only been to London once.