Mission Statement

      Some people think mission statements are silly, but I like them.  They let you know what you're in for.  Here's mine.  When I was in college someone asked me to recommend a book that changed my life but even though I was an English major and did nothing but read I couldn't come up with anything.  Now that I'm well out of college I continue to do nothing but read, but the authors are entirely different.  I've replaced non-stop fiction with all scientific non-fiction all the time, and like magic I suddenly have a library of life-changing books I'd like to recommend.  Allow me to use this space for that project.

      Now here's a couple supporting paragraphs that you could probably skip if you wanted.  I didn't used to care about science.  I used to have nightmares about science.  Science represented for me all that was dead and dull about the world.  I played baseball in college.  We were a squad composed largely of scrappers who peaked in elementary school, achieved veteran status in Junior High, and survived as competent utility-types in High School.  You shouldn't be washed up at 19 years old, but even though stats can be misleading 33 consecutive losses don't lie.  Some of us were washed up.  I was washed up, and even though you're doing your best to keep a positive outlook losing day after day after day accumulates and every now and again tempers flare up from the cold embers of futility before being choked back down.  One of my friends, Adam, was a biology major who really loved amphibians and stuff.  I was an English major who really loved... well, by the end there wasn't a lot I loved about English but there were things I was committed to.  One game, already down ten or fifteen by the third inning, the dugout crackly with frustration, Adam and I were talking and then I was yelling, "Look man, you believe in the importance of objective facts and shit, but I believe in the relative truth of my own subjective experience, alright?  Just let me believe what I want to believe for whatever reason I want to believe it!" 
     
      It's not uncommon for teammates to chew each other out in the heat of competition (or in our case, in the slow boil of an eternal ass-whooping) but the content of our argument is suggestive of why we were no good at sports.  It is also suggestive of something else, however; I considered empirical phenomenon in the physical universe irrelevant next to the noises and pretty colors in my head.  If it wasn't stated in tripping tetrameter with irregular line breaks, the gravitational constant could suck my ass.

      I no longer think that way.  I have come around to both the necessity of hanging one's life upon observable facts and the kick-ass nature of those facts themselves.  Science used to seem irrelevant and boring; now it strikes me as pressing and riveting.  What changed?  Not the science itself.  The gravitational constant is the same as it (probably) has always been, the periodic table contains the same old elements, the sun is still a big ball of gas, and not, in fact, the chariot of Apollo.  The difference, is that I found books that spoke about those dry familiar facts in the sort of juicy words I like to sink my teeth into.  Somebody showed me a youtube video about Carl Sagan and the physical sciences spread out before like a yellow brick road plumbing the horizon line.  I don't think there's an Emerald City at the end of the road, unless the Grand Unified Theory of Everything happens to dress in green, but the landmarks along the way are enough to distract me.  I was a depressed English major who loved words, hated books, and left scientific principles gathering dust in neural storage bins.  Now I'm a whatever I am who loves words and finally sees a worthwhile subject to which he might apply them.  If I can reflect a little bit of light on the universe by rephrasing the discoveries of greater minds than my own, if I can turn around and point out to someone the road which in turn was pointed out to me, well they say that payback is a bitch but giving back makes you feel real good.   Actually, you know what, payback sounds pretty good to me.  My worldview has taken a few punches over the years, so now maybe it's time to crack my knuckles and pass the bruises on.