A Chemistry of Stars

    Today was a great day.  We got our chores done early so we could have a calm afternoon.  The weather was perfect, the toddler was happy.  I studied from a Modern Physics textbook for fun.  Yes, for fun.  All seemed well as 4 o’clock drew near, when mom showed up to babysit.  That’s when I got to take my wife on a date for the first time since the lockdown started.    

    On our way to the mall I played the best songs from Taylor Swift’s new album, Folklore.  I never thought I’d say Taylor Swift wrote the album of the year, but she probably has.  It's a refreshing departure from her previous work, overloaded with pop tunes.  Cardigan, Exile, and August were the three I played for her; all soft and soothing, with touches of summer nostalgia.  August was particularly fitting, considering the month, and that there’s a mall in the lyrics.  It was stuck in my head for the rest of the evening, which I can’t complain about.  

    For all that’s happened this year, the mall hasn’t changed much.  People are still standing in long lines to get ice cream.  Children are still crowding each other on the jumbo toys.  You still have to squeeze your way past people to look at a clothes rack.  I got a few shirts.  One was a Ride the Lightning (Metallica's second album) muscle-t: very appropriate for a workout.  The others were fancier.  I think it’s the first time I ever bought a shirt at Nordstroms.  

    We had dinner outside at P.F. Chang’s, which has some of the best Chinese food in town.  The Mongolian Beef hit a home run.  We talked about how special it felt to finally spend time alone together, after all the madness of the past few months.  And how it felt like one of the many dates in our first year together, when we didn’t have an infant and we were still getting to know each other.  Then we realized how fast it went by, how hectic it was getting married, moving twice, traveling to Thailand and dealing with the government, all in our first year.  We wished we could have had at least one year together without any life changing events.  

    Cold Stone was next door, so we had to get ice cream.  Their waffle cones are enormous.  I got a small scoop and still struggled to eat the whole thing.  

    We had a scary moment on the way home.  The sun was at such a dastardly angle that it made judging the traffic lights difficult.  I ended up running a red light.  In the other lane, a car had stopped quickly, but the person behind it didn’t stop in time.  We heard the screeching tires of an imminent crash as we crossed the intersection.  For a split-second, I thought we were the ones that got hit.  Incredibly, the person behind us also ran the red light!  They must have witnessed the accident, because they rushed past us soon after.  

    At home we got to play with Dylan and grandma for a bit.  We showed her Dylan’s chicken walk, which sparked a lot of laughter.  He had a good day too.  Not only did he get to spend time with grandma, but he got a toy cooking set that he played with for hours.  Then I took him into the guest room so Kairika and grandma could talk.  As we were watching Youtube, he figured out how to pause and play by pressing the keyboard.  We consider this his first time using a computer!  At 21 months it's another quick milestone, among many.  

    Before bed I had another go at Ulysses by James Joyce.  It makes a lot more sense now than it did when I read it 20 years ago.  Now I understand why it it’s been praised so highly; there are so many layers of meaning and food for thought.  Poetic tangents of stream-of-consciousness.  It will probably evolve into one my favorite books.  Like the universe, it has aged well. 

Time is Elastic: Mental Relativity

Einstein’s theory of general relativity proved how time is relative to any observer, depending on their frame of reference.  It appears to also have a psychological aspect, in that time seems to slow down or speed up in certain situations.  Our experience of time tends to slow down in situations like accidents, emergencies, drug use, meditation, and listening to music.  Body movement has little to do with the experience of time slowing down; therefore, it’s probably not a physical manifestation the same way relativity is.  

Furthermore, time seems to speed up in other situations.  The phrase “time flies when you’re having fun” applies to almost everyone, no matter what they’re doing.  Time seems to speed up drastically during sleep as well.  There’s a nearly universal experience of people not feeling like they slept for x number of minutes when they really did.    

Author Steve Taylor thinks these experiences are related to altered states of consciousness, and I would have to agree.  Altered states during drug use and dreaming seem to have the ability to slow down or speed up our perception of time.  This is remarkable when you consider how ingrained the dimension of time is in the current scientific paradigm, as a linear variable or constant.  

I don’t think it strictly has to be an altered state of consciousness that creates mental time dilation.  It’s quite possible that there’s a spectrum of it, depending on the degree of variance experienced, just as the degree of variance would depend on the observer’s frame of reference in general relativity.  These are two sides of the same coin.  In the physical realm, the speed of an observer is probably a function of time to the same degree that the severity of an altered state is in the mental realm.  For example, a state of extreme shock or pure joy would have a higher effect on our experience of time than a less extreme one.    

I also think that somehow the degree of time dilation in the mind depends on the rate of neurotransmitter transmission in the brain, or certain combinations of them.  The greater the altered state of consciousness, the greater (or lesser) the amount of neurotransmitter activity.  

This would make for an interesting study that neurologists should have a crack at.  Obviously, there would be no way to measure such mental variance, since it’s an immaterial quantity.  But in social sciences, surveys can be just as effective in discovering the truth as experiments.  If the hypothesis is correct, it would suggest that time elasticity exists in both the material realm and the mental one.  The dimension of time would prove to be elastic on multiple planes of existence, which I don’t think would surprise very many of the spiritually inclined people who also follow science. 

 

Taylor, Steve.  2005.  Making: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.  Icon Books. 

How Much I Love You

 Words cannot express how much I love you.  

Lightning struck over the polished houses, the twilit road rose to meet me.  A dark cat scurried off into the bushes, someone's blue room echoed the flashy gloom.  My evening constitutional was interrupted by a silent blast out of the sky, materializing some electric mirror that was gilded by pain.  The revelation hit me like a zap from a seraphic continuum, that you were sent to help me recover what I'd lost.  

When you were born my brother left me, the only man left in my life.  Now there's only you.  It's as if he'd relayed a baton to you, a baton I've seen change hands too many times in my short life.  He would have been asked to be my best man if I had to ask anyone; that's why we didn't have a traditional wedding.  Something in my bones told me he'd say no.  If you left me like he did, my heart would break again, like it has so many times.  If you were like him, I could still forgive you, as I forgave him.  You're just a part of the eternal mirror that reflects my soul, displaces those who don't love me with those who do.  And you do love me, just as he did, whether you'll know it in the future or not.  But he does not love me anymore, and one day you may not either.  I can't bear to imagine why; what it is I do or say that makes them run away.  There has never been a stable man in my life, not one whose been by my side going all the way back through childhood.  I had one once, but he forgot me.  Now I grow up with you instead of him, and you're everything he was before the Rift.  You remind me of him so much, baby boy.  The way your face lights up a room; all the energy and vitality you possess; the sweet noises you make when you're trying to impress me; your stubborn persistence.  He is like a child who never grew up, but hopefully you will.  It's another cruel twist of fate the Gods have given me, that my baby brother who I loved so much would turn from me just after my son was born.  May you never know the pain he has given me, or the pain his father gave me, or the pain his father gave him.  Fathers hold up the mirrors that their sons are reflected in, even if they aren't from the same one.  That mirror doesn't always have to reflect the past or the future.  For once I would like it to reflect the present, to keep you here in my arms through all the mad sorrows that beat my body blue, like the lightning that struck my mind in two. 

I saw an exhibition today, a series of four paintings by Thomas Cole, called The Voyage of Life.   You were the joyful child, as I once was, watched over by your grandma, the guardian angel.  She watches over us both, though you wouldn't know it.  Your mother is the angel too; even me, for that matter.  You will grow up in a wondrous garden of earthly delights, America's Eden- the fruitful vales of the west.  New things will appear as magical as they ever will on this river of peace and safety.  We'll steer you down it, as far as we can, through the meadows of spring and into the mountains of summer, where you'll scale the peaks of ambition, seeking love, approval, achievement, and all the other yearnings of man.  We'll still be with you, but you'll steer the boat on your own as we watch from the shore, marking every move you make through the frontier of idealism.  When you're older a terrible storm will come, which came for me when I was quite young.  My journey through the summer of youth hardly existed, as I went straight from childhood to adulthood without a moment to spare.  I hope your journey will be different, that when you reach the autumn of mid-life, you'll have enjoyed this stage of youth that I never had.  The storm will toss and turn your boat as you struggle to maintain control.  The river will narrow, bringing you to your knees, making you pray to the universe for a break from the struggle, for survival through the murky shadows.  You will grip your boat with every ounce of strength you possess, fighting the elements against throwing you into the hostile rapids.  Finally, in old age the river will come to the open sea, where the water is calm, and the wind stops blowing.  Here your angels will return to you, inviting you up to the beautiful light that parted the storm.  You'll relent with winter's cold surrender, feeling gratitude for having survived the tumult of your sins, shaking your head at your mistakes and cherishing those fonder memories of brighter days.  That's where we'll be, child, waiting for you at the end of the river, with an antidote for your pain and a halo for your head.  

The Sea, the Sea, Iris Murdoch

The Sea, The Sea holds the distinction of having the only annoying first-person narrator I could withstand enough to give a book top rating.  Iris Murdoch’s disturbing, deranged character is written so well that his actions had little effect on how much I enjoyed reading it.  The setting was another bonus; she wrote the atmosphere of a seaside escape so well that its demonic underpinning caught me off guard near the end.    

Charles Arrowby is a retired famous actor who decides to spend the rest of his life away from the public, at a secluded location on the English coast.  He’s also a rude bully who doesn’t take no for an answer, and has no regard for anyone's feelings, let alone his own.  What made me stomach his story was the cast of characters involved.  There’s James, his wise and loyal cousin, who helps him see the truth behind his unconscious scheming; Hartley, his unforgettable first love, who unfortunately becomes a victim of his kidnapping; Lizzie, a hopeless romantic who strangely can’t stop pining for him; and many others, including Rosina, Ben, and Titus- all involved in a zany drama with some bizarre situations.  

For the first half of the novel I couldn’t tell if Charles was delusional or not.  It wasn’t until the kidnapping that I really saw how sick he was.  The second half took on a more mystical tone that appealed to his impressions of the supernatural, with a possible demonic encounter sparking his spiritual dialogues with James.  (By the way, the sea monster was really the four seals).  The mystical stuff only seemed to add to his deranged mentality, making his thoughts more disjointed than they already were.  Thankfully, throughout his collapse came a refreshing voice of reason from James, who probably best represents the author.  It gave us befuddled readers a narrative we could actually follow.  

Iris Murdoch has to be one of the best when it comes psychological writing.  Of course I was in love with my youth, Charles writes at the end, referring to Hartley.  That final thought revealed a Jungian premise that wasn’t always obvious when reading.  The fact that he finally showed some remorse for his actions made his character shine a little brighter.    

 

Reducing Calories Leads to Longer Life and Better Environment

The obesity epidemic is one of the major issues facing the developed world in the 21st century.  Too many people are eating far beyond what their bodies can handle.  It’s led to a number of health problems, including higher rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer; higher health premiums, which in America means unaffordable rates for many; and an increase in environmental damage, stemming from things like agricultural runoff, the transportation needed to provide food, etc.  We can all make the world a better place by limiting our calories to the actual number our bodies need.  

There is a scientific basis for the statement that reducing calories leads to longer life.  Not only do bigger people tend to die younger, but overeating means more heat is produced by the body, which generally causes any lifeform to age faster.  Just think about insects and rodents, who produce far more heat per pound than larger animals and, in some cases, only live a fraction of a percent as long.  The same goes for marine life, plants, and trees.  There’s a direct relationship to size, metabolism and aging; the smaller a species is, the faster it tends to eat, thus the faster it ages.    

Overeating also means that more free radicals are introduced to the body’s bloodstream, leading to faster decay in virtually all its organs.  Free radicals are the source of oxidation, which damages cell membranes and DNA, resulting in early cell death.  A healthy diet uses the antioxidants in fruits and vegetables to combat free radicals in the body.  The antioxidants bind to the free radicals, preventing them from floating around and damaging our cells.  

Fasting isn’t necessarily the most efficient way to eat less calories.  Often our bodies really do need a high number of calories to function well, especially athletes.  The key is to reduce our serving sizes to match our satiety.  If we feel full and keep eating, we are doing a grave disservice to our body and the environment.    

If the whole world ate at the rate we do in America, the food supply would quickly run out.  Extinction rates would increase: a scary thought considering how high they already are.  Water pollution would rise due to more pesticide usage.  Greenhouse gases would skyrocket due to all the transportation needed to bring more food to the cities.  There are many other environmental issues related to the obesity epidemic, including deforestation, waste, soil degradation... The list goes on.  For the sake of your health and the planet, don’t stuff yourself. 

Hottest Day of the Year

 

        Today was the hottest day since 2009, when Sea-tac measured 103F, breaking the all-time record.  I remember that day well.  As I was leaving work around 3pm, I walked into the sunlight and the heat felt blistering.  Today the high was 98F, but the mugginess factor made it feel even hotter than the record breaker.  It felt even hotter than Thailand today, and that’s saying something. 

        Mom came over at 5pm, just as the temperature was peaking.  She brought us a nice Thai dinner, which we ate quickly hoping to get outside, where we thought it might be cooler.  But it certainly wasn’t.  My son and I played frisbee catch with her for all but 5 minutes before she complained about it being too hot.  I started sweating the minute I stepped outside, noticing that a classic overcast sky had come in over the afternoon, which is known to trap heat and water vapor on our muggiest days.   

        My son didn’t seem to notice it was hot.  He wasn’t even sweating.  His heating system must be perfect, as any normal human would have sweat out there, even a one-year-old.  But no, my son was running after that frisbee as if it were a crisp autumn evening. 

        Later as we got in bed with the A/C on full blast, we started hearing thunderstorms.  What made it exciting is I can’t remember a time when the high was over 90F and hearing thunderstorms on the same day.  To have a 98F scorcher coupled with thunderstorms must be a phenomenal rarity in these parts.  I got so excited that we rolled up the window so we could see outside as the sky got darker and darker, dashed by hints of purple from the pink sunset beyond.  My son’s silhouette is etched on my brain, pointing at the sky with the same excitement I had, repeating “Thunder!” like his daddy as the clouds carved out his upturned body.

        This day also had the highest temperature recorded globally in the last 100 years.  Death Valley reached 130 degrees, still 4 shy of its 1913 world record.  That record is disputed, just like the one in Libya that was standard for a long time.  It may turn out that today’s is the highest temperature ever recorded- perhaps surprising when you consider it’s the second half of August.