tabular_rasa | Jessica and The Sun

Today I went over to Jessica's for a bit, and we sang Wicked (I was Glinda, Nessa, and Mdm. Morrible), attempted to RP our story (and failed miserably-- we're so out of practice, and we need Tiffany!), and then listened to a lot of music. I probably won't see her again before I leave for camp )-:

I need to do a lot of laundry, some organizing of the stuff that is not going with me, and then packing hardcore for camp. I've got pretty much all the stuff I need, woot!

I just watched a show on the History Channel about the sun. I did a report on the sun in third grade when we did our planets/solar system reports. So I am kind of fond of the sun . . . you know, like a little more than the average person who is just happy it is up there in the sky being warm and giving us light, and all, lol . . .

It started off with just mostly the typical information, about how big and faraway it is, its temperature(s), its layers, the fusion process . . . how it was created and how it will die . . . then the dynamics of its magnetism, solar flares, sun spots . . . and then it got into all this stuff about solar storms. The solar storm stuff was neat, and kind of scary; every eleven years we get a huge sun spot flare-up and the earth's magnetic field isn't even enough to resist, and the radiation can infiltrate usually in a pattern that targets the poles. Occasionally we will even get a direct hit from a solar flare, a big surge of gas and electric particles. When this happens, airplanes flying over the poles at the time would be totally blasted (like . . . lethally-- think like radiation sickness from the atomic bombs), and we'd be able to see auroras as far south as the Mediterranean. Apparently once we had this sort of direct hit from a solar flare, but as it was 1859, all we had to get fucked up was telegraph wires-- no airplanes or satellite signals or electricity or telephone line wires, etc . . .

They really had fun with illustrative metaphors in this show, showing stuff like cue balls representing particles (and eventually showing a scene of cue balls dropping from the sky into a beach on the earth, detailing the end of solar radiation's life, lol . . . ).

I am such a geek. I still love to learn :-P I mean, this is really as close as I get to some of this stuff that still interests me. I've always liked things like meteorology and astronomy, but I just am not cut out to make a career of it (math . . . *hiss*), so I just get to engage in the light theoretical dabbling. I guess this way at least it always just remains slightly enigmatic and fun.

Then I had kind of a transient Buddhist moment as the scientists at the end were discussing the death of the sun, and how it doesn't bode well for the human race, etc . . . I was like, "Well, that's existence, for you. It comes and goes." Plus, honestly, we've only been human for how long? The earth is as old in years as we have years left before the sun dies. We are far, far gone before that ever happens; I think it's safe to say that humans will not be there to see it. As I said to Lisa, we're either going to evolve, or blow ourselves up-- or we may even blow ourselves up, leaving behind a single strain resistant to blowing up, and then evolve from there . . . lol . . .

I'm kind of amused at how little this upsets me, the idea of an end to humanity. I guess it's because it's not the end of everything. There was stuff before; there'll be stuff afterwards. You know, like God, or just . . . time. Plus I think I like to hang on to the idea that (Buddhist-y, once again) life is just one state in a vast process of consciousness, and everything that's ever died is still out there, in some form or another. I just don't know what "there" is-- a physical place, another form of being, another dimension, an alternate reality, or a union of collectiveness with everything.

I don't think about this stuff as often as I used to. I should more often. It makes me happier than worrying about all the stuff around here. 30,000 foot rule, I guess . . .