The other day my friends and I had, what I would call, a rather profound conversation. But maybe conversation is the wrong word to use, seeing as it consisted mostly of questions.
What is time? I asked no-one in particular.
What is memory? What is thought? If the universe is constantly expanding, what is it expanding into?
These questions, and our entire exchange of words had been set off by our chemistry class earlier that morning. Everything is made up up of atoms. A fact. Atoms are the smallest division of anything, of everything. If you divide an atom any more, it no longer is that thing. An atom is made up of sub-atomic particles. A nucleus consisting of positively charged protons and neutrons. Fact.
Moving around the nucleus are electrons (or in Hydrogen's case, a electron), moving so fast they create a cloud around the nucleus. But between the the nucleus as the electron, what is there? A vacuum. Space.
Our science teacher told us that if the nucleus was the size of an apple, the electron would be five football fields away. Space. Nothingness. That is what an atom mostly is. And atoms make up everything.
So everything is mostly space.
This fact did not enlighten me at all. It only made me realise how little I know. Our conversation made me realise how little I am, how insignificant I am in the scheme of things. Our entire galaxy, our world and existence, is insignificant when placed in a juxtaposition with the size of the universe, the sheer enormity. When you start to realise that we are not the world, and the universe does not revolve around us, things a put into perspective, or possibly, out of perspective.
But who was it that said, Wisdom is knowing how much you don't know ? While this is true, I think wisdom is a lot of things; experience, ignorance, your attitude, how you perceive things. I wrote ignorance right now to acknowledge the 'ignorance of youth'. Not so much the hormonal youth of the teen years, don't take it personally, but we all seem to be one or a combination of the following. Thinking we know it all, not caring at all, or knowing and caring about all the wrong things.
No, I'm talking about the people that are new to the world, and have only had a few years to figure things out. There hasn't been enough time in their life to learn what we have, or to see and hear the things we have. Their innocence and blissful ignorance don't last forever; a temporary state. I believe this is a type of wisdom, because the way they perceive things, and their view on life is refreshing, and beautifully simple.
The word 'ignorance' is probably not the correct term. However, I think I have explained what I mean by it.
Ignorance; not knowing. Paint me into a slightly bigger picture, and I'm self-admittedly ignorant. And that's not blissful at all.
What is it that people say, fear is only the unknown?
I don't think innocence is the right word either, because that implies that our world somehow dirties their minds as they understand it slightly more, and makes them guilty, and I don't think that at all.
In Leonardo da Vinci's five point technique, he did indeed state, Ask questions all the time
All the people we consider to be the symbol of genius have questioned widely accepted knowledge, re-written facts, discovered new things about the world. You don't do those things by walking the beaten track.
The most frustrating thing is that most of these questions have answers, but some of the answers we wouldn't even understand, and some answers we have little hope of ever finding.
When we discussing all these things, feelings of unsettling confusion and hopelessness settled upon us.
We only use about 2% of our brain. Do we feel this way, this inner turmoil, this insecurity and frustration, just because we cannot physically comprehend these things, and that the answers to these questions are simply beyond us?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment