30 October 2013

Control Illusions

Comfort comes in many forms.  It can be a blanket.  It can be a memory.  It can be a routine.  Comfort can be the illusion of control.  Nothing scares most people more than this realization.  Even as I type this I always feel that I have some type of control but I don't.  No one does.  On my way home today, which is a straight 2.5 miles to my house, I could be hit or hit someone.  I could not wake up tomorrow.  I could also wake up for the next 50 years.  I don't know.  I am not in control.  There are little actions I can take that have an overall effect but it is not precise.

Example?  I could switch to low fat milk/cheese as my physician suggested, which I probably won't because I like food, to add 3 years to my 50 years of waking up.  It would have the effect of helping my heart stay strong longer but it doesn't mean that those 3 years extra could not exist because of something else.

If you have children, you don't truly know what they will be.  Who they will be.  How they will love.

Courtesy of  I Fucking Love Science.
Control.  Quite an illusion.  I know this, probably intuitively since childhood but I forget sometimes, I really do.  On a daily basis I make plans.  I look towards the future and plan.  Lately though I've been questioning all of these things.  I think my job makes me think about these things more often than I used to, seems to cause a few existential crises a month.  You know all this working with individual amino acids and their tiny components (protons, electrons, neutrons, bonds between these) makes you wonder about the silly things that we plan for in our lives.

I think I'm just going to concentrate on enjoying the little things that make me happy and not worry too much about being productive all of the time (not applicable to work) or going places.  While I'm planning on going places or doing activities or having stuff, my essence is disappearing into the abyss of entropy that is our universe, so let me just say I love all you atoms and your bonds that make us, us, you, and I!  Tell your special accumulation of calcium just how much their aggregation in this here and now means to you because at the end of the day we just got lucky.

Have a great week!

2 comments:

  1. Control? LOL I have no life of my own. I have 4 kids in various stages of life that always need something. Tommorrow my oldest moves from one apartment to another acroos town. I am also being sent to Buffalo Sunday to work and train a guy on how to take material samples.

    Control? My cardiologist wonts me to eat better excersise and lose weight. Yea I know I should but I am busy and tired at the end of the day and dont feel like walking or going to the gym. He said he got up at 5 in the morning to run. He is three years younger than I, physically fit and died suddenly in his home.

    I always tell my kids when they are on the road that it doesnt matter how good of drivers they are. They are not in control of the situation.

    I have no life of my own. I just kinda float along river trying not to run into rocks and waterfalls.

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    Replies
    1. Yup so true! Hope you have a great weekend no rocks or waterfalls come your way :)

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