DAMN, IT’S POSITIVELY INCONVENIENT TO DIE WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON THAT’S SO INTRIGUING.

Sometimes I really resent the fact that I have to die. It’s true we all have to die eventually, but that doesn’t make it any better, right now I resent it strictly for myself, never mind everyone else. My resentment is not about fear of illness, suffering, the process of dying, being versus non-being (not that those issues are irrelevant, they are just in a different category): the older I get the angrier I become about all the interesting happenings, discoveries, inventions I’m going to miss; questions about the universe and what it is are particularly fascinating, especially since it appears that physicists working in the field of quantum mechanics are getting closer to deciphering the language of the cosmos.

I don’t claim to comprehend quantum physics, maybe I never will, but considering what’s involved, an understanding perhaps, at last, of the universe, I’d like to be around when those discoveries are made by the top physicists and shared with the rest of humanity.

I have been watching Brian Greene on Public TV and I’m beginning to get it, just a little bit, what he is talking about, it is absolutely thrilling what he says about the properties of space, of the space-time continuum, black holes, string theory. The beauty of television is that you can illustrate concepts and make them easier to understand. String theory: all those vibrating little threads of energy happening simultaneously, creating combinations like the vibrations of the strings on a violin create sounds, it’s mind-boggling, all those possibilities popping in and out of existence. No wonder human beings invented God, they felt so small and so inconsequential, so frightened in the face of the immensity of the universe and all its wonders they had to find an entity much bigger and more powerful than themselves to protect them and give them refuge. I don’t mean to undermine God for those who believe in him, but could the reality of the universe be something far more exhilarating than a creator somewhat in the guise of a puppeteer, who for reasons only known to himself pulls the strings of humanity at whim, this way and that way.