One of those shake your head moments

I just read an online article about creating new life. Scientists around the world are working on ways to create synthetic living cells. They seem to be throwing the building blocks of life together and letting nature take over. I'm sure it's all more controlled, but that's how it sounded in the article.

There's a great quote at the end of the article where a prominent scientist in this field is talking about the possibility of some new form of life running amok and creating chaos. The scientist says, “When these things are created, they’re going to be so weak, it’ll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab. But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen.”

I was immediately reminded of Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park who constantly reminds the dumber, more God-complex characters that "life finds a way." It just seems to me that if you're going to create rogue artifical life forms you better expect the unexpected. Man, I can just see a Michael Crighton novel about this in the next few years. Freaky.

Crazy Existential Madness

I have no problem with crazy existential madness. Most of my favorite philosophers/thinkers have at one time or another be content with the existential label. Personally, I don't think existentialism died in the late 20th century, as some philosophy instructors would have you believe, but became part-and-parcel of everyday life to the level that it became an everyday strategy for, well, existence.

But sometimes, darn-it, crazy existential madness can give you an upset stomach and a sinking feeling in the parts behind your stomach, your chi if such a place exists. I had one of those moments earlier this evening and my chi is still doing crazy summersaults that are keeping me awake. I don't want to go into detail, but it was a familial/generational feeling that is likely to persist for quite sometime if I allow it to.

In truth, it has always been there, but it has gone unspoken for so long that, like most unspoken things, it felt as if it never really existed in the first place. Speaking it aloud gave it a life-force, an elan vital, that was as unexpected as it was uncomfortable. But it was necessary to say it aloud, just as it necessary that I now deal with it in whatever tactical ways I can.

One brilliant part of Little Miss Sunshine, which is otherwise filled with brilliant parts, is when Steve Carrell's character is talking about Proust on the dock. He says something to the effect that Proust came to realize that the best parts of his life were all the uncomfortable, agonizing parts of life. I believe in something like this myself, and hence I accept you, my crazy existential madness. I accept you, your challenges, and your rewards. I accept you. Bring it on!

Travels

I recently travelled close to 3,000 miles across the Midwest. I checked out the mighty northern town of Chicago, the slightly more mellow Madison, and then headed into the South - Arkansas to be precise, which was definitely a different cultural experience than anywhere else I've been.

Madison is a delightful town. I had never been there before, but I had a great time. It's a college town, and this is summertime so most of the college students were on hiatus, which means I was expecting to get a watered down version of Madison. But still it was good times. College towns tend to have their identities engulfed if they don't have something else solid to present to the rest of the world. I live near one of the bigger college towns in the US - Boulder - and Boulder would definitely be a poor place to visit if it didn't have its own unique character and flavor quite irrespective of the University of Colorado campus that dominates the southern half of town. Madison may or may not be a cool place to live. I'll have to check it out sometime during the school year.

Arkansas. Wow, what a crazy place. I visited the northeastern corner of Arkansas for about 24 hours and it was intense. I had never seen a cypress tree before and they might be the second coolest tree I've ever seen. (The redwoods of California will always be number one.) Cypress trees have a beauty and grandeur that reminds me of a Japanese woodblock print. They are solid in their barkless sky-reaching trunks, yet their delicate branches reach out in an aesthetic symmetry that is breathtaking. So yeah, the coolest thing about Arkansas was the cypress trees. I saw cotton fields and a cotton warehouse which was completely fascinating given the history of cotton in shaping this country. My host announced that in the South cotton is still king, and the racial divides that have haunted our country since its inception are still as strong as ever. I wasn't around long enough to confirm this, but Arkansas was definitely the South with all its charm and dark history. I would have liked to visit Memphis. Maybe another time.

Kansas sucks.