'Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking...'

Saturday, November 30, 2013

a thought experiment...



     The universe appears to be expanding as we speak. It seems that acceleration is fairly constant, a = 1.2×10−10 ms−2 . If memory serves, this is also the acceleration that would take an object from rest to the speed of light (c) in the theoretical lifespan of the universe. 
     Imagine that the acceleration of the expanding universe allows all objects in the universe to asymptotically approach c as the universe approaches its theoretical terminus in time. Time dilates as we approach c, meaning that time 'slows down'. This implies, it would seem, that as the universe and all it 'contains (does the 'universe' contain objects, or is it simply the sum total of all objects that exist in spacetime? Is spacetime an 'object'? Is it...well, moving along...)... 
     Where was I? O, thank you.
     It would seem, dear reader, that the universe, whatever it is, will paradoxically cease to age as it gets older. This further implies that it has a beginning (big bang), but no end, understood as a 'moment' when it 'dies', either through a cataclysmic collapse or a 'heat death' understood according to the laws of thermodynamics. Indeed, this would violate the laws of thermodynamics, at least as understood by a groundling like me.
     Does this imply also that all things would approach stasis? Only when viewed from a frame of reference outside the universe itself, which is inconceivable (and yes, that word does in fact mean what I think it means). 
     This is all so much elementary school noodling of course, but it seems to make sense as I sit here watching people walk by on Grandview Avenue. 
     Finally, let it be understood that even if this is more than mere vapor, the condition described would not be the eternal life promised in the Kingdom of God which is coming and which has come. There is no process imminent in creation that yields the eschaton as a predictable result, and eternal life is not eternal duration.
     Good, glad we cleared that up once and for all. 

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Baudelaire!



I give you Charles Baudelaire reciting 'L'Albatros'. Do try to ignore the creepy animation.

a poem...


Adventus



This is the hour when the final snow falls
from bare branches trembling like plucked strings
the sun bleeds and the last songbird sings
for the graying of the sky and the winter squalls

hear bare branches trembling like plucked strings
hear too in memory the voice that always calls
for the graying of the sky and the winter squalls
as the memory of that voice yet stings

hear too in memory the voice that always calls
a heart to the world from the nothingness that rings
as the memory of that voice yet stings
and the ivy is dying on the cold brick walls

a heart to the world from the nothingness that rings
that world is afire with a thought that appalls
and the ivy is dying on the cold brick walls
yet the voice calls Time like a trap that springs




Thursday, November 21, 2013

dum dee dee dum dum dum dee dee redux...

     This is some first class insomnia. I've had insomnia for decades, and let me tell you, it doesn't get much better than this. Tired? Yes. Slightly loopy? Check. Using the Amazon.com 'One Click' feature too much for my own good? O hell yes. Thinking on Plato, Augustine, Baudelaire? Why not. Listening to Beethoven? Like I would listen to anything else right now. 
     I could, of course, do some work, you know, like updating my files and suchlikethatthere. But no, on second thought, I'll just listen to Beethoven. To while away the hours otherwise, I will challenge myself to a game of 'Avoid Amazon'. O, and for you, gentle reader, I offer this, the best XKCD in many a moon. As I've been interviewing candidates for a few days, this just made sense somehow. Enjoy.


Wednesday, November 20, 2013

a few thoughts on the value of work...

     There are times when I realize that I'm only masquerading as a 'man of action', a hard-charging businessman. This 'man of action' much prefers contemplation, study, writing, and endless, almost aimless wandering as a flaneur. Yet, and here's the self-referential rub, such a life is in many ways bad for me. 
     I suffer from acidie, you see, classical sloth. Without the job, I would have too many extended periods of torpor, during which I don't so much practice Christian contemplation as peer into the abyss of nothingness into which I can fall at any moment. I quite like that abyss, you see, there are secrets in that abyss that no man has yet to hear, and that makes it for a man like me supremely dangerous. Having the job does not free me from this temptation, but it limits the times when I can completely slide into a fascination with the abyss. 

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Nietzsche is not beyond good and evil here...



'Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!"'

     I have actually experienced that tremendous moment. In fact, there have been many such moments. For a man, however, to abandon his wife in search of 'freedom' is in fact slavery, slavery to the passions of childhood. Maybe I say this because one of those moments was when I met my wife. There is such a thing as disordered love - it cannot be made righteous by mere desire. There is also such a thing as hopeless love - it cannot be requited by a wish. Real love is a gift of pure freedom, and it is absolute. To abandon the beloved in search of freedom is to forfeit freedom for all time.
     Yet in one thing is Nietzsche not only right but righteous - the union of the lover and the beloved is not some deontological confection, ordered by a calculus of duties performed. It is a free union that can never be broken without grave sin. It is self-abandonment for the beloved (here the good philosopher loses his mind), never the abandonment of the beloved for the self.*
     For those whose loves are inherently disordered, this world is harder still than it already would have been otherwise. There is nothing to be done, for there is a Love greater still than our human loves, though it is not inimical to all of them. That Love, which moves all things, bears all things, saves all things, is a subject for another time.

* For what it's worth, I speak as one who was once abandoned.  

Sunday, November 17, 2013

this remains my dream car...



     Yes, the price is over $1.5 million, you need an army of folks to take care of it along with a place to store it, and, yes, it's probably a bit touchy and high maintenance, but let's not allow such details to get in the way of a decent fantasy. Now, I wouldn't go for the orange trim package. Keep it elegant - that's the key. The Bugatti is a hypercar that flies at paint-peeling speeds, while remaining civilized. 
     Picking up one of these is like buying a private jet more than anything else. Come to think of it, if you're in the market for a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, you might also be in the market for a Gulfstream - that's a dream for another day.
   

dare to dream, dare to dream...




     I would like one day to take on the Nürburgring in something with way too much brake horsepower. Should that dream ever come true, you can rest assured dear reader that I, too, will crash at some point. 

Saturday, November 16, 2013

a poem...


Adam’s Question



Am I doomed by this cunning mind
to wander so far from home day and night,
to wander at will among storms of wind
and hail, or scattering waves of light,
tricked by a tale though I hope to alight
at the last among those of your kind?