I've been neglecting writing and updating this site. This is not a conscious decision but for some reason the winter leaves me uninspired. I suppose being surrounded by death doesn't help.
The plants are dead, there are no animals in sight and the snow absorbs a lot of sound, so even sound seems to die a little.
The snow really does make me think about mortality. All that snow out there was once (part of) a person. Humans are made up of about 60% water. Science teaches us that matter cannot be created or destroyed so all that water has been on this earth (in one form or another) since the beginning of time. I doubt that any water on the planet hasn't been through at least one person. I feel the same way when I see a skeleton on display somewhere. Its strange to think that that was once a person who lived a life and did day to day things and probably had an equally complex human experience as anyone living now.
Its not that death really scares me or anything. I guess being surrounded by snow just makes me think that one day this vessel of mine will also be lying in a pile outdoors as the object of many peoples contempt.
Reading your post got me thinking... IS there water on Earth that has not been within a human at some point? I remembered in ecology class how they talked about the stratification of water within lakes, and how most lakes consist of distinct layers of water that don't actually mix. The lowest "layer" is filled with rotting vegetation that supercharges it with carbon dioxide. Most lakes "turn over" twice a year, mixing the water in its various layers all together and then settling back into layers again.
ReplyDeleteSometimes a lake won't turn over for a while, and that bottom layer will just build up more and more and more carbon dioxide until it's like a fizzy soda. I remember learning about one particularly large lake (in Africa? Asia? It was a mountain lake near a primitive-type village, I remember that!) that didn't turn over for a VERY long time. When it finally did (because an earthquake disrupted it) the discharge of carbon dioxide was enormous. So enormous, in fact, that it smothered and killed every person living in that village (pure gaseous carbon dioxide is heavier than air, remember).
So why did I post this comment? I guess I got a kick out of the fact that the whole thought process returned back to the theme of death. Merry Christmas!
Yes there is water that has not been in a human...
ReplyDeleteand plants arent dead... they are alive in a different state... more akin to sleep than death... dont look at it that way... its so negative :|
Mmmmm... this is something that most Australians don't really experience. Winter is sometimes greener than spring/summer. I wonder if that affects the national character...
ReplyDelete(oh dear, you've got me thinking! Dr Smith warned me not to!)
Mr. Dee...I suggest you read this poem by my favorite poet, Hafiz:
ReplyDeleteHOW FASCINATING
How
Fascinating ithe idea of death
Can Be.
Too bad, though,
Because
It just isn't
True.
IS there water on Earth that has not been within a human at some point? This may help you, TAKE A DEEP BREATH!. Did you notice?
ReplyDeleteDid you feel the power of shakespeare, a dash of socrates mabey a little Jesus or How about Cleopatra? Well they are their..You just inhaled millions of molecules that each of them once exhaled... Textbooks show that earth atmospere contains about 1.6 X 10^44 atoms and each breath we take contains somewhat of 8X 10^22 atoms. To get a feel of the number if each atom in 8 x 10^22 was a gain of sand, you could cover the entire US to the depth of a 8 story building with each breath you exhaled...so moving on take # of atoms in the atomosphere as a whole by the number in a single breath, we can show that 1 in ever 2 x 10^21 atoms we breathe in the air right now are from Cleopatra's dying breath (assuming, the winds over 2 millennia did a good enough mixing job) THIS MEANS that each of us inhales and exhales about 40 atoms or about 20 molecles from Cleopatra's last breath...with each one we take.
So...you do the thinking about the water ;-)