I remember when I first learned that we were made of atoms and that most of us was actually space, I was disconcerted. I was troubled learning that I was mostly space. As I'm writing this I realize that I should by now have realized something even more troubling, that given quantum mechanics, I'm not even made of mostly space and particles but I'm actually made of a huge bunch of wave-functions. (Oh my goodness I think I've potentially just given myself nightmares and daymares for a month right there.) This is without even mentioning that the space I'm made of is not really space because as was pointed out to me by my favourite physicist, "There are no vacuums in space because of quantum mechanics."
But ok what I'm trying to say is that I find it a bit emotionally draining sometimes to learn all this stuff. It seems a bit weird to get emotionally disconcerted about academic things just from courses in school, especially when you're talking about Math and Physics, supposedly some of the most abstract stuff.
And yes not only Physics but also Math is disconcerting. I may just have been exceptionally stressed and sleep deprived when I was taking multivariable and vector calculus but the curve parametization thing made me think of how everything imaginable could possibly be parametized and thought of differently and that was somehow unnerving.
Sometimes I feel that apart from the difficulty of learning everything and managing to wrap my mind around things, if I can do that, it's a bit scary to be learning so many new things, kind of like getting hit with a brick in the head and just trying to recover for a few days. One of my first semesters of Physics was like that (not just from the Physics... someone else was blowing my mind too). My brain was full, I had so much to think about. I think that I felt vulnerable. I couldn't envelope myself in my usual cloud of rumination and thoughtlessness to protect myself from the world. I had been pulled to the surface. I was constantly being re-awoken. Life was so intense and ideas were hitting me from so many directions. I'm not sure if people like to be told things that blow their minds much or new things. I'm not sure if people like life to be that intense. Maybe this is why people choose denial, they prefer the 'calmness' and the security of burying their heads in the sand ? And at the same time I really like that sensation, in a way.
I love getting hit in the head with an idea that's like a brick. I feel alive and awake. And it's scary. Some days I've said, "Never mind I'm going back to my box... where everyone tells me the same ole same ole." But my best friend who has ever heard me sulk about my box while I was in it, knows I can't do that. I was going to die of the people who wanted to chat about the weather and Tuesday night laundry. At the same time if I had to put up with them I would :p My brain would certainly protest to hear of more interesting mind blowing stuff and that might hurt but I would accept it I guess.
I was told a few years ago after I complained to a friend of mine that someone was always being a few steps ahead of me and hitting me in the head with over the top ideas, they suggested that I perhaps hit people in the head with a brick. Now I see that I have done that a LOT in my life. Not because I'm particularly ahead of anyone but I have the lack of presence of mind to mention things/concepts that I've spent months thinking up and acclimating to, to someone who gets to hear about it all in five minutes. To them I think it's a bit disconcerting (unless they've been thinking up the same things) and confusing. I think I do this often indadvertedly, because in some respects I'm not being empathetic enough. I can be extremely wrapped up in my own world and my own ideas. I wish I was more empathetic and on the same page with people not necessarily in the sense of thinking the same as them but in the sense of seeing where they are coming from too.
0 comments:
Post a Comment