Random

I love the random things that happen which I get to view as providence.  I know in reality that random happenstance is really just that, a statistically generated possibility of outcomes.  But my brain gets to see it as the universe taking a little time out to string together a sequence of events that come out in my favor.  I've said before that this happens frequently to me, so I have ample opportunity to analyze this phenomenon at the personal level.  It’s odd however, that my first visceral reaction is to think that the sequence of events was supposed to play out the way it did.  I then step back and think.  If it events hadn't happened in this way, they would have happened in an equally random way.  Some people will think this takes the magic out of miracles, but think about it.  Which is more miraculous, that an omnipotent being with a grand plan, an interest in our every move, and observing only this one planet in the multitudes of the cosmos?  OR, that in a universe so vast as to be near infinite, we are on this one spheroid, are born out of a random pairing of two distinct genetic sequences, have varying degrees of talent and ability, create things and share them with others, and after all that, my Ipod will put two songs next to each other on shuffle that counter point each other and my mood?  The likely-hood of the latter is so vastly impossible that it doesn't merit computation.

Of course, you could break down every bit of the second question into different probability functions, with variables for each sections, and express it in a formula, but I don't do any of that in my head.

But speaking on this particular random event which I am enamored of, it was beautiful.  I was on the train home after confronting, and being comforted about, a particularly intense phobia I have, and reading.  I was reading about two cosmologists, Beatrice Tinsley and Allan Sandage arguing about whether the universe is open or closed.  I paused for a moment in my reading to digest a little bit of information, and realized this has been a big week for me.  I've been faced with everyday, huge fears that have until this point ruled my life.  People.  I'm terrified of them because on the whole, I understand that I will never know someone like I know myself.  But this week I've begun this blog, attempted extroversion, and attended a social gathering with people I'd never met all alone in someone’s home.  I've done these things for the simple reason of defying myself. 

However, I realized that I hadn't given myself sufficient time to celebrate these achievements.  So I took my Ipod off shuffle.  This is big, because I feel like I must keep it on there so that I can at least be reminded of all the music I own and justify its existence on the device.  But I treated myself to listening to something I really wanted to.  So I put on "Mumford and Son's" song White Blank Page because it speaks to me of tranquility and then onslaught of horrid emotion into the calm of your soul.  The keynote point in the song of course is the crescendo which accompanies two phrases, "a white blank page, and a swelling rage," which pretty much sums up writers block for me. 

I read some online blogs, all of which have the connecting thread that their authors are people I admire.  One of them, Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, writer for Penny Arcade, has said in interviews that he feels that he has to keep justifying the work he does, that if he doesn't live up to the standards, it will be taken away from him.  I can say many nice things about this man, but I will simply say that he has a talent no one can take from him.  But this is very much how I feel sometimes, staring at a blank piece of paper, or white computer screen.  I MUST fill it, or I will lose it all.  This is very true in that not exercising my linguistic talents may cause them to atrophy.  However, the reverse is also true, writing this much over this short a period of time has caused me to think about things that I want to write about almost constantly.  This in turn makes me wonder if I will ever, even with my diverse areas of curiosity, run out of things to write/think about.  I don't think so, but if I ever draw a blank I'll make a game out of it.