twenty-odd degrees is the axial tilt
relative to the ecliptic
so solstices are more sunny at a pole
lights out at the other
so the heat of a midsummer sea
is most energetic at that encircling bulge
closest to the fusion reactor heating sea-nrew
so storms and hurricanes
so tides and land-crawling newbies
so us
thus us
so thank the tilt we’re here
somewhere in our heads we think primitively about the sun.
part of us thinks it is taking a break when it sets. that it is a colder sun in winter, and it cranks up the knob in summer. that it burns. that it is a fire up above us.
even so, a little part of most of us knows that the sun is not on fire, that what seems like burning is actually a nuclear-fusion explosion in a celestial body so huge that its gravity keeps it self-contained and convecting.
a few of us even know that the sun is never above us, that it is always below us, at the bottom of our local gravity well. our words “below” and “above” were invented when space and time was misunderstood, and the inertia of our languages will always hamper our thinking.
there is also the matter of our brains, forged over millennia to meet survival challenges. the next time you see unexpected movement at the edge of your peripheral vision, “out of the corner of your eye” as we primitively put it, you will probably get a microjolt of fear until you are convinced you are not being threatened, and you may behave manically until your blood chemistry re-normalizes.
this is all part of your Great Human Adventure, at the most intimate level, you using your homefired primitive tools to make sophisticated sense out of the life you have, and making the life you have a better one through the thousands of decisions and choices and observations you make every day.
one word of exquisite usefulness I commend to your attention:
enjoyment.
en joy ment.
an involvement with J O Y.
friend, may you know it well, and have it well within you.
Facing unforeseen adversity often generates FEAR whenever unknown forces energize.
“Simple–almost comic,” as F Murray Abraham as Salieri said of the beginning of a Mozart piece in AMADEUS. So that’s where Fear comes from. But how do we make it go away? For Fear DOES interfere–with endeavor, with romance, with peace of mind.
There is a Vonnegut book called GALAPAGOS which imagines the next million years of human evolution beginning with a handful of survivors of a disaster that wiped out the rest of the human race. Their heads become more streamlined, that they may swim faster and catch the fish they need to survive; their brains become smaller and less capable of deceit and other problems “great big brains” create.
I have a strong feeling that Stephen Baxter, author of MANIFOLD: ORIGIN, has read GALAPAGOS and was influenced or inspired by it. In M:O different offshoots of hominids such as Homines Erectus, Australopithecus and Neandertalis are stranded on an outsized red-dusted, atmosphered moon, which has suddenly appeared in Luna’s place. Onto this moon Emma Stoney, lover/hater of Reid Malenfant, has fallen, due to Malenfant’s foolhardy go-fevered impulse . . .
Sorry about that. Off-track digression. Please read the book if you want an ingenious answer to Fermi’s Paradox, which may  be oversimply stated as “If there are other intelligences than our own, why haven’t they been here already?” The M:O connection with Vonnegut has to do with Baxter’s imaginings of the different ways different intelligences could evolve in different species. The most intelligent of his lot, his Homo Superior folks, look a lot like gorillas, and walk on their knuckles as well as their feet. They are so intelligent that they move vast distances by mentally manipulating space.
Each intelligence has its upside and downside. Neandertals are unhampered by mythology. H. Superior with its short lifetime and limited resources tend to wring every atom’s worth out of their “farms” rather than go spacefaring. H. Sapiens make great intuitive leaps, but we also lie and steal and such.
Back to Fear: Emma Stoney is called upon to think like a Neandertal in order to breach a barrier. She learns of their fatalism, their involvement in the moment, and their lack of sentimentality for tools and other possessions. While making tools in the Neandertal fashion Emma suddenly finds herself becoming the tool she’s making, and in that moment her connection with the Neandertal is made.
Fear, I think, is a lack of connection with that which we fear. Afraid to show your feelings to a potential Special Someone? Learn about that person and what welcome your feelings would get. (Do not stalk, though.) Afraid to go off the High Dive into a washtub full of piranha? Find something better to do. 🙂
One with Clay, Image and Text 