Mitt Romney, the Ocean, and Science

Hello readers. I hoped you liked the poetry. That was pretty much all my good poetry. I think I have some more somewhere, but if I don't find it I'll just have to write some more good ones to put on here. I have some good essays and miscellaneous writings that I plan to put on here in the future. But for now, it's time to whine about politics.

I was pretty bummed this morning when I found out how poorly Mitt Romney did yesterday, on Super Tuesday. All I can say is that I voted for him. Now if anything goes wrong during the next administration, I can say, "If Mitt Romney was the President, that wouldn’t have happened." But hey, you know what they say: you win some; you lose some.

Wicked soundtrack. Decorating. Academics. These are some of the things I could talk about. These could all be subjects for another blog post. But today I think I will focus on... the ocean.

The ocean is a very deep subject.

It's mysterious. The Titanic is down there. And giant squids are down there, too. And little creatures that look like a discarded hunk of glow-in-the-dark spaghetti are down there, excreting bright orange fluid. And those plants that look like human hands waving back and forth with spotlights for fingertips- those things are down there, too, probably eating microscopic algae stuff. Hmmmm… the ocean… there’s lots of stuff down there…

I read part of the introduction to a book the other day titled, "A Short History of Nearly Everything." by Bill Bryson. It was a really well written book on science intended for the common literate person rather than a scientist. It said something really interesting. It said, as far as I can remember, "If you could slowly pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would end up with a fine pile of atoms, none of which were ever alive, and yet all those atoms put together made you."

Strange, huh? Isn’t it weird to think that you’re made up of atoms and molecules? Have you ever seen molecules? I haven’t, but I've been told in science class that molecules consist of tinker-toy-looking-things, multi-colored balls and sticks, that break apart and swirl around and come back together. Strange to think that I, Telemoonfa, a being who is capable of feeling love, am made up of molecules. I thought I was cooler than that. I thought I was so cool, in fact, that I couldn’t be reduced to that level. I thought I was something more than a bunch of atoms that stick together for some scientific reason.

Speaking of science, I think my poems “A Botanist’s Love Poem” and “Mind the Boys you Date, Kathy…” are about the struggle between scientific thinking and emotional thinking. Let me explain.

“A Botanist’s Love Poem” is a silly poem, sure, but I would also like to think that it’s about a scientist attempting to figure out and express love. Funnily for us and sadly for him, his attempt just comes out wacky.

The speaker starts out in a stereotypical way by comparing a woman to a flower. It’s a nice start. Romantic poets have started this way before. After the initial simile, though, the speaker could have written about the grace and beauty of a flower, or the sweet fragrance emitting from both the flower and the lady, but instead he gets bogged down in the nuts and bolts. He focuses on the underlying systems that make a flower a flower. He focuses on the harsh reality of atoms and of molecules. He uses scientific terms, like, “stamen” and “calyx” and then once he uses those terms, he’s fascinated with them. He loves the meaning behind them. He loves the formulas and numeric tables that support their existence, that explain the nature of a flower, the invisible makeup of stem and leaf and petal. He writes about the underlying reasons, rather than the mysterious, unknowable beauty of a flower. Thus the poem becomes un-poetic. It becomes silly prose. Although, keep in mind that the botanist didn’t intend the poem to be silly. “A Botanist’s Love Poem” is a real attempt at love poetry. Maybe the speaker of the poem even thought that the object of his affection would be swayed by an injunction of science. Unfortunately, though, for our botanist, we may safely assume that the woman he was trying to flatter, upon the reception of this poem, laughed rather than blushed. But we who appreciate beauty, and we who write poems, know why this poem failed as a love poem. We feel and intuitively understand that no woman would be wooed by such an attempt as the botanist’s. We feel and intuitively understand that love poetry sounds more like Song of Myself and less like an encyclopedia entry on flowers.

Moving on to “Mind the Boys you Date, Kathy…” the speaker talks about his “certainty measuring instrument.” He fancies that he has some sort of machine that can measure his love. He keeps referring to the results of this instrument to prove his love. A more romantic man would have slain a dragon or dug ditches to earn money to buy an engagement ring, instead of referring to some supposedly scientifically sound love-rating machine.

(For more information on the clash between poems and scientific reports, I refer you to a fantastic book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I also refer you to my previous blog post, "Art Cannot Scientifically Be Known.")

To return to my previous thoughts about me being reduced to atoms, I've thought about it, and I have decided that I am more than the sum of my atomic and molecular parts. I am a soul. The whole of what I call “I” is something that science will never understand. (Mortal science, anyway. I cannot comment on the science which is practiced by angels.)

I mentioned my previous blog post, "Art Cannot Scientifically Be Known." A comment on that essay here would be fitting. When I started that essay, I thought that I would title it, “God and Art Cannot Scientifically Be Known." I thought that I would explain how God, by definition, is out of the realm of scientific knowledge. But I started writing and I wrote so much good stuff about art that I thought I would just stick to art. Also, I thought that since I entered that essay into a writing contest sponsored by a secular, public university, it would be safe to stay away from the topic of religion. But in my conclusion of that essay, I mentioned alternative methods for figuring out the world, like intuition and faith-based systems. What I meant by “faith-based systems” was religion, basically.

OK. I went from talking about my poetry on Telemoonfa Time, to Mitt Romney, to the ocean, to a topic that often seems to occupy my mind, the relationship between science and just about everything else. That was just to sum up. Take care.