Sky Above

It has taken me a while now before I get this chance to sit on this cold, slightly cloudy December morning and tell my tale. Usually, I don’t get the time to do something when I have so many things to do or sometimes, when the inspiration for the work wears off. As for this, the inspiration for Ricochet Bullets is still here but the numerous activities recently have prevented me for some time to go through RB.

So much for the explanations for a late entry.

What I want to share here is that short walk I did the last time we did an orientation for our organization at the university. Having such a too-far (relative to the town proper) ‘hide-out’, there is always no choice, whenever I find myself out late at night, to make a long trip just to get back to where we are staying. And sometimes, I had to walk the rest of the distance as the trikes sometimes could not possibly go straight to it: they usually ply the main road and so I have to do the walk.

I have done the ‘walk’ for so many times and even mentioned about it in an earlier entry. But that particular night caught me entranced, for the night was amazingly clear and there was to marvel at were the stars and the moon, shaped like the smile of the Cheshire Cat.

There was I, miniscule my knowledge of astronomy might be, but I could feel that there was the same intensity of excitement at seeing such a beautiful night, and I believe that for thousand of years now, that excitement never ceases to draw people towards it, whether they are from the fields of arts or sciences.

After all, I do not have to get surprised at our common excitement - we all share this magnificent ceiling of a sky.

Fire

Isang libong alitaptap,
At sila’y pumapagaspas…
-"Alitaptap", Sandwich-

I am making these night walks for the past three months now and they all contained the same fascination that I first felt when I walked happily, though blindly, through that same village border. Fireflies indeed made my walks bearable despite a number of objections that arose against them (the walks, that is).

Fireflies, fireflies.

How could you contain that enjoyment in seeing little lights blinking on and off beside you as walk? Not many places have such scenery now. I, and our neighbors there as well, should enjoy this while it is still present.

Not End of Road After All…

(a seeming continuation of the previous Ricochet Bullets entry)

If there was anything that made an impact on me in the last few days, that would be my encounter with Dr. Amador Muriel. I should have divined earlier that I have actually heard him lecture two years ago and enjoyed his discussion (it was about the story that concerns Boltzmann that interested me at that time) but that lapse have proven itself very useful – it enabled me to listen more to him.

Simple, concise, brilliant, and humorous.

I may set myself satisfied by these definitions of him. His talk on his struggle to build a more solid theory explaining turbulence quantum mechanically has been exceptionally capturing. It was obvious that he maintains a toned down atmosphere concerning his work, but it was evident to me that the world in which he immersed himself was brutal. But his very presence in our physics lecture hall after all those years of work and research abroad only proved to me that he is one strong individual.

His book that I bought (thanks to that overwhelming price discount) and devoured in just a day helped me in aiming my activities in a more coherent direction. I may never be able to reach his level but I could very well adapt his conviction and methods and thus set myself to things that I thought I cannot possibly do.

Self-transcendence.

I could summarize his story in that word.

And so I thought of an earlier entry here and realized that indeed there is still much to know about nature. They may be becoming complex as days go by. But one is only limited by his imagination and diligence. You and I can excel and exceed in what we do right now.

End of...

Waiting in line for the check up we were having every month, I discussed with an intimate some historical tidbits about the discovery of the Gas Laws, enjoying very well the fact that I am contributing again to the arsenal of knowledge that this intimate needs at work.

But then, at the end of it, a remark was given, or more precisely a question was posed: Why does it seem that there were more discoveries made in the past than today? It was a pretty solid question which I attempted to answer briefly. It was only later that I was able to reflect on it more thoroughly.

Yes, it could be said that way. Seeing the advancement in almost all aspects of our lives today, it would seem that what we are witnessing are just refinements of the past discoveries. I myself feel the difference when I read items of discoveries in, say, the seventeenth century, and when I read on a discovery of the recent decade. There is this excitement as I go through the story of those “old” discoveries. I could place a tentative explanation on it. Discoveries in the past are generally discoveries on the fundamentals. I would dare to cite Newton’s work as an example. Although most of them had precursors or earlier works on which they built their works, the refinements were extensive, if not thoroughly novel. Most of the discoveries today is encaged in technical journals and some hard-to-find magazines (relative to this country) which further alienates the public from knowing these new things.

But then, on a lighter note, I could have said to this intimate that it is on the volition of an individual to update himself on new things (i.e. on science). We are only limited by our imagination to excel in essentially any thing.

Awe and Wonder

I could only recall the partial solar eclipse I witnessed last week with the same childlike wonder. It was no more than twenty minutes. Through the folded layers of an old chest x-ray film, that rare event unfolded before me. I could have passed out (just like that scientist of a long time ago who passed out just before the transit of Venus) were it not for the conscious desire to consume all of it into my system.

Is there in every man an inherent attraction towards things of the cosmos? towards things that are essentially un-terrestrial? These may remain to be solved.

Despite the deepening knowledge of man about nature, we cannot help but identify that wonder, perhaps awe, in witnessing some aspects of nature’s beauty.

Ricochet Bullets

there is an interplay between the realm of spectators and actors | and in the border between these two, i am caught | i wish to key in the thoughts i got from the seeming phantom of experiences