Euan Semple's Blog, page 42

Oh what a relief it is

I’ve done some stuff, seen some stuff, and learned some stuff. Somehow this turned into sixteen years of speaking and consulting.

But I was never happy with what this did to my blog. The feeling that I should be writing a certain way about certain topics. Turning my blog into a series of LinkedIn updates was not what got me into this in the first place.

Now that the speaking and consulting has slowed to a trickle I feel I can write what I want on my blog. And it feels good.

I’ve still done some stuff, seen some stuff, and learned some stuff and am very happy if people want to pay me to come and have a natter about what I know.

But it is a relief not to feel that I have to make it look like I have all the answers. I don’t. No one does.

You want a physicist…

Thanks to Gia for sharing this on Facebook.

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid the energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”

– Aaron Freeman

A wee video

FOMO

I am sitting here (with Alby) at my desk in my office looking at the beginnings of what is going to be another beautiful sunrise. Rather than watching it from here I am thinking about going for a walk and getting a photo of it from a more photogenic angle. But I might not. It’s bloody cold out there.

I then feel guilty because I might miss the opportunity for appreciating spectacular beauty. Even more special beauty than I can see from my window. Missing out on something special feels like a waste of an opportunity.

But the constant draw of something special is what keeps us from experiencing peace. There is always something more special that we are missing out on. What we are experiencing is in comparison ordinary and mundane.

This is what marketing thrives on, and in some ways has exacerbated. There is always something better that we can, nay should, aspire to. In the process we become blinkered to just how special everything else is, miss the quotidian as it is happening, and the next thing we know we are breathing our last thinking “Was that it then?”

Worth the effort

It’s always worth making the effort to get out the door, no matter how short the walk.

Who let them get that way?

I glanced at something yesterday about Boris Johnson, and someone else, asking “Who kept quiet, acquiesced, condoned or excused bad behaviour throughout his life that made him think this was an ok way to be?”

I’ve just heard of someone in a work environment who uses an aggressive, dismissive, tone every time he sends an email to a hard working and under-appreciated group causing considerable distress each time.

The longer people like these think it is ok to behave the way they do the harder it is to change them.

If you see early signs in anyone you encounter say something – for all our sakes.

Lovely end to the day

Oh I do like…

I dropped off the van for a couple of little fixes at Sussex Campervans first thing and as their base in Horsham is on the way to Brighton…

Nice walk from Brighton Marina to Hove Lagoon and back and a chance to catch up with Hannah who is at University here.

A change of direction

I’m not really sure why, but most of the time I do my local circular walk, I do it anticlockwise. Tonight I turned right instead of left.

It never ceases to amaze me how different changing direction can make things look. This is why I am never bothered about having to do an out and back walk, the view is always different on the way back.

[Walking in “the golden hour” and a full moon can even improve HS2 boreholes!]

Reflections

I get glimpses, occasionally, of just how much my experience of the world is me reflecting back on myself.

What I notice, what I like, what I recoil from, it is all me.

Sure there is a “real” world out there. If I get hit by a car it will hurt.

But even that experience, what it means, how I respond to it, my state of mind as my last thought passes through my head as that solid object snuffs me out…

All of that is my consciousness filtering and sorting the only experience of life and the universe I will ever have.

Realising this changes your attitude to what is.