I find it kinda funny

Yes, I also find it kinda sad.

Today I'm referring to the massive set of storms that wound through the Plains last night. I find it kinda funny and sad because it occurred on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic - a fantastic example of man's hubris.



It's just like a little nudge, a reminder that we are by no means equipped to best nature - a reminder that, if you'll pardon the personification, we are guests on a planet, a living thing, that does not actually belong to us. It is our home, but the common mistake is to believe that our technology, our evolutionary dominance, actually provides us some kind of security. It is easy to forget, for some, that there are forces so far beyond our control that they give credence to ideas that otherwise seem outlandish - in English, the world is a dangerous place.

And perhaps I am strange, but I find more beauty in that danger, in that chaos, than in the peaceful calm that comes inevitably afterwards. It could be the adrenaline, or the reality that where I live has made me accustomed to the destructive capacity of nature.

I see beauty in the whirlwind, in the lightning, in the maelstrom...I see the patterned chaos that encircles us all the time, subtly and completely defying our ability to really grasp the world with any certainty.

I like that uncertainty, I suppose, no matter how often I'll seem so convinced that I have some of the answers. It reminds me that there is always more to learn.

But it is fitting, on the eve of the sinking of the unsinkable ship, to pause for a moment in the face of a storm and recall that we very often use words that do not fit the situation. We call things indestructible, unsinkable, immovable, and all of these other words that we hold no right to use. Our greatest endeavors are just as fragile as the straw house of an old and familiar little pig, and that is humbling.

Bad wolf. ;)

- C