I just remembered a time at ISU when I just enrolled. I had moved in and met Klick and Dan a couple weeks prior. Klick was out of town and I had finished all my programming assignments for the weekend by Thursday and was feeling quite restless sitting in my dorm all alone drinking beer and watching HBO.
I decided to go visit Dan. His roommate at the time was Tom McSweeney who visited for a short while, saw Dan and I, expressed his disappointment that the room wasn't available for him to have sex with his girlfriend Jen, and then he grabbed his toilettries and left for her single dorm at Watterson towers.
When I first arrived I realized that I was unexpected and that Dan probably had other plans for the night. Plans that undoubtedly would permit my presence, however, being the cordial and proper Catholic that he is, he didn't mention anything to me (for the time being) and we decided to go in on a bottle of Permafrost (a peppermint liquor of considerable strength).
We walked to the liquor store with limited conversation. After purchasing the bottle we walked back with the same uncomfort and awkwardness which continued until we each took a shot. Then we were off. From that moment my memory is quite hazy however it was not a blackout by any measure.
We discussed many subjects within which I felt versed and almost an authority of matters. A couple of times the topics swayed into his area of expertise but we eventually found a mutually interesting topic to which we were both adept, spirituality. I gave him my lecture on the creation and destination of the universe, citing Alan Guth, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman and noteable intellects from history as often I could manage without being excessively ostentatious. Mind you the bottle we were drinking was 160 proof.
We arrived on the topic of what constituted a sin. I explained sin in regards to the whole (universe and moreso life itself) as being any action that accelerates the decay or diminishes the longevity of the whole. Meaning that inefficiency, waste and disregard for the future were all primary sins.
We then decided to figure out between the tow of us what the good life entailed. I started by stating that eudymonia could only be achieved by fusing the spiritual and the physical life by realizing that they are one in the same. He disagreed on this point. His religious background was obviously stronger than my own and forebade this thinking; that everything is blessed by god and that the only limits to spiritual growth arrise from a rigidity of thinking.
I started to babble about the science supporting my ideas. First I explained that the blessed attribute of mankind is that we have millions of neurons that observe events, from a packet of light hitting a cone in the retina, to flavor, to hearing, to smell, to heat, to touch, and even to neurons that sense the states of other neurons (the key to conscious thought). Each interconnection creates a broader model of the environment within our own minds, but the true source of what is special is simply observation.
The act of observation is the glorious bond between matter and energy. Energy as itself is a wave, acts like a wave, travels as a wave, but once it interacts with matter it becomes a particle with all the properties therein. The interaction is the observation. Without observation there could be no life. I told him that all matter observes, hence everyTHING (matter) is blessed by god.
He was still very skeptical but respected my opinion ever since then. Before that day I don't think I said more than a couple of "hello"'s and "good-bye"'s to him, but afterward we discussed the deepest and most controversial topics with no reservations. All because of a catalyst...
Permafrost!!! [that is the answer] ---> inside joke :)
I decided to go visit Dan. His roommate at the time was Tom McSweeney who visited for a short while, saw Dan and I, expressed his disappointment that the room wasn't available for him to have sex with his girlfriend Jen, and then he grabbed his toilettries and left for her single dorm at Watterson towers.
When I first arrived I realized that I was unexpected and that Dan probably had other plans for the night. Plans that undoubtedly would permit my presence, however, being the cordial and proper Catholic that he is, he didn't mention anything to me (for the time being) and we decided to go in on a bottle of Permafrost (a peppermint liquor of considerable strength).
We walked to the liquor store with limited conversation. After purchasing the bottle we walked back with the same uncomfort and awkwardness which continued until we each took a shot. Then we were off. From that moment my memory is quite hazy however it was not a blackout by any measure.
We discussed many subjects within which I felt versed and almost an authority of matters. A couple of times the topics swayed into his area of expertise but we eventually found a mutually interesting topic to which we were both adept, spirituality. I gave him my lecture on the creation and destination of the universe, citing Alan Guth, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman and noteable intellects from history as often I could manage without being excessively ostentatious. Mind you the bottle we were drinking was 160 proof.
We arrived on the topic of what constituted a sin. I explained sin in regards to the whole (universe and moreso life itself) as being any action that accelerates the decay or diminishes the longevity of the whole. Meaning that inefficiency, waste and disregard for the future were all primary sins.
We then decided to figure out between the tow of us what the good life entailed. I started by stating that eudymonia could only be achieved by fusing the spiritual and the physical life by realizing that they are one in the same. He disagreed on this point. His religious background was obviously stronger than my own and forebade this thinking; that everything is blessed by god and that the only limits to spiritual growth arrise from a rigidity of thinking.
I started to babble about the science supporting my ideas. First I explained that the blessed attribute of mankind is that we have millions of neurons that observe events, from a packet of light hitting a cone in the retina, to flavor, to hearing, to smell, to heat, to touch, and even to neurons that sense the states of other neurons (the key to conscious thought). Each interconnection creates a broader model of the environment within our own minds, but the true source of what is special is simply observation.
The act of observation is the glorious bond between matter and energy. Energy as itself is a wave, acts like a wave, travels as a wave, but once it interacts with matter it becomes a particle with all the properties therein. The interaction is the observation. Without observation there could be no life. I told him that all matter observes, hence everyTHING (matter) is blessed by god.
He was still very skeptical but respected my opinion ever since then. Before that day I don't think I said more than a couple of "hello"'s and "good-bye"'s to him, but afterward we discussed the deepest and most controversial topics with no reservations. All because of a catalyst...
Permafrost!!! [that is the answer] ---> inside joke :)
posted by T.S. Idiot at 11:02 AM
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