Still, it never ceases to amaze me at how many times, in the course of a normal month, week, day, and (on bad days) hour, people will invoke this sentence as a definitive argument and statement of fact.
[Moment of silent contemplation]
A scientist, chosen by the same gang that strong-armed Galileo into backsies, that poo-pooed Copernicus, and that burned Giordano Bruno for heresy in the middle of Campo dei Fiori. As a class, these are people who do not get along very well with scientists. But now...
HABEMUS SCIENTIFICUS!
Just to be clear: it is called a "pact" because it is an agreement. It is called the Warsaw Pact because it was signed in Warsaw.
There has long been an unwritten psychological boon which comes with this. We shop when we are feeling down. We shop when we are feeling good. We feel empowered even if we do not buy anything. The very idea that we COULD decide to exchange money for the good on display before us is a powerful notion.
They were Nike sneakers by the way. Originals.
We usually think we don't have enough of it, as if it would suddenly run out. And sometimes time seems to stand still. We set ourselves appointments in time, deadlines in time, and sometimes allow ourselves a timeout.
The whole world has agreed to this arbitrary standard, as a means of segmenting our finite human sojourn on this planet. We have divided it up into a certain amount of months, weeks, days, and hours and we agree to allow it to reign supreme over all our activities. Time is a cruel master - it never bends to our needs and we are forever chasing after it.
I find myself thinking in quips and quotes and bons mots. I am unable to sustain a thought for more than about three seconds before looking for new sensory inputs. I am deathly afraid that I may lose my train of thought and not even be able to finish this blog post. I might substitute a YouTube video instead. I might just encapsulate the whole thing in a three word sentence.
Facebook is slowly robbing me of my already challenged attention span.