Sunday

I'm doing a clothes audit. Already, there are three Sainsbury's bags for life full of clothes that will find their way to the cancer research charity shop. Clothes that don't fit any longer, clothes that I haven't worn in over a year and know I won't wear again. Except a few things that, even though I won't wear them again, have turned from simple apparel into memory weave. These are mostly t-shirts, since as souvenirs I like to buy either t-shirts or mugs, but there is one blouse that I have owned since the days I studied for my Masters thesis.

I seem to have a "thing" for white linen blouses. It is amazing how many of these I own, and even they are all white linen blouses (and tunics), not two of them are the same. Yes, they get dirty very quickly, or rather show every speck instantly, and yes, some might think that the combination of white linen top / blue jeans is boring, but truth be told, it is still one of my favourite things to wear.

In other news, my friend in New York is having an operation on his spine today and tomorrow (yes, weird, but that's what he said). I hope it will all go well, and that he'll finally be rid of that persistent pain in the back he's got.

Huh?

Given that it is the weekend, when do you suppose the guy downstairs is starting to redecorate the flat he's going to put on the market soon? And by redecorating, I mean drilling, sowing, and hammering?

Yes. At 5:30 on Sunday evening. Strange, strange man.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair

So I watched the first episode of Professor Brian Cox's new show, "Wonders of the Universe", or as much of it as my failing router allowed me to (I do hope BT get their act together and send me a new router soon). It's kind of hard to put my thoughts on that episode into words. Not the presentation or the production or the content, because that was all fantastic and informative and very cool. However.

Of course I know about the second law of thermodynamics ("know about" as in "I know what it means and what the results are but don't ask me to write down a formula"); I know about entropy and that stuff wants to be in equilibrium, which it eventually will at the heat death of the universe.

Aye, there's the rub. Everything dies; every sun, every planet, every white dwarf, every black hole. There will be nothing left, not even time, because there is nothing that time can happen to. Just an eternal now of uniform nothingness. And even though I know that this non-event is incredibly far away in the future, and it is highly unlikely that any intelligence will be there to witness it, let alone human intelligence, thinking about this makes me incredibly sad.

I will die; that is a fact (unless there is something I've not been told). But when I do, there will still be people; things will go on even though I'm not there to witness it (unless the world is just a figment of my imagination, but let's not go there). Life will continue - but that gladdening thought is ultimately wrong. "Wonders of the Universe" drove that realisation home in the strongest possible way.

If nothing endures, nothing matters in the long run because there will be no matter in the long run. It is at the same time a sobering, saddening and liberating thought.

There is really nothing you must be.
And there is nothing you must do.
There is really nothing you must have.
And there is nothing you must know.
There is really nothing you must become.

However, it helps to understand that fire burns,
and when it rains, the earth gets wet.