science

"The more I know, the less I understand"

            Do you have any idea how many times I’ve mentioned that I don’t belong on this planet? Nine, this year alone.

            Don Henley said it best in his song “The Heart of the Matter.” – “The more I know, the less I understand…” I really like Don Henley. And, unlike me, he really belongs on the planet.

            For whatever reason, I’ve been interested in science a lot lately. Biology, chemistry, technology… Not entomology. Not crazy about bugs. But, I’ve developed a fascination for the other stuff.

            Unfortunately, I don’t have anyone I can share my fascination with. I’ll mention some supernatural phenomenon to Kay and she’ll nod and say something dazzling like, “O’ wow.” Or “Cool beans.” It’s patronizing as all get out, but she thinks I don’t know that.

            On the “Hanging with the Hayters” radio show today, I was telling listeners about some of the scientific stuff I’d read. I was talking about how much argon is in the air. Did you know that there is more argon in the air we breathe than there is carbon dioxide? Our air contains about 1 percent argon and about .05 percent CO2?

            We use argon in light bulbs and double-paned windows and other stuff. We use carbon dioxide to make dry ice and, uh, beer and for fire extinguishers. And, plants seem to like it. Unfortunately, an increase in the level of CO2 in our atmosphere heats the planet it up. Too little makes the planet too cool. The key is to reach a happy point.

            The problem with talking science on the radio is the fact that can come across as boring. Especially when I’m the one talking about it. You get no feedback from a radio audience. I know how many of ‘em have tuned me out. The only audience I have is Kay. Did I tell you about patronizing she can be? Oh, and the director, Dick? I get no feedback from him. He could be over there gnawing on one of those beef sticks for all I know.

            That’s pretty much the reason I’m sharing all of this with you right now. I’m going to continue to bounce science info around, knowing that some of you will respond. I’ll get a couple of nice comments from really sweet fans, and several nasty comments from some of the more argumentative among us. Which is good, simply because it offers me a segway/segue into another topic on science. It has to do with complaining.

            I recently read that complaining gets easier to do the more you do it. Some of us can actually become experts at it. It has to do with the synapses in your brain. Our brains function my electrical charges that are created by chemical reactions inside our bodies. Different chemicals are carried to different parts of our bodies. – Stay awake! – The combination of some create electrical charges, due to electrons from the atoms of… whatever.

            The electricity is used to spur new thoughts, old memories and reflexes. Your lungs actually have to be told to inhale. In our brains the electricity shoots chemicals to one or more of your synapses. We’ve got synapses for different feelings and they’re positioned in different parts of your brain. We’ve got happy, angry, sad, apathetic places in your brains.

            When we start complaining, our synapses that are the big complainers are drawn closer together to create somewhat of a bridge so the electricity can move more easily between the blank areas in our brain. (Oh, yeah. We’ve got some air space in our brains. I’ve been told I’ve got a bunch.) The more we complain the closer the synapses and the shorter the bridges need to be.  After awhile we have actually programmed our brains to complain. We become what are known as malcontents. You know who you are.

            What we to do is to build more bridges to our happy, kind, patient, nice synapses. We do that by playing the Pollyanna game. Think of happy stuff whenever you can. Soon, our pleasant synapses will be really close to one another and our minds will be wired to happy thoughts. Some of us would rather take a big shot of booze or opiates to get there. Stuff like that builds a whole different set of bridges.

            Isn’t it weird to think of our bodies functioning through the use of electricity? I just imagine that’s how we can shock people’s hearts back to beating. And, how we can shock people to make ‘em forget bad stuff. Of course, never over-shock. It’s like CO2. You want the exact right amount.  

            I see we’ve lost a bunch of you, so let me mention this one last thing. It has to do with those devices that actually recognize your voice. You can plug ‘em into an outlet in your house, and tell your air conditioner to come on. You can tell the thing to order you a large pepperoni pizza with extra sauce. Tell you bank to shift money from one account to another.

            I cannot even imagine the technology that goes into something like that. I can buy a device like that for about $50, but it won’t work in my house, because my house is as dumb as I am. However, Kay can pick up her cell phone while we’re 46 miles this side of San Antonio driving at a speed of 70 mph. She’ll say, “Okay, Google, where is the nearest Arb

y’s?” In a few seconds there is a display on her phone showing her the nearest place to get a roast beef sandwich and curly fries.

            Somehow or other, radio waves or some kind waves are keeping up with us, and flying back and forth to a bunch of towers to some central source that sends different waves back that just so happen to hit our fast moving vehicle and tell us what we didn’t know.

            That is exactly what I’m talking about. I do not belong in place where something like that can happen. And, you wanna know something? By the end of this year, that kind of stuff is going to be old hat. Roast beef sandwiches will be dropping from the sky. I don’t know that I can handle something like that.

            Don Henley can deal with it. I know that from the second line in that song lyric. Remember? “The more I know, the less I understand.” Then he says, “All the things I I thought I knew, I’m learning again.” – Me? I’ll never be able to learn how stuff works. All I can do is take advantage what’s happening. I can deal with that in the spiritual realm. But when what used to be supernatural becomes natural, the humanness in me starts freaking. What I’m saying? – Next time.

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mark@rooftopwriter.com – Please tune in on Wednesdays at noon to listen to Mark and Kay on “Hanging with the Hayters”. --  FM 104.5 and 106.1 as well as at www.irlonestar.com.