Genkora
Frog blast the vent core!
- Reaction score
- 92
Her name was Sarah. I was smarter than her, I was faster on my mind than she was, Algorithms and balancing equations, finding a cure, picking what doesn't what belong, I was superior with all of it. But she never failed to make me feel like an idiot.
"Why do you think we continue to search for more answers?" She would ask.
"To make humans stronger." I would answer.
"You're an idiot." She would say.
Hearing the hum of machinery, the buzz of a computer hard at work, bubbling of chemicals, the smell of formaldehyde, none of it ever really bothered me. That is until Sarah showed up. They used to be work, and coworkers were the distractions, but now the smells, sounds and vibrations were the distractions. Sarah was the work.
"What do you think science is?" She asked me.
"the pursuit of a better understanding of the universe." I answered.
"You're an idiot." She told me.
There was a sword, well, a dagger more like. Only the guy who had the dagger was eight feet tall, so it really was more like a sword. Well, he had stabbed the other guy, yeah, that's how went. The sword hit the ground, and I looked up at the big guy, he only smiled. I looked at the body, I vomited. The handle was bloody, but the blade had been wiped clean on the man's jacket. I could see my reflection in the blade, I didn't look so good.
"Science really exists on its own." Sarah taught me. "If humanity were to die out, then science would still exist, it exists on its own."
"Why did you decide to enter the science field, Sarah?"
"To experience the unstoppability of it."
I woke up, sweating, I couldn't forget the blood on the handle, or the smell of formaldehyde. Sarah told me something once, that philosophy was how intelligent people could cope with the universe. It was reliance on metaphor, to find meaning of one thing by looking for meaning in another.
"Have you ever wondered what the meaning of life is, darling?" Sarah asked me.
"I can't say it's something I have ever thought about much. I suppose it's unanswerable." I replied.
"Not at all! Like the meaning of a pencil is to write, or the meaning of a car is to drive, the meaning of life is to live." Metaphor.
As I grew dumber and dumber, or rather, began to realize how ignorant I was, Sarah became more and more intelligent in my eyes. I felt inferior to this woman, who could not balance equations as quickly, or find the cause of death in a biopsy as easily, or even identify every strain of influenza, I began to see her not as a equal, but a superior.
"I believe science and religion are the idiot's way to cope with the universe. To an extent." She began saying one day.
"How so?"
"Well, science is not so different than religion, there are things that are unexplainable. In science, you have theories that many believe in without any irrefutable evidence. In religion, you have deities to explain that which cannot be explained, also with no irrefutable evidence."
"But theories are proven or disproven in time, you can't provide any such thing with religion."
"Ah, the Romans made a new god anytime something else needed to be explained, just as science provides a new theory every time something else needs to be proven."
I had fallen into a state of limbo. Sarah, how could she be so frustrating? I could not dismiss what she said as nonsense, it became all I could think about, and of all of it, there she stood in the center. Philosophy swarmed all around, explaining everything through metaphor.
"But science can't just be thought a fools errand." She said. "It always strives to be discovered, it always lives, and it can only be read through philosophy. After you and me are gone, science will still be governing the universe, with metaphor as the messenger."
The street was dark. There was no one in sight. It was just an ordinary town street, the kind you drive on through those nameless towns on road trips. I looked at my feet, a bloody sword, a shadowy figure, and an eight foot man in the back of my mind. The significance of the sword lied not in the terrifying power of it's cut, or the horror that was the blood on the handle. The sword wasn't a killing a tool, it was a symbol. An indestructible symbol. You could melt it down, grind it into powder, destroy it indefinitely, but the idea of the bloody sword, the symbol, could never be destroyed.
"Sarah, there is something I need to tell you."
"What's that?"
There was the eight foot man. He was powerful, he was an entity. Not like the sword, the man was not a symbol, he was just a power. He held the sword, the dagger, and through the indestructibility of the symbol, cut down the obstacles. If the obstacles grew, the man made a bigger sword. But the man did not grow. The symbol could always grow, and while the man was powerful, he could not wield a sword that had outgrown him, just to accommodate the obstacles.
"Sarah, I have been feeling quite odd for a while now. Well, ever since you arrived here really."
"Spit it out dummy!"
"What I mean to say is, er, I, Sarah I..."
There only leaves the shadowy figure. I never saw what cast the shadow, it had always eluded me. I had hacked away at every obstacle I came across, I had discovered some really interesting things along the way, but that figure had always eluded me. There came a day when I considered I might be an eight foot tall man, and that as a scientist, I was using symbols directly when I couldn't even read them. I never caught that figure, casting that shadow.
"Well, it must not be very important if you can't even say it." Sarah said, she grinned at me, in a kind of menacing way.
"You wanna get some coffee after work? Maybe some dinner?" I asked.
"You idiot."
Science stands alone, and as a humanity, we can't really decipher it. We could discuss quantum mechanics, That was always my favorite subject, or we could sit down with someone we love and kiss. I look back and wonder where all the time had gone, laugh that Sarah never stopped calling me an idiot, and wondered where I might have ended up if I never went out with her on that day so long ago.
Uncertainty principle dictates that there is another me somewhere in another universe that chose not to love Sarah.
A sword, a shadow, a man.
"Why do you think we continue to search for more answers?" She would ask.
"To make humans stronger." I would answer.
"You're an idiot." She would say.
Hearing the hum of machinery, the buzz of a computer hard at work, bubbling of chemicals, the smell of formaldehyde, none of it ever really bothered me. That is until Sarah showed up. They used to be work, and coworkers were the distractions, but now the smells, sounds and vibrations were the distractions. Sarah was the work.
"What do you think science is?" She asked me.
"the pursuit of a better understanding of the universe." I answered.
"You're an idiot." She told me.
There was a sword, well, a dagger more like. Only the guy who had the dagger was eight feet tall, so it really was more like a sword. Well, he had stabbed the other guy, yeah, that's how went. The sword hit the ground, and I looked up at the big guy, he only smiled. I looked at the body, I vomited. The handle was bloody, but the blade had been wiped clean on the man's jacket. I could see my reflection in the blade, I didn't look so good.
"Science really exists on its own." Sarah taught me. "If humanity were to die out, then science would still exist, it exists on its own."
"Why did you decide to enter the science field, Sarah?"
"To experience the unstoppability of it."
I woke up, sweating, I couldn't forget the blood on the handle, or the smell of formaldehyde. Sarah told me something once, that philosophy was how intelligent people could cope with the universe. It was reliance on metaphor, to find meaning of one thing by looking for meaning in another.
"Have you ever wondered what the meaning of life is, darling?" Sarah asked me.
"I can't say it's something I have ever thought about much. I suppose it's unanswerable." I replied.
"Not at all! Like the meaning of a pencil is to write, or the meaning of a car is to drive, the meaning of life is to live." Metaphor.
As I grew dumber and dumber, or rather, began to realize how ignorant I was, Sarah became more and more intelligent in my eyes. I felt inferior to this woman, who could not balance equations as quickly, or find the cause of death in a biopsy as easily, or even identify every strain of influenza, I began to see her not as a equal, but a superior.
"I believe science and religion are the idiot's way to cope with the universe. To an extent." She began saying one day.
"How so?"
"Well, science is not so different than religion, there are things that are unexplainable. In science, you have theories that many believe in without any irrefutable evidence. In religion, you have deities to explain that which cannot be explained, also with no irrefutable evidence."
"But theories are proven or disproven in time, you can't provide any such thing with religion."
"Ah, the Romans made a new god anytime something else needed to be explained, just as science provides a new theory every time something else needs to be proven."
I had fallen into a state of limbo. Sarah, how could she be so frustrating? I could not dismiss what she said as nonsense, it became all I could think about, and of all of it, there she stood in the center. Philosophy swarmed all around, explaining everything through metaphor.
"But science can't just be thought a fools errand." She said. "It always strives to be discovered, it always lives, and it can only be read through philosophy. After you and me are gone, science will still be governing the universe, with metaphor as the messenger."
The street was dark. There was no one in sight. It was just an ordinary town street, the kind you drive on through those nameless towns on road trips. I looked at my feet, a bloody sword, a shadowy figure, and an eight foot man in the back of my mind. The significance of the sword lied not in the terrifying power of it's cut, or the horror that was the blood on the handle. The sword wasn't a killing a tool, it was a symbol. An indestructible symbol. You could melt it down, grind it into powder, destroy it indefinitely, but the idea of the bloody sword, the symbol, could never be destroyed.
"Sarah, there is something I need to tell you."
"What's that?"
There was the eight foot man. He was powerful, he was an entity. Not like the sword, the man was not a symbol, he was just a power. He held the sword, the dagger, and through the indestructibility of the symbol, cut down the obstacles. If the obstacles grew, the man made a bigger sword. But the man did not grow. The symbol could always grow, and while the man was powerful, he could not wield a sword that had outgrown him, just to accommodate the obstacles.
"Sarah, I have been feeling quite odd for a while now. Well, ever since you arrived here really."
"Spit it out dummy!"
"What I mean to say is, er, I, Sarah I..."
There only leaves the shadowy figure. I never saw what cast the shadow, it had always eluded me. I had hacked away at every obstacle I came across, I had discovered some really interesting things along the way, but that figure had always eluded me. There came a day when I considered I might be an eight foot tall man, and that as a scientist, I was using symbols directly when I couldn't even read them. I never caught that figure, casting that shadow.
"Well, it must not be very important if you can't even say it." Sarah said, she grinned at me, in a kind of menacing way.
"You wanna get some coffee after work? Maybe some dinner?" I asked.
"You idiot."
Science stands alone, and as a humanity, we can't really decipher it. We could discuss quantum mechanics, That was always my favorite subject, or we could sit down with someone we love and kiss. I look back and wonder where all the time had gone, laugh that Sarah never stopped calling me an idiot, and wondered where I might have ended up if I never went out with her on that day so long ago.
Uncertainty principle dictates that there is another me somewhere in another universe that chose not to love Sarah.
A sword, a shadow, a man.
