By Tim Urban
You won’t believe my morning.
I went out on my daily excursion to sit on the front step of my building for ten minutes holding my breath when people walked by. Normally, I spend the time diddling around my phone, but I forgot to bring my phone this morning, so I just looked around.
As I was taking in the emptiness of the street, a little glint caught my eye in a patch of dirt on the sidewalk. I bent over to look closer, and there was the glint again. It wasn’t a normal glint like from a shiny rock or a piece of metal—it was a little pinprick of flashing light.
Intrigued, I was now on all fours looking closer. And I saw the most surreal thing.
Tiny houses.
Like tiny houses. Each about a millimeter high, like ornately carved grains of sand.
I was either dreaming or looking at the coolest, cutest little art project ever.
As I examined the microscopic village, I noticed what looked like a scrawl of teeny letters on the dirt next to the houses. It said:
PUT YOUR THUMB ON THE OVAL
Now fully having the time of my life, I looked around for an oval. I searched for a few minutes with no luck until I saw, a bit outside the area where the houses were, a little strip of silver, maybe two millimeters long and a millimeter wide. Careful not to damage the houses, I put my thumb on it.
I won’t be able to accurately describe what happened next, but I’ll try my best. Imagine if the ground underneath you suddenly felt like a furiously spinning liquid whirlpool, combined with the feeling of freefalling, combined with your entire visual field turning into a blurry gray, combined with the worst nausea of your life.
And then, just as fast as it started, it all stopped. I cowered for a few seconds trying to catch my breath, and when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in New York anymore.
I was on a pastoral ranch, surrounded by big log cabins and a bunch of people staring down at me as I looked up at them, still on all fours. One of the people said to me, “Are you okay?”
“I feel okay, but I’m having severe hallucinations.”
They all started cheering and hugging and high-fiving each other.
“Are you doctors?” I asked.
“He thinks he has the virus,” one of them said, and they all roared with laughter.
A woman shushed the crowd and said, “Okay, back to work everyone. I’ll give him the briefing.”
The others left, and the woman smiled at me. “I’m Layla.”
“Hi Layla. Do I have coronavirus?” I asked.
“You don’t have coronavirus,” she said. “You’re just tiny. We shrunk you to 1/10,000th of your normal size. You haven’t moved anywhere, you’ve just gotten much smaller.” (continues)
Bases for Mar 24:
1. On 3/17 – posted What is the International Day of
Happiness?
2. On 3/18 – two comments on PatriciaJ post
3. On 3/21 – comment on Phil post on Happy stoical Finns
4. On 3/23 - Discussion Question comment: Can the climate
crisis be taken seriously only from the standpoint of secular faith?
Bases for Mar 26:
1. On 3/25 - Comment in Quiz page regarding Kierkegaard on
nominal Christian faith (TL 126), 5.
2. On 3/25 – Comment on PatriciaJ presentation
3. On 3/26 – Quiz question, What are the three aspects of
secular faith? (129)
4. On 3/26 – Post on Virus is an Alien
Or perhaps it's a simulation in an alien's computer game... or, from their point of view perhaps WE'RE the virus. Or, worst-case-scenario, it's just the invisible scourge it seems to be.
ReplyDeleteWhat would Kierkegaard say?
I think its interesting how people have ways of coming up with reasons for a global crisis, or even a crisis in general. We have all these theories and ideas, or even blame and fault to give. So many people are talking about justifications for the Virus or blaming others for the virus.
ReplyDeleteThere is a new explanation every day- even fable ones!