The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. — William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”
I have a great fascination with both science and fiction. One helps me find out more about our universe and the other helps me fantasize as to what could be an alternative to our present reality. Despite their differences, my approach to both are very similar because both, science and fiction, make me ask, “But, why?”
Growing up I always liked to look at the things around me, different objects, and try to imagine how they came to exist. Of course, as a child, my knowledge and/or ability to find out about something’s origin was limited, so my imagination was called into order. “Where did this notebook come from?” I would ask myself, for example. So I’d open it in and read on the inside sleeve that it was printed in Cleveland, Ohio. I’d never been to Cleveland, I wondered what it looked like and who made it.
Then my imagination would kick in…
A few states to the west was a man named Thomas Albertson, JR., son of Mother Abigail and Father Thomas, the elder. Thomas was a good man, not too bright, but very kind to all people he encountered. On August 18th, 1958, he was working at the Cleveland Printing Company, where he had been working for the past 7 years, packing the books into a box as they came down the final stage of production, nice, new, fresh and warm. It was a tedious and mundane job and any other man would have quickly gone insane, but Thomas enjoyed it. He enjoyed it for a good reason, love.
Thomas was fondly in love with Ms. Cynthia Jacobs, daughter of Arnold “Jack” Jacobs, owner of the Cleveland Printing Company. She was beautiful, bright, and emitted a radiance like Thomas had never before seen. Perched overhead, in the supervisor’s office that hung above the lines of production, where she worked as her father’s secretary, she was the the most important source of light to Thomas; much like the sun to a sunflower, his face followed her movements, giving him energy as he went on with his daily routine.
And as he picked up the book that I would eventually wind up with, he would muster up the courage in his head to finally ask her out on a date. While that book was in transit, he did so and she accepted. Thomas would eventually marry Cynthia, who saw him as the kind and gentle man who he was. After several years, Cynthia took over the role of boss from her father and continued to work from above while Thomas continued to work on the floor, as a warehouse manager, just so that he could always look up at his dear Cynthia, his source of light, happiness and love.
But there was more for me to know about this book. I mean, sure, that’s just how it ended up in a box and shipped out, but where did the materials that made that book come from? The paper from a tree, the glue, possibly from a horse, the ink, I would guess from an octopus. These were my guesses as a young child. And maybe that tree was a large redwood from California, that saw different native Indians come and go, maybe it witnessed the Spanish and their massive boats arrive to the coast of California or it experienced a massive earthquake and survived while others of its kind fell around it.
And that horse, where that glue came from, might have been a wild mustang that rode around Wyoming for many years before being tamed and brought to a ranch to be a stud to breed with many mares before his heart eventually gave way and his hooves were used to make glue. And that ink from an octopus that was caught off the coast of Maine while it battled a giant crab for its livelihood.
But my curiosity would not and could not stop there, because I wanted to know why there were horses in North America, why Octopi looked the way they do, or why redwoods grow so tall and as a child it made sense to think of a magical being in the sky creating it all, but as I grew older I once again found myself asking, “But, why?” And the more concrete that my answers would get, the less I believed in the supernatural. The more I learned about the universe around me, the more I realized how little I understood. And this made me happy, knowing that I could potentially live a long and beautiful life searching for answers and information, eventually dying like every other living thing, but leaving another step with a solid footing for those to follow my way of thinking to climb upon.
And I thank those who set the foundation before me and for those who continue to work for a greater understanding of life, the universe and everything. Here’s to all of those who have, do and will live to ask the question, “But, why?”
