The beauty in chaos
Tried to put a stop to political talk, which worked for the most part. Also on the not-talk-about list was religion, but you know it’s harder to stop yourself from doing something forbidden.
It’s hard to stay away from politics anyway, when the election is days away. My dad made a remark about some guy on the road, an upstanding citizen with shoepolished remarks supporting Kerry, as well as a fuzzy steering wheel cover. Upstanding citizen, my dad snorts. What, dad, do you think I’m not an upstanding citizen? Of course you are, he says. But come on, shoe polish, a fuzzy steering wheel cover? I’ll be sure to avoid that sort of display so no one mistakes me for that liberal wacko. Everyone already knows that about me anyway.
Religion also came up. My dad credits our safety from near-misses in Vegas and Barstow to his praying in the morning that we will have a safe trip. Won’t bother with detailing that discussion, but after a short time, we both agreed to stop.
That brings me to a side note, something my dad said when we were driving through Colorado.
He remarked that the beauty of the mountains and canyons seemed to be a pretty good argument against evolution. We didn’t have much time for discussion because he was driving through a harrowing bit, but I thought that it could be an argument for quite the opposite. Or, if your world view does include a god, it can still include evolution. This came back up while we were eating pizza in Barstow.
If you want to believe that god had a hand in it, why couldn’t god create all the beauty, but still have evolution? Why are people so literal about creation?
But beauty in the natural world comes as close to god as a hardened atheist like me can and wants to get.
The beauty of Colorado or California, and the mountains, or the bleak multi-colored variety of Utah, nearly brings me to tears.
There really are no words. It’s so beautiful. It’s what keeps me going when I think of all the hate and greed of humans, and how we use more and more of our resources to breed more greed and more hate and pointless conflicts.
Then a drive through the mountains is like balm for my consciousness. It’s still raw, but it feels better. Almost happy.
It comes close to the way I feel about the universe. We don’t know how it got there. We can’t understand infinity. We have a hard enough time grasping 2,200-mile trips cross country.
It might be hard to believe that all this beauty came from a random amalgamation of matter from billions of years ago, but I find it harder to believe that anything could have had a hand in it.
It’s so beautiful, so random and so precious.
If there is a god, it’s one of chaos, uncertainty and entropy.
And it’s beautfiul.
Snow-capped mountains. Extra points for counting bugs on the windshield.
