I'm sort of a drama-fiend. I love scandals and secrets and shouting matches on the streets. I try to pretend that I don't, but I do. Everyone does. Drama is the coolest.
Even more than drama, I love large-scale emergencies. When swine flu was threatening pandemic (what a great word!) I would listen to the radio every day with wide eyes, waiting for the case-threshold to be met. What if it scours the world? What if it changes everything?!
On a side note, I think that this is related to my love for despots and mega-giant corporations. Hugo Chavez has his own TV station, did you know? For its anniversary he did a 24-hour Chavez-athon, to celebrate of course.
This all sounds very heartless. Is probably super heartless. But there's something really invigorating about nature taking over, reminding us that though we imagine we're in control, we are not in control at all. I like the theory that the globe is warming not because of carbon emissions, but because it's just warming. It's coming out of the ice age and it's time to warm up [NOTE: I'm not certain at all that's what's happening. I'm just saying the theory appeals to me in this clearly related way.]
This all being said, the volcano business seemed to me kind of brilliant. The earth is totally messing with humanity! Bahaha. We think we're in control and we are not! But today I found out that my mom+step-dad are stuck in Italy indefinitely and got a little sick/nervous for them. I'm glad for them it's Italy, of course, but where will they sleep? They have to get back to work. Are there ocean liners running or something?
Anyway. Pat ending about cataclysm being different when it's yours...the end.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
On Cataclysm
Posted by Kjerstin Evans Ballard at 3:11 PM
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5 comments:
The interesting thing is that Eyjafjallajoekull is a relatively small volcano in geologic terms. The amount of ash it's spitting out is puny compared to some of the larger eruptions that have happened in the last couple decades (Pinatubo, 1991, 10 cubic kilometers) So if the Earth decides to get really mad it can get ugly in a hurry. The United States economy would be crippled if say Mt Rainier were to erupt its usual volume of a 20 or so cubic kilometers, and if Yellowstone ever decides to go, the entire world is going to be in BIG trouble (last eruption 2.1 million years ago 2,500 cubic kilometers!). It's this kind of stuff that drives to learn because I want to know how it works and be able to predict it, and at the same time I am in awe of the power and majesty of the Earth. Anywho, I could go on but I won't. Suffice to say the Earth could topple our "great" human civilization in a matter of days if it wanted to.
Tell your mom to take a train to our house and they can gladly stay here until the volcano stuff blows over (haha). No seriously. We'll happily take care of them.
Does Hugo Chavez = volcano in Iceland? Or just both big BIG.
In the same way that mom & step-dad prolly hate that volcano in a really personal way... lot's of South Americans must have passionate anger about certain BIG dictators who've run roughshod (in a cataclysmic way) over their family or lifestyle. Read a book once by a Latin American author which revealed this: an ingrained understanding that even though everything looked stable for the moment, the next coup (which could be next week or next month) or the next general could wreck everything quickly. Interesting.
This was a great post, very interesting. Jeremy is obsessed with 4 hour news whenever a disaster hits. He gets giddy. Funny.
Which is yet another argument for starting up transatlantic zeppelin service (sans Hydrogen) again.
It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my penchant for natural disasters.
I really wonder if this fascination with very large-scale problems somehow is an echo of how I felt in the premortal existence: I feel happy insofar as I feel prepared, and excited to the extent that I think I may be able to be a blessing to others. Because, there are few things that feel more wonderful than being able to help others and KNOW that you have been of help to them. And, if someone cannot go home because a volcano prevents them or because it (home) fell down in an earthquake or because a dictator will kill them if they do, then you can be more sure than you are of most service projects that giving them a place to stay, at least temporarily, is a Good Deed.
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