sometimes it's heaven out here
Reading The Economist's year end issue over breakfast I came across this, the last in the list of briefs on the world this year:
"The first protons were circulated around the Large Hadron Collider. Designed to help physicists explain the existence of mass, some feared the experiment would create a gigantic black hole. Wall Street's collapse just a few days after the LHC was switched on was deemed a coincidence."
This illustrates perfectly why The Economist is my favorite print news source at the moment.
Over the past week and a half I've been reading a lot of print news, since I can't get to my internet news sources from home. It has really brought into perspective how blessed I am in my life eleven days without power and going on thirteen days with out phone and all. First world problems. I was never in danger of freezing, or going hungry, or contracting cholera, or getting shot. I was just inconvenienced because I had to figure out where to get water to drink and flush the toilet and find ice and snow to keep the fridge cold and a the other little things that suddenly became big without modern conveniences. But I knew all along that if I really wanted to or needed to I could drive to a store - even if I had to go an hour to find one that was less affected by the storm and therefore not out of things like bottled water and candles - to buy water and food. And there would be water and food in the store to buy.
That makes me blessed. I only had to worry about things like where I would get water eleven days out of this year. It wasn't fun, I don't really want to do it again (at least not with no notice like that) and I still would really like to have phone and internet back at my house, but it made me think. Now that I can take a bath again and do laundry and clean my house with the ease of electrical aids I'm glad it did. I'm glad to be reminded that all these things I take for granted are a blessing and that people are generally good and good to each other and help out their neighbors when things are tough. It makes me feel closer to the world somehow and, well, Christmas-y which is something that doesn't usually happen to me. Usually I feel like holidays are a giant burden that should be avoided if at all possible but after waking up from the haze of no power Monday night I am now actually kind of glad to realize that it is Christmas tomorrow.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Solstice to all.
I wish you all good company, good food and good TV shows to obsess over in the coming year. ♥
"The first protons were circulated around the Large Hadron Collider. Designed to help physicists explain the existence of mass, some feared the experiment would create a gigantic black hole. Wall Street's collapse just a few days after the LHC was switched on was deemed a coincidence."
This illustrates perfectly why The Economist is my favorite print news source at the moment.
Over the past week and a half I've been reading a lot of print news, since I can't get to my internet news sources from home. It has really brought into perspective how blessed I am in my life eleven days without power and going on thirteen days with out phone and all. First world problems. I was never in danger of freezing, or going hungry, or contracting cholera, or getting shot. I was just inconvenienced because I had to figure out where to get water to drink and flush the toilet and find ice and snow to keep the fridge cold and a the other little things that suddenly became big without modern conveniences. But I knew all along that if I really wanted to or needed to I could drive to a store - even if I had to go an hour to find one that was less affected by the storm and therefore not out of things like bottled water and candles - to buy water and food. And there would be water and food in the store to buy.
That makes me blessed. I only had to worry about things like where I would get water eleven days out of this year. It wasn't fun, I don't really want to do it again (at least not with no notice like that) and I still would really like to have phone and internet back at my house, but it made me think. Now that I can take a bath again and do laundry and clean my house with the ease of electrical aids I'm glad it did. I'm glad to be reminded that all these things I take for granted are a blessing and that people are generally good and good to each other and help out their neighbors when things are tough. It makes me feel closer to the world somehow and, well, Christmas-y which is something that doesn't usually happen to me. Usually I feel like holidays are a giant burden that should be avoided if at all possible but after waking up from the haze of no power Monday night I am now actually kind of glad to realize that it is Christmas tomorrow.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Solstice to all.
I wish you all good company, good food and good TV shows to obsess over in the coming year. ♥