in some far galaxy...

    Out of nowhere, she appears in the seat next to mine on the Red Line train. She begins talking with the familiarity of one who's used to telling me about her day. I look at her intently, smiling at the happy coincidence of seeing her on the way home. Her hair is shorter than I remember it to be, but she still looks great nonetheless.
    "Oh my god, some guy tried to hit on me today with the worst joke ever."
    "Can I hit on you?" I ask playfully, taking her hand. I think about my own worst joke ever involving spaceship pants and something being out of this world.
    She attempts to withdraw her hand for a moment, and I squeeze it just a little. As if changing her mind, she stops and squeezes back, our hands now firmly in each other's.
    "Maybe."
    The train arrives at our stop and we get off, hands still clasped together. As we stroll alongside the tracks, I think about how happy I am. How happy we are.
    All of a sudden, the realization hits me.
    "None of this is real," I tell her abruptly, halting our step. "The impossible fact that you and I are together right now means that all of this is just a dream."
    She looks at me, the mixture of fear and incomprehension apparent in her eyes.
    Thoughts flash across my mind. I don't have much time - this would all end at any moment. But if only I could somehow preserve this reality. Maybe this IS all real, but simply in some other world. I finally decide that it would be better to leave this world in a good state rather than one of admitting defeat, so I pull her closer to me as the world around us starts to disintegrate...

everything's connected

From Atlas Shrugged to Idiot America, from The Omnivore's Dilemma to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Axemaker's Gift ... I can't help but think that they're all connected, all rooted to the same problem or set of problems.

The basic premise seems to be that science has gotten itself into quite an interesting predicament today. It thrives when it's convenient and/or makes money for the consumer, but utterly fails where it matters most in terms of preserving our health and our environment... mostly because the latter requires a fair bit of inconvenience on our part. But the writing on the wall across all these places is that we're on a road to self-destruction, both because of and in spite of our continual advances in science and technology.

Or maybe I'm just drawing a whole bunch of connections that don't really exist. Science by nature is impartial to one or the other. It is the human that drives and uses it that does either harm or good to us and our environment. Laziness and ignorance are the two biggest crimes we're committing against ourselves, and science has merely been a tool to performing these crimes.

I was planning on writing more on this. Maybe I will in a bit, but for now I have a computer game to play and a fast food dinner to finish.