What Might Be
2014.
We are not getting smarter, just gathering facts. Occasionally a fact comes along that contradicts an earlier fact, and if so we resist the new fact with all our might. Then if we have no choice but to recognize the validity of the new fact we say “hmm, yes, yes, makes perfect sense” and talk about how obvious and inescapable the newer fact always was.
For instance, in the Middle Ages those who believed the earth was round based on scientific evidence were not only doubted, but imprisoned or killed. This was so even when irrefutable proof existed. Finally one day everyone agreed the earth was round and stopped talking about when they all believed it was flat. There wasn’t even an awkward moment when they changed their minds and felt bad about it, they just changed them and never looked back. This is probably not true but let's take it like this, it will help me later. It probably did take a while and at least a few people were vexed by the whole thing.
What we need to do is keep looking at our list of facts for relationships, themes and variations, causes and effects. But adding facts to the list is thought of as better, so that’s mainly what we try and do. It is only when the relationships bonk us in the head with their obviousness that we see them. Then we say “hmm, yes, yes, makes perfect sense”. In practical everyday terms we ought to understand this intuitively; the only thing that really matters is how stuff relates. Stuff on its own is just whatever it is. Scorpions don't matter at all if they don't bite you. Unless wait, are they responsible for sinkholes in Florida? No, still nothing.
We really have done a fine job with our fact list, so that’s good, but we should spend more time looking for the relationships. Our list is long enough for the time being, and it will be a more helpful list if we can figure out how it all fits together. Just by doing this, innumerable facts will be added. The best way to do this is to take the current fact list and draw a line between each fact and all of the facts it relates to. The facts with the most lines going into and out of them are the ones we should focus on. Let me get the ball rolling.
Everything starts with potential energy. Everything. The ball wasn’t rolling until something caused it to move. If you draw lines out from potential energy, you will find it connects with each and every fact on our list, and that is the basis for my Theory of Potential Energy, which is that what might be rules everything that happens in the known and unknown world.
The potential energy inside every atom at this moment is sufficient to destroy the entire planet. The nervousness you feel before a first date is also caused by the same potential energy. Something will happen on that date. Potential energy is responsible for that something. Potential energy can destroy the universe, or your date.
Physicists speak of two types of energy: potential and kinetic. Kinetic energy is measured when bodies are in motion. Potential energy is measured when bodies are at rest but have the potential for motion. The coffee mug precariously resting on the desk with nearly half its mass hanging over the edge has a lot of potential energy. When it falls, that energy becomes kinetic. The thing is, bodies always have a potential for motion, but you have to expand your definition of motion beyond what physicists have on their fact list. If you do, then everything has potential energy at all times.
When I climbed through a sealed off crawlspace in my basement that had not been used in fifty years it might have seemed unlikely that there was any potential energy down there. When I pried off the nails holding the plywood cover on the entrance to the crawlspace I was messing with the type of potential energy physicists talk about. When I conked myself in the head with the plywood that came loose all at once, I was conked by potential energy turned kinetic. Then when I found an unopened bottle of Johnny Walker Blue in the very back and didn’t come out for nine hours, it turned out there was even more potential energy down there.
Potential energy always needs a catalyst, but almost anything can be a catalyst. The potential energy in the Johnny Walker was increased dramatically when I conked my head because 1) there was now direct access to the Johnny Blue and 2) I was pissed off and thirsty when I got back there and thus my own foolishness in conking myself made me all the happier to find rare expensive liquor in my basement even though drinking it in silence in the company of spiders did not befit the grandeur of the discovery. Later it actuated another type of potential energy when my wife poked me in the ribs with the empty bottle while yelling at me, and then she divorced me. The potential energy in the plywood hatch became kinetic in the most unexpected way and ended our marriage. As Newton’s second Law states: energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only transferred. So when my marriage ended, the energy did not die with it. I may well return that energy back to other, unopened bottles of Johnny Walker.
Some people profess to have certain fears which we call phobias. These are nothing more than fear of the consequences of different types of potential energy. Whatever your phobia, at its root it is actually Potential Energy Phobia. If you are afraid of heights you are afraid of the potential for falling. It’s not that mere elevation is scary in its own right. If you were in someone’s basement in Denver, Colorado (elevation 5,270 ft) you wouldn’t feel afraid of heights at that moment. But if you were on someone’s roof in Death Valley, California (elevation 282 below sea level) you would feel very afraid of heights due to the potential energy associated with falling. We are rarely afraid of that which is, but nearly always afraid of that which might be.
The word ‘might’ is linguistic potential energy. It is also the case that might can be neither created nor destroyed. Might always leads to is in some form or another, and is always causes new might, and on and on it goes. If you are afraid of open spaces, what are you really afraid of? Might. This holds true for fear of the number 13 (it might be unlucky), fear of the sun (it might burn me), fear of the dark (there might be stuff in there), fear of yellow (everything might be pee!), fear of foreign languages (ok this one makes no sense). If you don’t believe in fear of yellow or fear of foreign languages then look them up: Xanthophobia and Xenoglossophobia. There is even phobophobia which is fear of phobias. This is the only instance in the history of the universe where energy has been created or destroyed. Fear of fear is a self-annihilating concept, and people who have this condition also have brain matter more dense than a collapsed star.
Those who specialize in creating the phobia fact-list have identified over six hundred separate kinds. For people who are afraid of the manifestations of potential energy, naming them helps them feel like they have some kind of a handle on things, the way my wife had a handle on her potential energy when she poked me with the Johnny Walker bottle and then divorced me. Here again I say it isn’t the creation of a long list that is helpful, but rather figuring out how the items on the list interact and how their roots connect.
Another way to get a handle on the potential energy problem is to try and become its master. Humans won’t even acknowledge the existence of the Theory of Potential Energy and yet we hold in high esteem and observe with a sense of awe those who can test the boundaries of potential and kinetic energy a few moments at a time. This is why the circus has a clown riding a unicycle holding a birthday cake. There is not only a potential for falling but also the potential for ruining a perfectly good cake which magnifies the consequences of what happens if the potential energy defeats the cycling clown. It makes us tense and nervous even though it is not our cake and we don’t really care what happens to it. Upon closer inspection the cake might be a plastic model, so the clown has eliminated some of the potential energy without us knowing.
We have a love and fear of that which is precarious. It is impressive when people can master a precarious situation; they tempt potential energy intentionally and try not to let it become kinetic. This is because something deep within us that has feared consequences for millions of years is on alert. Our genes know of energy that which our minds have yet to learn. Our mind makes the fact list but it is our genes that insist on understanding the relationships. This is why we watch snake charmers, motorcycle races, cliff divers, parachutists, car accidents (even in the other lane), volcanoes, skate boarders, jugglers, trapeze artists, and the movie Jaws. They speak to our genes.
When I was walking around the other day someone was trying to parallel park and she wasn’t very good at it and kept mashing her tires into the curb, which should have been a sign to turn the other way but didn’t motivate her to do so. The tires were making a horrible scratching sound on the curb and were getting deformed as she kept mashing them against the concrete. I was sure they would burst, and I was told as a child that a burst car tire could kill a man. I envisioned bits of steel-belted radial flying everywhere and some cutting into my cheek. I would be able to taste the metal in my mouth and smell the rubber burning, although I’m not sure why it would be burning but it is in my fantasy, and so it would burn my skin too, and I’d have steel belted radial shrapnel in my mouth via my cheek which is bleeding and smelling of burnt rubber and skin. Let’s throw in burned hair as well because some tire bits probably landed on my head. Luckily I don’t have peladophobia (fear of bald people) or trichopathophobia (fear of hair) so that part is not as bad.
The phobia specialist might say that my anxiety was caused by amychophobia (fear of scratches), atomosophobia (fear of explosions), and pyrophobia (fear of fire) and these caused my reaction to the bad parallel parking attempt. This allows him to smile as he ticks off three boxes on his phobia fact-list. Quite possibly, a prescription drug exists that will help with one or more of these phobias, although they may have side effects that cause me to want to flirt with other manifestations of potential energy, such as gambling. I might win. I might.
But isn’t everyone afraid of explosions? I hope so. A healthy fear of explosions is perfectly natural, and I bet those carrying the “explosions don’t bother me” genetic material die off over generations. I think my reaction could be much more easily explained as a keen awareness of potential energy. The contemplation of the might that happens in nanoseconds as the human instinct for self-preservation takes over.
Why do we fear potential energy? For the same reason we fear explosions. Might might kill us, regardless of the might of our minds or bodies. That is why the word might also means power or strength. If the sword is mighty it is because it has a lot that it could do, a lot of maybe, a lot of potential energy. In Spanish the infinitive of the verb might is the same as the noun for the word power[1]. You can’t have power without might: power comes from what might become of it. There is no such thing as power that might not do anything.
Without potential energy phobia, humans would never have survived over the eons. Every one of the six-hundred-odd phobias on the official list are caused because humans don’t want bad stuff to happen to them. Evolution is a pitiless blade that never stops cutting; it plays no favorites and does not take requests. People who aren’t afraid die. Lack of fear is a mutation that evolution will cut out over and over again. The mind can never master the genes.
Not making the list of phobias: fear of energy, or fear of evolution. Humans fear consequences a lot more than causes.
[1] For those who would quibble with me here on
the grounds that poder translates
more suitably to could than might, I beg your pardon. Surely most
would agree that could could mean might, at least in some instances. It is
interesting that in English, might enjoys
a measure of strength that could does
not. If a person could do something,
well that’s just fine. But if they might do
it, now that’s altogether different. Not only could could mean might, it
might mean might, and sometimes does.
