I thought of something that interested me. Not because I thought the thought did it interest me, but because of what was the thought. The thought was not me, neither was it about me other than its presence within me (or within what we shall call for convenience sake the soul that is me) as a worm is about an apple in a prepositional sense and not in a story sense.
What was I thinking? I can remember nothing about it (in the subject sense) other than it was interesting. Oh, and something of a paradox. Reason suggests I am interested in paradoxes. The most famous paradoxes are the stupidest paradoxes. Or, to put it another way, the stupidest paradoxes are the most famous. The most famous what? Well, anything, for that matter. Those who seek fame for fame’s sake are stupid for the sake a stupidity and the stupid whose awareness of the famous make them what they are.
Those who do not seek fame and who are yet famous are far less likely to be stupid. This is the case for those who: acted innocently and unintentionally, those who were at the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time and accidentally, coincidentally just happen to flip a switch or interrupt an event in progress or at its beginning so as to save a life or prevent a tragedy, and; those who do not remain alive long enough to enjoy their fame (or much less become aware of it) as a result of whatever it was they did that made them famous. Either side of the fame coin is elusive. Who is more famous, the first person who did Niagara Falls in a barrel, or the first person who did Niagara Falls in a barrel and lived?
As for paradoxes, I think it a fool who would go back in time to kill his grandfather and thereby prevent his own existence so that he could not go back in time to kill his grandfather and therefore prevent the prevention of his existence. And so on.
And, of course God can create a rock so big that He cannot move it! However, it would take Him all eternity to do so.
This is why we cannot remember the best lines of poetry we’ve ever concocted. This is why the nervous young man cannot remember the name of the most beautiful and important woman he has ever met though he has not be able to stop thinking about her. He can, however, remember the name of the ugly pimple-on-legs who followed him around like a puppy in seventh grade, the girl whose name happens to be the same as the enchantress the young man cannot get out of his mind. This is why we can remember obscene jokes we want to forget. This is why an experiment is only as valid as the accuracy of the scientist’s notes.
Try as we may to swat the fly, we cannot. Sometimes we get lucky. The fly who avoids the swat lives to make baby flies who inherit such talent. If human survival depended on eradication of the common housefly, the fly would win.
