Of atoms and apples

I wasn’t planning on going to the climate demonstration in Hartford but in the middle of the night I decided I wanted to go and I’m so glad I did.

We estimate that we probably got about a thousand car honks in a couple hours give or take a couple hundred and that’s not including the super enthusiastic people who kept beeping their horns. There are so many things I love about doing this: I would never have bet in my lifetime, if we were putting money on it, that we would get the kind of response we’ve gotten, especially when there are only two of us. Today we had a group of probably about 13 though some folks arrived at different times. Usually when we do the more local Shrewsbury demonstrations it is only two of us and we get a fantastic response, especially from the kids, who almost invariably ‘honk honk’ with their voices and I love thanking them and wishing them a great day as they cross the intersection.

I felt bad at yesterday’s local demonstration though because just as this girl of about 11 or so picked up a sign a driver gave her or us the finger! Right asay she was unphased and like, “don’t listen to those people!” assuring *us* when I really wanted to assure her: weeks there are maybe two or three responses like that in an hour in the midst of overwhelming support that makes you optimistic about the world in a certain way. At the very least it helps me feel that there is friendliness all over the place while it is a lot harder to see when people are just walking down the street, but when we do this, people just open up, they express friendliness, enthusiasm, encouragement, support, and so many people look into my eyes and smile or make some gesture of approval. The polítical situation is dire but people really care. I did not observe any negativity from anyone either time in Hartford though that may be because there were more of us and they’d be outnumbered. It helps me feel less shy in general, actually, seeing how many people care about the things that are important to me. If I had a hybrid car I would invite someone on a road trip, bring along a few signs, and write about doing demonstrations in towns around the country. I would really like to do this, if I could find someone who was game, I would be so in.

I am feeling relaxed now, lying down on a heating pad after esting some surprisingly delicious plant-based turkey roast I got at Whole Foods (with avocado and jamaican jerk saice since ai had no gravy and yum!) I forgot almost all my groceries except the pizza slices and hot food bar items at the self checkout there yesterday. I went back and they had most of my order behind customer service. Then after I left again I realized they forgot my apple cider. I went back but still I forgot my pico de gallo and at least one other frozen item. Yesterday was pretty exhausting, though we had a climate demonstration yesterday too and that was fun.

My shoulder hurt a lot today and I felt some resentment about the external circumstances that led me to develop a shoulder and a knee problem. I decided I have to commit to stretching and so I integrated some stretching into the demonstration. I think it helped because I am not nearly as sore. Hartford was a strange experience of feeling grounded and ready to connect with people in ways I haven’t in a long time. Somehow things that weighed over me forever do not feel so heavy anymore. I can’t explain it and I can’t exactly say I feel happy; I’m also really impatient a lot of the time, and I am afraid of being disappointed or hurt by something overwhelming that I won’t be able to handle, but I feel so much more grounded and like something is changing and I am ready to be part of the world.

I hope it’s not a bad thing but I have four brokersge account right now. I think it is unlikely my current one is going to approve me for the trading privileges that I need to do what I would like to do with options considering how I reported my expertise so I opened accounts with several others. One of them has commission of $.40 extra cents per options contract but it might be worth it as they seem much more likely to give me privileges to do the simplest things, like debit spreads and iron condors, that truly should not be restricted to people based on expertise. My current trading platform makes absolutely clear what my maximum loss is and if I am trading options I know I have to be willing to risk losing that maximum on some trades. I don’t see anything particularly risky about that except not using common sense but the same lack of common sense can be applied to stock trading, too. I’m also going to open up a high yield savings account. 5% interest on some accounts would be decent passive income that I certainly will not complain about. Oh, and I just made a little more on my first Medium article. Even a few days after writing. It’s not much but I can imagine it adding up over time if I write several times a week.

I feel strange. I am seeing the world differently and I don’t know exactly how but I am delvi g into this consciousness of myself as made up of atoms and quarks and all sorts of fascinating molecular and atomic and subatomic processes. I haven’t thought about how incredible it is that we are made up of this stiff in a long time. Even if there is no afterlife to be made up of atoms and quarks and such exquisite complexity that can produce consciousness! It is such a strange thing, being conscious. It *could* be a coincidence that a random universe produced me, a person who is conscious of being conscious and conscious of the universe. If universes were created like monkeys typing on typewriters of course if 99.9999_______% of the universes did not produce this strange thing called consciousness no one would ever know about it. Maybe we won the lottery in having that one in nearly infinity chance of being in a universe that produces consciousness and creatures like me and you but we wouldn’t know if we hadn’t won that lottery because we wouldn’t be conscious. I don’t quite buy the idea that existence is random and we just happen to not realise we have been given a one in nearly infinity chance of being in a universe that randomly created the conditions suitable for life simply because in all those other possible universes nobody is going to be conscious of it not happening. But we are conscious and that is incredible and pretty trippy. Somehow atoms and all these things… just chsnging the number of neutrons and electrons, changing the number, not the quality or charge or anything, can change a helium or oxygen atom into such incredibly different substances as gold, iron, and chlorine! How is that possible?!?

And then, even two oxygen atoms as a couple have such different properties than single oxygen atoms. O2 is breathable, O is not. Then if you get some hydrogen stuck to the O2… like magic we have water. If that isn’t astounding enough what about the emergence of life from carbon atoms? I don’t know how but being in awe of the fact of being made of atoms makes me feel less afraid of death. Is it a coincidence that the first man was, according to one story anyway, named Adam, and that the size of an atom is such that, of you magnified an apple to the size of the earth, each atom would be about the size as the original apple? I think not.