Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician and physicist. He was also an inventor, philosopher, writer, and Catholic theologian. A child prodigy type, those kids who are razor-sharp, and people wonder how. All of this happened so long ago, during the early 17th century France. But during his life, he said some things, here and there, and has been quoted endlessly.
Some of these quotes were interesting and viable.
“We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.”
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
And then others? Well, maybe, not so much. He once said,
“You always admire what you really don’t understand.”
I tend to disagree with Pascal on this one. I can tell you, without blinking an eye, there are many things in this world that I do not understand, nor do I admire them. The political spectrum comes to mind with a great deal of this.
For one, I will never understand how someone can say they are “pro-life,” yet they form militias with automatic weapons, ready to kill anyone who disagrees with them. How do they say killing unborn fetuses is wrong, but killing liberals is right? I don’t understand this, and I certainly don’t admire it.
I could name some more examples, but that would tarry on the negative.
In his defense, there is much about life that I do not understand, and I DO admire.
The complicated laws of physics, or the infinity of the universe. The gravitational pull between the earth and the moon, and its governing force of the ocean and its tides. These are some things I truly admire.
And that ocean, so deep and unknown. I’ve said it before, but we have only explored five percent of the earth’s ocean. That is barely, barely at all. As a result, we have no idea who we share this planet with.
There is a shark down there, I will tell you. The Greenland shark to be exact. It’s scientific name is Squalus microcephalus, just so you know for Trivia Night at the pub. Anyway, it is as big as the Great White and hails from the northern Arctic. It won’t bite you in half, but it is every bit as deadly. The flesh of the Greenland shark is loaded with a chemical that makes its meat poisonous to humans. I bet some schmuck in Greenland was out fishing one day, hauled in one of those sharks, and decided to throw a dinner party. And that’s how the world found out about the poison.
Anyway, that’s not the amazing part. The most incredible thing about the Greenland shark is that it lives for 400 years. Scientists attribute this to its sub-freezing environment, and of course, the protection from the poison in its body. But think. There are all sorts of Greenland sharks swimming in the north, who were swimming there when the pilgrims took the boat ride to Plymouth. What’s the song? Baby Shark?
There is a jellyfish down there too. They don’t even have a good name for the thing. It is called the Turritopsis dohrnii. Tido, let’s say. It is hard to study it too. Tido is nearly impossible to cultivate in captivity. Only one scientist in Japan, has accomplished this feat. Anyway, it is older than 400 years. In fact, it is endless because it reverts itself to its juvenile polyp stage after reaching sexual maturity, making it immortal. Over and over again, it goes back in time. Not to say some big Greenland shark might swallow it whole. But it is, potentially, immortal. How’s that for the five percent we even know about, down there, beneath the surface.
I don’t understand it, but I admire the thought of it.
The thing that strikes me about Pascal’s quote is that it is partly right and partly wrong, depending on the circumstance. We see this — time and again in life — those exceptions to the rules.
I think it would be a better world if people would give in and admit that there are exceptions to almost everything. We don’t live in a black and white world. Everything is gray. And deep. We can learn so much by immersing ourselves in the gray.
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“The truth is usually somewhere in the gray turbulent eddies set in motion by the mixture of black and white.”
― Ken Poirot
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“Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.”
― C.S. Lewis
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“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
― John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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We don’t understand, and we like it, or we don’t.
