Hold on just a little minute here. Just one single solitary minute. I made the solemn vow not to write about a “National Day” again, for a long, long time. Until I saw what was on the docket for today.
First, a sidebar, before we begin. Which I think is fitting, given the material at hand. Normally, these “National Days” will list 10 or 12 things / events on a particular day. Not kidding. On a single date, they might wedge in National: Fly Your Kite Day, Sugar Cookie Day, Green Knee Socks Day, Louisville Slugger Day, Cattails in the Marsh Day, Chandelier Day, Three-Fold Pamphlet Day, and Play Your Harmonica Day.
But today, there are just two entries. The first is National Brownie Day. Another point of interest here. This is at least the fourth instance of National Brownie Day I’ve seen in the past six months or so. It keeps repeating. I want to point that out. And.
I’ll tell you why. Today is ALSO, Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day.
I said, Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day.
On first blush, this angered me a bit. I take Time Travel very seriously. The Physics Beasts, in their sparkly-white laboratories, have already established this is quite possible in the forward direction. So I find that this is no joking matter. It is — no pun intended — only a matter of time, before matter is time traveling.
But then, when I thought about the National Day for this, it made sense. Of course people want to pretend to Time Travel, as the “real” thing is not readily available to them. Or so they think. Please, as you read, remember that this is National Brownie Day, again. And for good reason.
Back to time travel. This will, when it happens, be one of the most amazing endeavors in scientific history. We will have finally figured out the loop, and how we can move along with the overlap in the time continuum. But we humans are thick dullards for the most part. We still have diseases which elude us, like Cancer, and Alzheimers, and Parkinson’s, and more. It was hundreds and hundreds of years until we figured out things like sterilization in surgery, and IVs and blood donation. We are slow on the uptake, we are. Even now, people out there believe that vaccines are some sort of anti-Christ.
Take the environment, as another example. We’ve know for a long time we are harming, bludgeoning, killing, the resources on our planet, yet almost half of the people here still believe that all the crud being dumped into waterways and airways is A-OK. It is yielding monetary profits for the ultra-rich, so it must be okay. Obtuse.
Back to the Time. The other night, a TV station was “teasing” the highlights for the Eleven O’Clock News. They said a man in a Columbus, Ohio neighborhood called 911, to report a small explosion in which he received serious burns on his face and body. Hazmat was called. The big worry was that nuclear material had been involved in explosion. Apparently, he had been working on some sort of Quantum Physics machine in his garage. Nuclear material, physics machine, garage. I mean, what could go wrong? (Here I offer a word of caution. People, DO NOT try this at home.)
So yes, we are reminded that time travel is around us; humans are slow to catch on; and today is National Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day. Let’s keep it right there and leave the “real” time traveling for the physicists who understand what Einstein meant. And as for National Brownie Day, again? I suggest some smarty-pants already has this time traveling thing figured out. Someone with a real penchant for Brownies.
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“Time is an illusion.”
― Albert Einstein
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“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
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“Time will explain.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion
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