Lost

I lost the majority of what I wrote this morning. When I attempted to save what I had written, WordPress did not cooperate. Apparently, it had saved a fraction of what I had written…the parts produced below. I am annoyed, but not terribly upset. I hope I have overcome my tendency toward rage over the most mundane obstacles. But I do mourn the loss of my writing; I revealed more about what’s hidden inside my brain than I have done in very, very long time. All my revelations about secretly (or not so much) wanting to pursue a monastic life, if only for a while, are lost, as are my fantasies about traveling to New Brunswick and beyond. All that disappeared into the ether. Such is life.

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According to the Iceland Monitor, a considerable amount of seismic activity has been detected around Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula since noon Saturday, when a recent series of earthquakes began.  More than ten thousand earthquakes have been detected since then.  Laufey Fjóla Hermannsdóttir, who lives in Grindavík, Iceland told the Iceland Monitor that “All drawers and cupboards opened and food items fell to the floor. Decorative statues on shelves and photo frames also fell to the floor and broke. It was a mess.” The article that described the recent spate of earthquakes went on to address responses to, and plans for, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Though the article obviously addressed a serious situation, it did not constitute the major headline.

The biggest Icelandic news, if one judges importance by the size of headline, related to weather. Unlike the weather much of the USA has experienced during the past month, Iceland experienced an unusually cool July. The highest temperature recorded during the months was 60.62° F; the lowest maximum July temperature before this year was in 1989. In that year, Reykjavík had 77 hours of sunshine for the month, against 150 hours in July this year. Speaking of weather: the Icelandic word for weather is veður. If Google Translate is correct, that word is not pronounced the way I might have expected. It sounds a little like VEH’thickhh, to me.

About those ten thousand earthquakes… I have heard absolutely nothing about them from any domestic or global news source. I learned about them only by glancing at my English-language Icelandic news resource. Why, I wonder, does the rest of the world seem to ignore incidents involving 10,000 earthquakes? Incidentally, today’s high in Reykjavík is forecast to reach 50°F; tomorrow’s high is expected to be a scorcher, topping out at 52°F.

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It’s akin to sentimentality, but it’s not quite the same thing. Whatever it is, on occasion— usually in the wee hours (like now, at 4:25 a.m.)—those early morning moments lead to explorations of the past; and questions, like “what was on my mind all those years ago?” One of the benefits of writing a blog with some regularity is that one tends to record, almost in real time, one’s state of mind. Issues that tugged at one’s psyche, for example, or that caused one to ruminate on big, unanswerable questions that stay with us for as long as we remain curious and in awe of all existence. On occasion, looking back at the topics that were top of mind in years past reveals that those same topics remain just as vexing many years later. This morning, I read something I wrote on another of my old blogs, almost eleven years ago:

…I tend to be more than a little aloof in some circumstances. That aloofness tends to make people a little less than enthusiastic about approaching me. Another factor in “aloneness” can be attributed to my desire for private time. Though I’m by no means a loner, I enjoy people (in general) in small doses. I don’t “bond” over the most common bonding factors, either. Sports…not my thing. Politics…I’m deeply liberal on most issues, but tend to get bored talking about politics. Social consciousness…I care deeply, but I have to be in the right mood to converse about those matters.

I could have written those words ten minutes ago and they would be just as current, just as valid, as they were all those years ago. And I could have written the following, extracted from the same blog, written at roughly the same time:

Physics cannot explain all the “BIG” questions to my satisfaction. But I don’t buy the religious explanations, either.

It’s late. I have to sleep. These questions won’t get answered tonight. They won’t get answered in this lifetime.

One would think a person would tire of asking the unanswerable questions. When it becomes evident there is not—and never will be—a satisfactory answer, what’s the point of continuing to ask the question? Indeed. But so many such questions exist; we call them…some of them…rhetorical questions. Yet we ask them not to exaggerate a point or merely for effect. We really wish we had answers. We know we won’t get them, but we wish we would. Therefore, we keep asking them, perhaps in the illogical hope that one day—out of the clear blue—we will stumble upon a legitimate answer. I wonder, though, what we would do if we came upon that answer to those “BIG” questions? Would the answers disappoint us? Who knows? I don’t.