Godfrey's Guide

BEFORE I BELLY FLOP INTO THE MIND SLUDGE...

I AM ATTEMPTING CLARIFY, I think I ought to give fair warning that my upper story wit has been a bit far-out of late, so if I  occasionally do go off on something that seems to be utterly foolish and completely meaningless, my hope is that you will forgive me...

 ...For example, my first thought upon awakening this morning was trying to recall the overnight dream I had about casting the perfect people for roles in my version of the American Revolution, which I would call "The Little Boycott That Was." My Cast would include: Adam West, the original Batman on television, as General George Washington, Senator Ted Cruz as Benedict Arnold, and  Dick Cheney or Glen Beck as a cross-dressing Betsy Ross. With a guest cameo appearance by Sophia Loren as the mentally-cracked grandmother "Liberty Belle," a completely fictional character, of course, but one who would undoubtedly add a little pizazz to an otherwise well-known tale.

 I then gave thought about the fact that I was standing on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away, and was not at all upset by that.  Curiously enough, my mind instantaneously began to ask me what I would do if I were the Pope lounging around in the Vatican nibbling on peanut butter and saltines, when I decided that I would temporarily give up the papal crown to go scuba diving in Australia, out beyond the Great Barrier Reef to the wonderful clarity of the Coral Sea - and then stop off for a burger at a McDonald's on the way home; and after arriving back in Rome, as I stood in front of the usual big Easter Sunday crowd gathered to hear me speak, began to make fun of Jesus.

  As I washed the breakfast dishes, I gave pause to ask why it is that out of sand we make glass, from glass we make lenses, from lenses we make telescopes - and with those thoughts in mind, I suddenly wondered what had become of my eyeglasses?  It turned out I was still wearing them and had nothing to worry about; and I thought about the possibility that there may be billions of universes, and there were a whole lot of other guys somewhere out in the vast solar system who were puzzled about where they had left there glasses, too.  I rather loved that notion, and began to chuckle...

 ...All other sorts of entities began rapidly running through my mind as I dried my dishes.  I became aware that I was unaware of other possibilities out there in the universe, like the fifty-fifty chance of being able to order a simple apple pie a la mode in another far-off galaxy, or if they have the simple things like tables, chairs, rocks, and so on, along with cats and cows and silicon chips.  

 Let my try to illustrate what I mean.  This is very speculative; I'm really going out on a limb here, because it's something I know nothing about whatsoever, so I think of this more as a thought experiment rather than I real explanation of something.  What exactly is fungus, for instance?  What does it mean if fungus is dimorphic?  Does it apply only to mold and mildew or other things like earwax and nasal hair? To figure something like that out when you don't really have a clue - I began to think about an awful lot of other things I was also unsure about, as I'm certain a lot of other people do, because there is this theory and that theory, this bit of information and that bit of information about almost everything; and you really don't know what to make of any of them, since they seem to zip past you in a flash.

 Before we go on, allow me back up for a moment and talk about God.  I would argue that if there is an actual God, and we should probably bear in mind that there could be, why not allow Him-or Her to worry about all of this stuff and feel free not to think about anything at all?  I do find it curious, however, that if God does actually exist, why He-or-She did not invent the computer sooner so that the folks who wrote the Bible didn't have to waste so much time sitting around in sand inside a darkened cave without any underwear on and having to scratch away at themselves in a frenzy to relieve the itch until it caused a rash, or scribbling stuff down on papyrus and parchment and ruining their eyes because of a lack of electricity?  No wonder there are so many agnostics and atheists.

 Nevertheless, it occurs to me that if you think some of the above is utter nonsense and wish to disregard any of it or all of it or even the smallest portion of it, I am quite OK with that.  I do, however, beg your forgiveness, in that I did not realize that it was already 10 o'clock in the morning and time for my afternoon nap, and apologize that I cannot share my afternoon thoughts  with you until I, once again, awaken...