Another wonderful day for a morning walk.
When I lived in San Francisco, I enjoyed walking on the beach at night. On some of those walks, I would look up at the stars and my thoughts would turn to comprehending infinity. Sometimes, I felt as if I had nano-hint, scent, tingle of understanding the unknowable and my brain would feel as if it would literally burst if I continued on the same thought pattern and reached another level of understanding. It was a marvelous feeling as if the cosmos had opened up a small window and allowed me a quick peek.
One of my routine rides is through a subdivision that only had a few houses built before the economic crash which put a halt to any new construction. It’s a wonderful easy route where I can put together a 5 mile loop without worrying about cars. This was a good route today as I was tired from lack of sleep and battling a 97 degree heat.
In this subdivision are lamp posts, one of which I photographed not too long ago. Today as I was riding and looking for things to photograph, which is always a challenge in a place I visit numerous times, I was eyeing the pipes coming up out of the ground for the gas meters. Most of them had a large green electric box behind and thus ruining a good shot. I found one that worked and was fairly satisfied with the result.
But, as I was getting back on the bike, the shadow of the lamp post nearby caught my eye. I liked the result of that as well and I began looking at the shadows of the other posts I passed. They were all so different and I realized that, even though the road may seem to be straight, the angle of each post to the sun varied.
Somehow, I began to think of the uniqueness of the shadows and particularly of the one I photographed. I began to experience the excitement I had when I contemplated infinity, only this time contemplating uniqueness. The idea that a moment experienced will never happen again was beautifully overwhelming, as if I had just viewed a rare sighting of a snow leopard or a celestial phenomenon that occurs once in every 5 million years. Thinking of that on an everyday scale, in everyday living, it seemed that that could be quite profound. We would constantly be going around looking at everything around us and going, “Wow.”
All these thought led me back to infinity. In an infinite universe where everything is possible, does that then mean the unique moment I experienced with the shadow would inevitably happen again? It seems to be a paradox where infinity means nothing is ever repeated but yet also means it has to be repeated.
Today's Ride: 1hr 31mins. 18.29 miles. 97 degrees. Miles YTD: 5,470.34
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