You have to lose your fear of the big words

I think I may be wanting to use blogger, or a blog in general to cope with not allowing myself access to facebook. Maybe if I talk about it more I can get past it. I feel as though I have a clear conscience without it. While I've abandoned many of the superficial morals I was instilled with as a youth, I think as an adult I still appreciate not being a victim or progenitor of gossip. I have from the start always seen Facebook as a means of promoting the drive for and the satisfactions accrued from gossiping. Although not all people use it that way, it is only human to pervert a means of staying connected, into a way to check on those we use to know, and feel superior or inferior, disgusted or elated with, depending on your mood. or maybe it's only me.

Sometimes, more times now than ever, I begin to wonder if I should study astronomy with a focus on astro-chemistry and planetary observation. You have to lose your fear of the big words, to be Oh K with not understanding immediately the complicated words and ideas that fall out of someone's head. The field of astrophysics is quite fascinating, humbling in its scope, and terrifyingly technical at times. But it deals with things that are far from the ability of humans to fuck up, far from being exploited for perverse means. Studying the universe, like mathematics, is one of pure observational joy. Knowing that it goes on without us, has been going on without us, and depending who's school of thought you subscribe to, will continue on for all time ( whatever time may actually be) without us humans.

Realistically, astronomy for me will remain recreational. Molecular biological systems are tangible, equally as complex as astrophysics, and full of questions and hypothesis and wonderful theories that are constantly rebuilding the way we understand the organic world we live in, our history as living beings and the potential of our future. And it pays, handsomely. One of the more important finds in Cell Biology to show up recently

Sometimes I wonder if I've replaced one religion for another. Replaced fundamentalist-bat-shit-crazy-Christianity with science and the scientific method. I'm sure many people I knew wonder that about me, or they're more concerned that I just wrote the word "bat-shit". Observing my habits, with the studying and the reading and the programs I watch, ya, that might be a safe bet. I'm more devoted to the sciences than I ever was to God (who ever he/she/it/they may be). But that's oh k with me. I don't feel guilt in what I do. I don't fear mindless retribution and blessing for things I may or may not have done, have or will not do.

I see the same beautiful world as the most devout religious person, I see the same world as when I was a mindless follower, but I see it with a fuller understanding now. I see the principles of physics and mathematics behind it. I stopped attributing my lack of understanding of the physical universe to the "awesome hand of God" and learned about what was going on when I saw a sunset, in the growth of flower, in breath drawn from a breeze, the spin of an electron around an atom and it's probability of location versus momentum in space. I stopped blaming God for my ignorance. I didn't find God when I studied the natural world, I found beauty, complexity, extreme order on the macroscale and a very surreal and unlikely subatomic world.

I'll probably devote too much time and space in the coming months trying to relate my experiences as a devoutly religious youth who turned agnostic, but that is my journey thus far in a nutshell. Maybe I should find new ways to identify myself.

maybe that's why I want to be an astronomer. I think you'll find more deists in that field than in the world of medicine and biology.