A Few Things to Think About

By G. E. Shuman

Sometimes I think that I just don’t think like most other people think. I’m not extremely outgoing, and can spend hours alone, or with others, but without any conversation at all. Being free of conversation is probably a good thing in those times when I am alone. I, simply, sometimes, think that I think strange things, (sometimes) in those alone times. In fact, this may just be one of those times. My possible future misfortune is that I am sharing this fact with you, my readers. Read on, if you will, then feel free to write and tell me what you think about my thoughts, and whether or not I may be certifiable, in your thoughts. Of course, I’m not at all certain I’m ready for your replies, and dialing 911 is always an option for you. Regardless of the outcome and all of that, here goes.

One thing that I sometimes think about is that some things in life can be easily counted, like birthdays, pounds, debts and dollars. Other things, while being just as important in their own ways, are not so easily counted, or accounted for. It is difficult to measure a hug, a heartache or a headache in any precise way. Likewise, tears are not actually without number… they are just not numbered, nor, probably, should they be. Smiles also are never enumerated or categorized by their cause, whether by pride, or joy, or embarrassment. You have, without question, not held an ‘infinite’ number of babies in your arms, in your lifetime, nor have you shaken an infinite number of hands, even if you are a politician and it seems that you must have. Truthfully, I ask you, have you ever pondered these thoughts before? My guess is, probably not. (FYI: My straightjacket size would be XL. Extra long sleeve goes without saying. Thank you very much.)

For some unknown reason I do think about those types of things, and often. I also wonder, occasionally, how much is the weight of the printed words in a book, as that might compare to the weight of their meaning. I know, that’s weird. I may, in an idle moment, imagine the very beginning of a life, not really as happening at the moment of conception, as do most of my like-minded Christian, pro-life friends. I tend to ponder further back, in the thought that no life could come from anything else but living cells; so that each type of being truly was created just once, really, and then multiplied “after its kind.” That is why extinction is such a permanent thing; there are no more living cells to get together, to cause another dinosaur, or whatever. I also have sometimes thought that, if we do ever encounter beings from another world, they almost certainly, if they wear clothing, will not have garments with zippers in them. The zipper, to me, is clearly an ingenious invention, but one which is unique to this world. It is, after all, a strange-looking thing, and is probably not a universal answer to the problem it solves. They, (the aliens,) likely will have fixed the problem the zipper solves in some other, equally ingenious way. Maybe they have Velcro. Maybe they do not. I actually included that idea in my first novel, somehow, just because I wanted to. (I am George Shuman. I never said I was George Eliot, who was actually a woman, or George Lucas, who is not.) Please, feel free to purchase The Smoke And Mirrors Effect on amazon.com or someplace, and find out for yourself. Again, PLEASE. Okay, the aliens may have buttons. Buttons are universal in their simplicity, I think. What do you think, besides that I need to find a hobby? Too late. I have a hobby, and you are reading it.

I would love to visit the moon. I really would, and I would go right now if someone could make that happen. When I was young… very young… I was actively interested in watching all six of the Apollo moon landings. (Yes, there were six landings. Twelve Americans have walked on the moon. It wasn’t just Neil Armstrong.) I would like to be the first person back to Tranquility Base, to see that first footprint of Mr. Armstrong’s, which is, most definitely, still there, right now. I want to see those things that have become artifacts of history, and replant the American flag, if it was blown over by the blast of the lunar lander as the ascent stage lifted the astronauts back into orbit, producing the only gaseous ’breeze’ that flag will ever know. By the way, the writers of the latest Transformers movie, “Dark of the Moon”, got a lot of stuff wrong, and should be ashamed of their lack of historical accuracy. Getting it right doesn’t cost a cent more. Yes, I think about stuff like that, too. Just ask my son.

And then there are my thoughts of things like Christmas trees. I will bring our family’s twenty-ninth ’current home’ tree in through that same back door in another month or so. I know, nobody counts the years by counting Christmas trees. It’s just that twenty-nine is a lot of trees, and I am thankful for each of those Christmas’s with the best family in the world.

Also, I need to ask, while I am posing questions, why are women so beautiful and men so ugly? I can only think that maybe God tried harder the second time.

Then there is the miracle of literature, and of the written word in general. I have often pondered the fact that it doesn’t matter a whit if the writer of a book is a young person, or has been dead for many centuries; their thoughts, in print, are very much alive. I have several friends who’s lives were spent entirely in the past. There are my naughty friends, like Mark Twain, and some priceless ones, like the apostle Paul.

Lastly, before, or until the psychiatrists begin knocking on my door, (Did you make that call to 911?) I want to tell you that I am fascinated by, and think often of the idea of what is ‘me‘, and what is ‘you.‘ I once heard someone on TV say that we live, and I quote this unremembered person: “somewhere behind our eyes.” Those words have haunted me ever since I heard them, with a some soulful revelation that I haven‘t quite figured out yet, but believe. Have we not always heard that the eyes are the windows to the soul? To me, in my strange way of thinking, “somewhere behind our eyes” is really where we exist, and that fact makes me, me, and you… you. The core of individualism is certainly not the crowd. It is that solitary soul, in residence, somewhere behind our eyes. 

Now you know about some of the things that I think about. I will go peacefully, if the doctors knock at my door.