This Day in History

It was on the third of June on a hot and dusty delta day
that Billy Joe McAllister dropped something off the Tallahatchie Bridge into the swirling waters of the river below.

This was the first documented case of egregious lyrical littering.
Why couldn't Mr. McAllister have just brought his refuse to the dump? And why, in Heaven's name did he then climb the wooden railing and jump to his own death? Trying to impress Jody Foster? We just don't know.

Everyone had called in sick today, so I was left to ponder the meanings of things by myself.

Naturally, my thoughts got to wandering about the mysteries of the universe. George had recently been making everyone read his essay on dimensions. He posited that there were in fact thirteen dimensions. I agreed with the four we usually refer to (height, Width, Depth and Time), but the others seem theoretical and debatable. (Certainly too deep for the likes of this dump.)

Perhaps what we call dimensions are not truly intrinsic and objective but merely statements about perception. If I am color-blind, or in a coma, or insane, external reality does not matter. And we cannot rely on scientists to reveal the true nature of the universe. The history of science is nothing more than the revelation that previous understandings were wrong.

But it did get me to thinking about space and time, and led me to the startling conclusion about realty and reality.

Location is everything.
The parlance of real estate agents have certified this ageless statement of the value of property. But we must remember that Location is not merely a point of latitude and longitude on a map. Location also refers to a moment of time. So, location is a statement of value based on the context of the proximate environment. A parcel of land with a mountain view in Shit's Creek, Colorado is not of equitable value to a similarly sized parcel of land situated on the coast of Cape Cod. A lump of anthracite buried deep under an alluvial plain 200 million years ago South Africa is worth considerably less than the glittering diamonds that we mine today from the mountains located on that same spot.

We have previously observed that trash - much like beauty - is in the mind of the beholder at a point in time. Now, we see that the same can be said for the value of just about everything.
I read that global melting of the polar icecaps will eventually raise the level of the oceans to make that parcel of land in Cape Cod quite worthless.