I thought I’d start the new year by sharing a bit of myself… because in this fast paced, technologically advanced day and age, it’s important to forge meaningful connections.
Also, I’m a deeply egocentric guy, which makes it super necessary for me to cop to those moments where I make a jackass out of myself and prove that I’m not as great a I think I am.
So, to wit: I’m the dummy who actually bought into that ‘Light Gravity’ hoax.
(For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, click here…)
So my friend sent me a link to that article with a joke about finally being able to dunk. And my reaction was “Oh, cool. Isn’t science amazing?”
Which… yes. Yes, it is. But also, maybe you should take a moment every now and again to do even a cursory exploration of how science works. Because… basically, not like that at all.
I think to just about any reasonable human being, the idea of planetary alignments causing temporary weightlessness would seem so unlikely as to be considered absurd. And so it is.
But… but… they had a screenshot of a tweet from NASA!
They TWEETED, people!!!
Obviously, this is a real thing!
Now logic would dictate that something like this would be on the news, that it would be kind of a big event. And you’d think that the fact that it wasn’t would have been a tip-off that maybe this was all a load of hooey. But despite all the telltale signs, I maintained my beliefs until very early on the morning of the supposed alignment, where a cursory Google search revealed about 20 billion articles on the “Gravity Hoax”.
And yet, I still jumped at the predetermined time. Just to see what would happen.
(It was nothing. Duh.)
Luckily, I told no one about this whole thing, except for my older brother (who, in retrospect, humored me very well). So only one person knows I got suckered, which is a fact that’s highly contingent on you not reading these words I’m typing right now. Regardless, I’m glad it happened. Because every once in a while, I need to remember that for all my purported smarts, I’m just as capable of being a dumbass as anyone else… probably moreso. And because it triggered a childlike sense of wonder that doesn’t really happen much these days.
For one brief, shining moment, against all logic and common sense, I came to believe that the world was a more magical place than it actually is.
Which is a silly thing for someone who is as Pro-Science as I am to cop to, but whatever…
Pryorball. 