Thursday, May 26, 2011

Hooray, the Universe is Saved!

The universe is apparently ripping itself apart at the seams. According to the latest research dark energy is pulling (or possibly pushing) the universe in all directions at once. Scientists speculate (speculating is like theorising but with less evidence) that one day even atoms themselves will be yanked apart like miniature versions of the explosion of the Death Star on Star Wars. Come to think of it I haven't seen the back of my head recently so the process could already be underway.

Since the universe, by definition, comprises everything I'm not entirely sure what its expanding into but it's doing it just the same. We can expect a day when the Earth quite literally comes apart under our feet. Although this will probably be of less concern to us than the fact that our feet are coming apart under our ankles.

Being a perennial short termist I have to admit that I'm less concerned about the universe coming apart at the seams and more concerned with the fact that one of my suits seems to be preempting it. That damned dark energy gets everywhere apparently; even into my wardrobe. My tshirts on the other hand are resisting the dark energy with a demonstration of grim determination last seen when the Soviets defended Stalingrad. I've had some of these tshirts for twenty years and they were second hand then.

As you can see from the preceding paragraph buying new clothes is rarely on my to do list. In fact the newest things in my wardrobe are my suits one of which has already begun to succumb to the siren call of dark energy. The sturdiness of my clothes seems to be in inverse proportion to their suitability for the office. Guess which ones cost me the most? Transience costs and the more transient a thing is, the more it costs. This is why a bucketful of dirt costs considerably less than a bucketful of beluga caviar, except in certain parts of Sydney. In Sydney a bucketful of dirt would be described as "a tremendous development opportunity, close to all amenities".

The vagaries of the Sydney property market notwithstanding it is pretty clear that shabby and worthless will long outlast all our attempts at elegance and beauty. This is why the Hanging Gardens of Babylon have been gone for millennia while the world's most tasteless tombstones still poke their heads up out of the Egyptian sand. What this means is that when our particular part of the universe does start to disintegrate we should be able to lash it together with second hand tshirts.

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