Book 305 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: We will never run out things to say…Literally!

Book – What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

Book Description:

From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd comes this hilarious and informative book of answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.

Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stickfigure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent of the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there were a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by signature xkcd comics. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.

Reflection:

I was doing some math the other day (I’m not good at math btw) and determined that if YOML was the equivalent to a real marathon that I would currently be at mile marker 21.89 miles out of the 26.2 needed to complete the marathon. That is just a little over 4 miles left in this endurance event that began in earnest in September of 2021 as one of my monthly challenges and has led to 305 reflections later (it is December 1, 2022 as of this writing).

I’ve never personally run a full marathon length, so I don’t truly know the feeling of 22 miles or 26.2 for that matter. The longest I’ve ever run in a single session was 17 miles. I know how my body felt on that particular run, and it was not happy. I was hurting everywhere, and every single muscle ached. I was dehydrated, I was hot, I was tired, each leg felt 10 pounds heavier, and every step I took all I could think about was being done with this run and back at my house taking a cold shower.

If that is how 17 miles felt, I can’t even imagine how more than 9 miles later would have felt.

With that said, let’s try to imagine what 22 miles must feel like for a second. You are so close, yet so far away. You can’t feel the finish line yet to get that extra boost of energy to push harder and brighten your spirits. At 22 miles, I feel like all you would be doing is suffering and asking yourself, “why in the hell did I agree to do this in the first place?”. 4 miles is nothing, but it isn’t nothing after you’ve already ran 22 miles. 4 miles after 22 miles might as well be another marathon in itself.

At Book 280 and reflection 205, that 22 mile feeling I’m describing above is how I’ve been feeling with YOML the past few weeks if I’m being honest. I’m tired and hurting from all the daily reading and writing. My reflections seem to be taking longer to write and get out of my head onto the keyboard each morning. I’ve had a lot of added time pressure put on my writing time as well with my son now heading off to daycare in the mornings and that responsibility falling to me. I feel stressed to wake up earlier and earlier to make sure I can give myself the proper time to take the next step and finish the next reflection.

Then, I look up and see that I still have 60 books and reflections to go, and I think…shit…how am I going to do this?

The worst feeling I’ve been having lately is I’m getting worried that I will run out of ideas to write about and share with others.

Then, I read books like What If? and my faith is restored that there are an infinite amount of thoughts and questions that we can explore in this universe. I was reminded of this by my favorite What If question and answer that was submitted to the author about Twitter.

WHAT IF QUESTION: How Many Unique English Tweets are Possible? How Long Would It Take the Population of the World to Read Them Out Loud?

ANSWER: After a lot of complicated math…10,000 Eternal Years.

What does 10,000 Eternal Years actual mean translated to normal people talk? It means that we will never run out of things to say.

That thought was so reassuring and a great reminder that if I just keep showing up, doing my best, living my values…the words will come. The questions will come, the ideas will be there, and the resulting reflections will magically manifest themselves out of thin air like they always have.

Just keep going and we’ll find a way. Put one foot in front of the other and we will finish these final 4 miles come hell or high water.

Thanks for taking this journey with me.

Question: How do you remind yourself to keep going when you are tired and hurting?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - What If? by Randall Munroe