E=MC2

Albert Einstein was a pretty cool cat.

I never really knew just how similar I am to him.  Ok, so clearly my brain is not necessarily classified as being "genius".  Although I may beg to differ in some circumstances lol.


I watched this documentary on him and on his discovery of his theory of Relativity. Well...I guess its not really a theory anymore...but none the less...it was how he came up with the idea in the first place.


So the story goes that he got on this bus and was the sole occupant.  As the bus moved forward he happened to look behind him and there was a large clock he saw.  He instantly wondered what it would be like to move forward while riding a beam of light  and if that changed time at all.  So ok, I'm not even gonna try to pretend that I am smart enough to understand exactly what the idea was or how he came up with the whole space-time thing and bending of light and planetary orbits and how that affects time...etc, etc.  Lets just say that this patent clerk sitting on a bus imagining himself riding a beam of light was pretty cool in and of itself.


That's when I realized that me and Al are not that different.  He obviously had an incredible imagination.  He actually saw himself riding that light.  Sitting on it just as he was the bus chair that was moving away from that grand clock.  Moving forward.  And he could see time change.  And it made him wonder how that happened and if it could be explained.  And his mind never let him let go of that image...seeing himself...straddling light...shooting forward...making time...change.  This image, this dream...it changed his life.


Imagine if you were sitting next to some random man on a bus and he turns to you and says, "Can you imagine that instead of sitting here we were strapped to a beam of light?"  You would probably move to another seat immediately lol.


But his dream.  This wild vision. It birthed in his soul a need to find out what it meant.  He then embarked on this journey of not just scientific discovery but of personal discovery.  Now, truthfully, from what I know about him...he was pretty much an asshole when it came to relationships.  It can be argued that people of such vast intellect just do not posses the ability to relate on an emotional level with us stupid people.  Therein lies our definitive difference.  People like Al are ruled by their mind...there is some break or lack that finds it difficult to tap into the heart whereas those of us lead by our heart are too clouded with emotions to settle our minds down enough to have the focused thoughts necessary to truly think in a clear pattern.  Like what you would need for physics for example.  So while I share in his ability to dream and be imaginative with an almost wild sense...I am different in that I am a heart case while he was clearly a head case.  This is most evident in the existence of the contract he asked his wife to sign requiring her to not just do menial tasks of everyday housework but to agree not to expect affection, attention or physical intimacy from him.  My favorite part was when he required that she not speak to him unless he spoke to her first or to include in their conversation any topics that he was not interested in.  Yeah, nice try lol.


Anyways...


So here's Al...on this bus...riding his beam of light and dreaming.  Dreaming and thinking.  It is said that Al was such an amazing thinker he could sit for hours and days and weeks in the deepest of thought.  Obsessing about an equation.  It makes me wonder if Al had Asbergers. Hmmm.  But he was so driven to find out and figure out how his beam riding could be possible and if it were true that it governed his every thought and consumed him.  What must those days have been like for him?  I can imagine.  There are things that have happened in my life that literally grounded me and forced me to pass enumerable amounts of time deep in thought.  In specific thoughts.  There is a toll it puts on the body.  The stress of the mind.  Your mind goes round and round on this thought.  It, to some degree, changes your body.  Your mind takes over and it is almost like having an out of body experience.  History tells us that he would spend countless hours in his study breaking only to play on his violin, which he said helped him think.  He would play Mozart.

Caught up, in the deep recesses of his mind.  Searching and probing and questioning and thinking and wondering.  This exercise of his mind pulling and stretching his brain to limits most of us will never achieve.  Never escaping from the original dream...riding the light.  I can admire him for this.  While his personal life practically disgusts me his intellectual life makes him soar to mythical proportions.  His personal relationships, that is, with women were so deplorable I think that had it not have been for his scientific discovery Al would be just another asshole guy.  I mean the guy eventually agreed to marry his cousin but remained an unfaithful womanizer for as long as his pecker allowed.  He bargained his way out of his first marriage and pretty much had no emotionally loving significant anything.  And that is sad.


So I write about Al today because I wanted to find a way to humanize and relate to this genius.  And I can.  I can relate to dreaming.  And to being absorbed by a thought that consumes your very soul.  But the biggest lesson I can learn from him is in his failure as a human being.  At the end of the day we can speak of the scientist whose work changed...well...everything.  But the man.  The human.  What can be said of him?  Which do I prefer then?  That at the end of my life the work of my hands and the things I produce, should they be the things that speak for me?  Is my measure of worth wrapped in the dreams I was able to produce into reality?  Or is the work of my heart and who I have been to other people more important?   Some might argue that without his inability to connect to love he may not have possessed the commitment to thought and that would have been the greatest travesty to science and knowledge.  Maybe that's true.  But what about the people who were closest to him.  Can they say they would trade his accomplishments for a moment of true heart connection?  Who knows.


All I know is that I wanna be the Al that rides beams of light...with those I love riding right alongside of me.