Thursday, April 8, 2010

Vigor Starts with the Mind

I'm still tired of being sorry, but I'm not tired of mind (though I am fatigued of body). The reason for this is the vigor that comes with intellectual stimulation.

The best form of this is being around someone with a passion for something. Even if it's not something you're specifically interested in, the passion they have is invigorating. Enough to make you think you really are interested, beyond just the interest that comes from listening about it.

In my case the passionate person that gave me a jolt of vigor was a meteorite collector. He gave a talk at an astronomy club I'm with. His interest in owning and holding pieces of outer space in his hands was infectious. Pieces of the early solar system, unchanged for 4 billion years, or pieces of asteroids like Vesta, or the cores of asteroids with iron cores that were destroyed in collisions in the early solar system. Put in terms like that, it is interesting. Like so many things, the interest comes not so much from the thing itself but from what that thing is, once you know something about it.

Ignorance is the deadener of senses, the source of boredom in the face of the truly amazing. Knowing a bit about something is enough to open the doors of the mind to interest and wonder. Knowing more does more.

I'm not about to start collecting space rocks. I've got too many hobbies as it is (among them intermittent spates of Earth-rock collection, especially fossils.) But basking in the passion of someone else in an interesting pursuit is a real pick-me-up for a tired mind.
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