Sometimes I Forget

There's something about sea creatures in outer space.

It just seems right. Somehow, jellyfish in a bubble of sea water seem more natural than a human being in a tin can of air.

Which brings me to a related point: radially symmetrical creatures are weird!

They say the first step to shape-shifting is being able to imagine that you are the animal you wish to shape-shift into. Something like another mammal, especially a familiar one like a dog or a cat is pretty easy, we have most of the same parts. A bird is a little harder, but still there are a lot of similarities. Imagining that you are a bird is not that hard.

But what about a starfish?

How the hell do you imagine that you are radially symmetrical? With no spine, and a mouth that goes right through a hole in your brain?

Even weirder than that, I have been sort of obsessed with the brittlestar lately. There's a biomimetics project out there where they are growing calcium based lenses that can filter by wavelength, provide structural integrity, and reproduce!

Can you imagine your skeleton being made of eyeballs?

I had a dream once that I was a patch of about two hundred arugula plants. My dream started that I was the seeds, and I sprouted, grew, and flourished. When it got too hot, I started to bolt, and went to seed. I died as green plants, but stayed alive as thousands of dormant seeds waiting for it to rain.

So maybe this would lead you to believe that if I can so clearly imagine being two hundred separate brassica plants, then shoot, starfish should be no problem. You would be wrong.

I just can't get my brain around being radially symmetrical.

Sometimes I forget.

There is a thing called the curse of knowledge. Coined in that book Made to Stick, it basically means that when you know a lot about a subject, you find it difficult to see things from a point of view without your specialized knowledge. Or, you forget that not everyone knows all the stuff you know.

So sometimes I forget that people actually don't believe in magic. For me, magic is just such a minute to minute part of my everyday life that it seems sort of unimaginable to think that people think it's not real.