Time and Gravity

 I was looking in the mirror at my 95-pound weight loss, and it occurred to me that you can not escape time and gravity.  Yes, I pulled myself from the deadly clutches of obesity only to discover that I'm now used up like a wasted Capri Sun on the side of the highway...silver hair and all.

I used to be young and vital; now I am old and haggard. Time and gravity are the prime suspects.  

I grew a beard to try to hide my shame, and it made me look like a derelict Sean Connery on crystal meth.  The hunt for Red October continues, but the beard is gone...I feel much better without the disgusting beard.  I don't know how people live with it.     

My daughter said it made me look like Santa Claus, and I told her it's due to the effects of time and gravity screaming for vengeance.   She's married and has a daughter of her own now.  Last night, she complained to me that she had some gray hair because time and gravity are unstoppable.  

Those are two constant factors in all our lives, and scientists have been working for decades to learn how to manipulate time and gravity.  Live longer!  Age Slower! Take this pill to improve your memory! Try this supplement to ease your arthritis!  All of it is a direct attempt to slow time and reverse the effects of gravity on your body.  If you lived on the moon, you could slow a lot of naturally occurring diseases to a crawl, even the aging process. Hypothetically.   That is why so many people want to get back to the moon.  It could lead to scientific discoveries that might cure previously incurable diseases.  Hypothetically.  The possibilities are limitless, but I'm sure humankind will find a way to defile and destroy each other with that, too.  

Since I'm thinking about scientists today, it was disturbing to learn that several leading aerospace engineers with secret or top-secret clearances have gone missing without a trace in the last year.  

Take one guess what kind of projects they were working on?  Equipment to be used to bypass time and gravity.  Only when you take it into warp drive do you pass through time.  I know it’s crazy…take it with a grain of salt.   

If you ever escape the surly bonds of time and gravity, you'll probably experience some metabolic changes, as in some major space diarrhea up to and including death.     

You'll wind up like a wasted Capri Sun on the side of the galactic highway.   

I'm thinking that's what happened to those scientists, so to speak.  They were working on something major, and now they're gone.  How do you know they actually disappeared on a backpacking trip or whatever?  You only know what the man behind the curtain tells you.  That's all.    

Update:  Ironically, right after sunset this evening, I was able to observe the International Space Station pass right over my position.  It reminds me of 1981, when I saw the space shuttle Columbia on its maiden voyage, coming home to land at Edwards.  There was a loud sonic boom, and you could see a speck streak through the sky toward the Mojave Desert.  Some of the people on the space station tonight are actually cosmonauts from the Russian space program, which makes this a noteworthy experience for me.  I wish we could resolve our problems here on Earth the way they do in outer space and realize we are all the same when we stare into the void.