The Great Escape

I got back from my trip two days ago. In Peru, I visited Machu Picchu by train and toured the cities of Cusco and Miraflores. But the highlight of the trip was our trek: we hiked for 4 days straight, down one mountain and up another to an Incan ruin called Choquequirao, then down that mountain and back up the first. It was more amazing than anything I've ever done. It was probably more amazing than anything I'll ever do. It was nothing but me, my friend, our guides, a couple of horses, and Mother Nature. At the top of the mountain, I felt as close to the sun as I ever will, as close to the wind and sky, and as close to any form of God that may exist. At night, the stars appeared to wink at me in some form of communication that I might come to learn if I could look at that same night sky every day for decades: the people who lived on that mountain 800 years ago did, and they worshipped their stars, their sky, their sun, their wind. They sacrificed llamas and yes, occasionally, their children, to the powers that they believed held the delicate balance of the beauty around them. And I understood why. I understood why they would see spirits in the stars, and believe that the sun was almighty. In that junction between sky and earth, I felt a connection to those ancient people through the awe I felt for the grace and subtleties, the simultaneous fragility and strength, of the earth. I felt at once part of the present, and part of the past.
I've spent the last couple of days relaxing, catching up, and getting errands done before I start my clerkship year. Of especial interest to me has been Angie's blog, and the subsequent comment-conversation with David about the David Brooks column entitled "The Great Escape" from the 4/22 Times. Brooks's editorial is about how there is something refreshing about the inclusion of mysticism and folklore--"imagination"--in our usually rote and rational--"scientific"--observations of all that goes on around us. The article is meant to be a criticism of the mind-numbing details and technicalities--to Brooks, scientific qualities--that have taken over the Democratic presidential race; let's stop analyzing for a moment, and look everywhere but at the minutiae for just a minute, he is saying.

David & Angie are unhappy with this apparent insult to science; science is not cold and calculating, like politics. Science, in its essence, is more interesting and fascinating and imaginative than any fiction or myth, they say.

Having made a Great Escape of my own, I have to disagree. Yes, science is amazing, the process of scientific discovery is exciting, and the fact that it's all in pursuit of the truth gives it all an added legitimacy and weight. Science is full of creativity and imaginative thought, yes. It's why I've spent the last 7 years of my life learning about science--about how atoms and elements come together in their magical and miraculous ways to create life, to destroy life, to make life ill. I've been up to my eyes in science, I've lived breathed eaten and shat science, in all its amazing glory. And 7 of the last 9 weeks were spent in terrible anxiety studying for an exam all about it. Yes, science is amazing. It can explain everything, if only we could begin to understand. And those explanations are magical, and the paths to their discoveries are as exciting as any fiction we could create. Everything is science; there are a bajillion scientific reactions occurring for everything that happens: for the writing of fiction, for an act of imagination, for love. But science is not everything. Is thinking about the chemical reactions involved in love actually as good as just feeling the damn emotion? For me, the answer is no. And to Angie, who once laid for 2 hours on my bed staring at the tufts of yarn, imagining them in different ways, I ask: was that a magical experience to you because of science, or because of imagination? And aren't we as grateful for the existence of J.K. Rowling and W.A. Mozart as we are for Einstein?

I don't think David Brooks was trying to say that science is cold and without its own magical qualities. I think David Brooks is an intelligent man who probably does know about string theory and relativity. He made a blanket statement in an political editorial. We as readers should understand a writer's devices; we should not take his essay as an insult to science--that isn't the point. His point is that there is value in acknowledging, and even embracing, "that different way of seeing our surroundings". Allowing imagination into reason improves the subjective experience of reason. David Brooks doesn't look into the night sky and think that the stars are actually the eyes of some mythical creature. But knowing that once upon a time, there were people who believed this, all the while knowing the scientific truth, gives the night sky an added element of amazingness that would be lacking with just the scientific truth alone. That form of imagination is magic, too.

The Incas saw in the Milky Way (centuries before the "Milky Way" existed) a number of creatures that were of importance to their way of life: a fox, a llama, a serpent, a frog. I know there is no frog in the Milky Way. I know it would be silly for me to believe there is a frog in the Milky Way. But when I see the Milky Way now, I will see that darkened shape the Incas saw to be a frog, and I will remember the night sky as I saw it in Choquequiarao. I will remember that there was once a people who lived so harmoniously and sustainably with the earth, and with such reverence, that puts us "enlightened" humans to shame. And I think my life has become richer and wholer because of this. And that is a thrill that is entirely different than anything I've ever gotten from science.