After reading popularized cosmological theories stating that the universe is really information on some kind of weird surface - a kind of hologram if you will - I've decided that all existence has been evolving to create episodes of the Big Bang Theory which will gradually become the only thing on broadcast TV, and then eventually, the only thing period.
My theory was perversely proven by my stumbling on the word filiopietistic in a Chronicle of Higher Education piece by Thomas A. Underwood about Harvard University. The word means an excessive regard for ancestors and tradition.
Some days, I'm a practicing filiopietist grump as well as a contemporary one.
Seriously, I'm still thinking about my professor of literary criticism, an astonishing man who managed to display contempt for everything and convince everyone that it was an act of love and encouragement. We were all smarter in his classroom.
He said, casually, "the word is not the thing. No matter how many words are written or spoken, they cannot be the thing." Filiopietistic is striking, poweful proof of those words. It's a good word. Maybe not so useful for Words With Friends, but useful for green velvet, leather chairs, pipe smoke, and ideas as pleasure.
The universe as hologram? I'll believe that when the Large Hadron Collider spits out a really good episode of the Big Bang Theory.
Addison Steele
PS - It's all Chuck Lorre's fault. I blame the day I found ALL of his postscripts online.
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