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| A cat herder? |
That's
because cats can't be herded!
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| These cats have not been herded together. They are sitting like this because they want to! |
Today
is the day to honor those who are tasked with the impossible. People
who are supposed to do the undoable.
Sometimes,
I think that's me. Do you sometimes think that's you, too?
Well,
then, let's celebrate me and you today, too!
Quotes
to keep you going...
If
you are faced with the impossible, you could think of wise words such
as these:
“Because a thing seems
difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to
accomplish.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Women, like men,
should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure
should be a challenge to others.” – Amelia Earhart
“By striving to do the
impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have
cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken
a single step forward.” – Mikhail Bakunin
“The difficult is what
takes a little time...the impossible is what takes a little longer.”
– Fridtjof Nansen
Now,
I am not so sure I am 100% behind all these great quotes. I mean,
some things probably are actually impossible. For example, I
am never going to be 5 feet 8 inches tall, no matter how much I
exercise and eat nutritious food and try and try to stand a little
taller. (I am quite short!) And I do not know how wise it is to try
to do all impossible things.
But
I do love this quote:
“I have learned to use
the word impossible with the greatest caution. – Werner von
Braun
I'm sure that some people
thought that humans could never fly—and now flying from New York to
Los Angeles is routine for some! And did going to the moon seem
impossible to many people?
Of
course we can always learn from the late, great Douglas Adams:
“The impossible often
has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.” –
Douglas Adams
“Six
impossible things before breakfast”
Here is a portion of
Alice Through the Looking Glass:
'I
can't believe that!'
said Alice.
'Can't
you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. 'Try again: draw a long
breath, and shut your eyes.'
Alice
laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said, 'one can't
believe
impossible things.'
'I
daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was
your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've
believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'
When
I read this, I like the silliness of it. But it also speaks to me
about what it feels like to learn about some of the most amazing
things in science.
I
think that we should not “believe” in everything, willy-nilly,
but should instead look to evidence to decide what is real and
true—but sometimes scientific evidence seems to go against what we
see with our own two eyes! That's because our eyes can be fooled by
things such as optical illusions, and we can fool ourselves with
wishful thinking and other logical fallacies, as well. Most of all,
we experience the universe of medium sizes and slow speeds, and we
have intuitive “gut feelings” and “common sense” that are
based on those experiences. But a lot of what we now know about the
universe has to do with very, very large and very, very small objects
and very fast speeds—and so the evidence points to facts that seem
to those gut feelings...
...well,
impossible!
But
it is a wonderful thing to examine the evidence, accept the evidence,
and believe the seemingly impossible, and see where that takes us. As
long as we are grounding ourselves on empirical evidence, it can take
us to amazing places!
Also
on this date:
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