For some time now, I’ve been concerned that I’ve lost interest in the mechanics of things. That I’ve become preoccupied with poetizing moments, coining words for unnamed emotional states, dissecting the archaeology of my own imagination. For some time now, I’ve been concerned that it’s pure escapism — a distraction and relief from the effort to understand within the clear-eyed framework of the natural sciences. For some time now, I’ve been concerned.

My “poetic preoccupations” demand careful tracking of feelings and thoughts — and my recent voyages across my mindscape revealed a curious, optimistic pattern in the order of how they arrive.

I was biking up Mount Wilson, spring at its peak, me at my peak, even the peaks themselves peaking. Immersed in the moment, rearranging words for another haiku, I looked down a serpentine switchback and saw a sports car fail to hold the curve, drifting and smashing into a guardrail. I saw it first — then I heard it. And my first thought was not, “I hope they’re okay,” nor, “I’m glad it didn’t happen when I was on that curve.” My first thought was: “It’s far enough to notice the difference between the speed of light and sound.” And because the San Gabriel canyons have their strange thermal pockets, I found myself wondering how sound waves might warp in these pockets, like light does, and how the mountain slopes shape that echo — and I was gone. The physics of the moment took over. There was no room left for concern about the humans in the wreck (to be fair, I was so far away that nothing could be done).

Another glimpse came recently, as I was uncorking a bottle of champagne for a small celebration atop Mount Baldy. For a moment, I thought: “It’s the perfect time for a toast,” but then I remembered I was at altitude, holding two bottles of different volumes, and my mind slipped instead into the statistical thermodynamics of the circumstances — and the celebratory spirit evaporated.

Now I wonder if this involuntary precedence of scientific thinking reveals something about the deeper strata of my mind. Perhaps it does. Either way, even though I’ve mocked hope before, I’m still a fool for science, and I hope that beneath this entire colorful veneer of poetry and fantasies, there remains an inquisitive mind, hungry for principles, rules, and patterns beyond the 5-7-5 syllable beat of frivolous haikus.