Each of our worlds exist in the same plane, but yet are built of very different building materials. Everyday we build upon the foundation of our lives, adding rooms, windows and doors to our own personal world. In the literal sense, each of our lives are built of the same materials, but what makes them different is our interpretation of what these materials are. Perhaps one of the most intriguing things about progressing through maturity is how everything around us can change. Not because of an actual displacement, morph or translation, but because our perception, and knowledge, of these things alter in time.
I have worked at one of the big box home improvement stores for over 5 years, the last 2 of which have been spent in the flooring department. While we offer many beautiful floor coverings, I have always had an affinity towards tile. Namely the natural stones like “slate”, “marble”, “granite” and “travertine”. I have made many things out of these tiles calling them by their commercial names and appreciating them for all they had to offer. The “slate” tile we sold was often marked with a black, plant-like detail that I described as a fossil. The smaller “slate” tiles were often covered in small inclusions of other rocks, deep red in color. The “marble” tile had peculiar patterns inside of the stone that both enhanced the beauty, and made cutting intricate patterns a bit of a challenge. I made name plates out of the product, photo frames, pencil holders and more. (I now offer these items for sale, visit my stone creations page in the future to see what I offer)
Today these things take on very different forms. Those black, branched silhouettes that played out on the slate tile are no longer fossils to me: They are now what I call “MnO2”, or Pyrolusite. The smaller slate tiles aren’t slate at all- it’s actually a schist, and those small inclusions of rock are almandine garnets. The marble tile is now a cut and polished limestone slab, chalk-full of fossils from an ancient shallow-marine environment. Everything in my world has changed, even though the fabric of it has remained the same.
As we all know, the sciences are constantly changing. The world was once known to be flat and now it is known to be spherical. The world around us never changed: Our interpretation of what the world is changed. The basic building materials of our very world are left unchanged and through science we seek something so fundamental, yet so life-altering to ourselves: We seek the truth. It is often difficult to accept the truth when we have spent so long teaching ourselves to interpret our world in a specific fashion, but this is what makes science real. It is the basis of my intrigue with geology. Everyday there is at least one thing that changes in interpretation, and each time my world becomes a different color of the world the day before.
Despite the fact that my world has changed, and I now organize schist tile on my shelves, and I marvel at the abundance of fossils in the limestone slabs in Aisle 43, the same world I live in is very different to others. When I sell these items, they are still referred to as slate and marble. At first I thought I was lying to my customers. Now I know I am not, because in their world that tile is very much a marble.
If you are seeking the truth in this world, please come ask it of me. I will be glad to sell you a limestone tile floor, or a schist backsplash for your kitchen. If you would like to remain in your world then I respect your right to do so, and I will sell you a marble floor. We all know that if we give science a few more years that limestone may be further investigated into something else. I prefer to peel away the layers and find the basis of all that is. Some prefer to leave the onion as a whole, unquestioned and appreciated for what it appears to be on the outside. Neither of us is right or wrong: We are simply looking at the same thing in a different light.
The basic building materials in each of our lives is exactly the same. We are each entitled to interpret our world in the best way we see fit. We use the tools given to us in life to understand our world, building new rooms as we see fit to store that information. Personally, I view Geology as more of a deconstruction. It is not in my profession to build new walls. It is my job to tear down the curtains of ideas, and pictures of theories, ingest all the information, and find the walls that have been there all along.