Interpretation

There are different ways to interpret an idea, even a word. The Sun is very far away, but the Sun is also very near since I can see it in your eyes. I do not like Carl Jung but I still like you when you mention his ideas or think that he was right. I love Freud but you may not. Will you dislike me because I do? I adore Nietzsche but many do not for one reason or another. Many people refuse to hear the truth since it counters any beliefs they may hold. Change is difficult to accept. It is hard to wear a mask on top of a mask on top of a mask. The only important mask is the one we wear to hopefully avoid and beat COVID.

Before this virus, your face was always beautiful. You never needed a mask, even when you thought that you did. What were you hiding? Your natural beauty? Your luscious lips? Your tongue moving slowly over your teeth? Your nose? Vilain nez ne gâche pas beau visage (Ugly nose does not spoil beautiful face). I love your face when you wake up after a night full of love. How can we interpret that? I know exactly what I mean, but you may see it differently. It may be the actual point of most fiction. Any such text gains a life of its own when it is released to the world, albeit a very small one in most cases.

Even scientific data can be interpreted in more than one way, especially in medicine and epidemiology, which may seem scary. It actually is. I have studied it at the Masters level and it seems to be the worst in medicine, where we would hope that more than one interpretation would be the least rampant. However, medicine is not a science even if it likes to believe that it is. It follows the scientific method, but its interpretations of the results are varied and dependent on the statistics being used. I was supposed to do my PhD on the lack of sphericity in many repeated-measures medical studies, but ended up moving to Hawai’i instead. I never regretted it, even if I only ended up staying there for a year, hurrying back home to Montreal when 9-11 occurred, several hours later in Honolulu when I awoke. The airport was surrounded by soldiers when I left a month later, yet I was thoroughly searched upon arriving to Canada. Interpretation may be everything. I returned to Hawai’i in 2007 for six more years.

Science does its best to avoid the pitfalls of interpretation, but it too depends on fallible humans, notwithstanding the excellent machines that were invented to help it. But science warms the heart in so many ways. It saddens me that many people do not understand the inherent beauty of science. Education has failed too many people. The teachers are rarely at fault. It is usually a systemic problem, which is only getting worse. Here, the interpretation is clear. One plus one may equal three sometimes, if one of the two is a very pregnant woman, and we are counting the number of hearts. To avoid a wrong interpretation, the details have to be clear. Science always follows a thorough protocol, making amendments when required. Many fields do not have such a mechanism, relying on authority and unverifiable tenets.

If there was one science I was asked to recommend in terms of being awe-striking and insanely beautiful, it would be, easily, without a second thought, astronomy and the astrophysics that accompany it. It is constant inspiration coupled with exhilaration. There are so many unknowns, but what we know is fascinating and mind-boggling at the same time. The entire works of mysticism and religion amassed throughout human history cannot hold a candle to the magnificence of astronomy. I feel elated just thinking about its sheer power and sense of adventure. I wish they could teach it early in schools. I only had one such course in my life, and its notes and charts are the only ones that I kept and took with me wherever I moved to. Everything that I know today about astronomy, I learned by reading books and listening to online conferences. The talks in those venues were monumental and are available on YouTube for whomever is interested. We are lucky to have so much available to us with a few clicks of a mouse. We can listen to many luminaries that are no longer with us, yet their ideas are alive and often doing well when science has not disproved them.

Interpretation is often presented as a game. It is not, of course. It may be an art, but one that can be taught, unlike sculpting, or painting, or even writing. There are no cheat sheets for everything. Some things require our full attention, especially when lives are at stake, and all lives, not only those of humans. Other animals are as important, as are trees and other plants. Our planet is ill, yet we are playing the blame game. It is too late for that. Spielberg’s movie, AI, was an eyeopener, as were many other sci-fi movies and novels. Everyone should read Philip K. Dick and other sci-fi greats. Live long and prosper may be the most beautiful saying when it is correctly interpreted. But here, we will not be able to agree, since we do not live long and most of us do not prosper.

“Come on, M! I am tired of your interpretation.”

Ask Athena to hold your heart. It is too weak since you moved to Greece. She is beautiful, but come on! Get a grip, Patrick! Interpretation is everything. Even she knows it. Ask her! You can also ask Anthi when you see her. You are such a prick, Patrick.