NO STRAIGHT LINES?

“One thing I’ve found,” I said, smiling wryly, “Is that life rarely happens in straight lines.”

Just a throwaway comment really. I meant it in the sense that the unexpected things derail us - beautifully, disturbingly, joyfully, terribly… but unpredictably. You can plan a straight line if you like; life’s probably going to throw you a curveball.

The conversation in Costa moved on of course, but I was daydreaming about it still - straight lines. Space-time is curved. The universe is probably a sphere, is it? Or a flattened ellipse like a galaxy? Is it? Does anyone know? And are all the angles ripples of its curvy parameter? Is everything curved? Is our concept of a straight line just a curve in disguise?

And how do you prepare for the predictability of the unpredictability? It would be a bit irresponsible wouldn’t it, to throw up all your plans and cry, “If the universe just does whatever it wants, so can I!” We do need some straight lines, even if they get warped and bent out of shape. And especially even if life (as I was suspecting) seems to play by different rules.

Costa was noisy. My tea was getting cold - a sort of entropy response to my meandering. Of course tea gets cold, Matt - that’s a straight line: the transfer of energy into chaos, steam into wisps of water collecting on the windows and soft furnishings. You can see it happening; you just can’t predict exactly how it’s going to happen.

The answer must be not to take your plans too seriously. Lightly hold everything, every thing, almost as though you know that it, like you, is just one gust of wind, one heartbeat, one decision away from fluttering into the sky.

The universe might be shapeless I suppose. I imagine it sort of expanding into itself like a wave of the ocean, folding, double-folding, rolling into its own curves, pulling galaxies with it like tea-plates on a picnic blanket.

No science to back that up. Just a feeling. It would explain why things are so curved and unpredictable though - we’re caught on the swell, riding the waves of a turbulent sea. Hold on, everyone. Well, hold on me, eh.

And don’t worry about your straight-line plans.