Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository

with the densest, most unyielding of matter, from natural stone
to man-made steel, their basic atoms, while bonded together with
almost inconceivable force, are not themselves “balanced,” not
if “balance” is, again, defined as “middling” - static and
stagnant. Because of what is known as “atomic vibration,” those
atoms are constantly moving and, thus, constantly moving out of
equilibrium with each other. While the molecules and the
greater matter of which they are a part do not change, they, the
atoms, are themselves constantly changing. At any given second
- or infinitesimal fragment of a second - the molecular
structure does not look exactly the same because the atoms
themselves are not the same. As a result, while those molecules
and that greater matter may look inanimate – indeed even dead –
to that so-called “naked eye,” the reality is very different, as
their existence is utterly dynamic. Their flux is without end.
As Weil said of humanity, the atoms too are “islands of change
in a sea of change.” They too know no “balance.”
And beyond the physical reality of biology and chemistry
and physics, “balance” is not a thing known to a nonphysical or
metaphysical reality – a “spiritual” reality – either. While I
believe in no gods and no supernatural causes veiled beneath
existence, I do find religions fascinating, as metaphorical
interpretations of humanity’s perception of the natural world
and of natural phenomenon. In particular, I find fascinating
137