It's been a day over a month since I posted anything. Life has been pretty busy, I guess.
A couple days ago I visited the Boston Museum of Science. One of their exhibit halls has an "electricity" demonstration area, complete with the largest air-insulated Van Der Graff generator in the world.
I kind of have a history with that particular exhibit hall. I remember visiting the MOS with my Mom and Brother when I was a kid, and back then I was absolutely petrified of the electricity exhibit. The presentation is (and was) advertised as having "loud noises and bright flashes" and the flier mentions "creating lightning" in the exhibit hall. So, when I was there...14 years ago...I refused to see the electricity demonstration. My brother was pretty annoyed because he really wanted to see it, but I whined and resisted so much that Mom eventually gave in and decided that we wouldn't go.
Well, of course Colin wanted to see the electricity demonstration. I considered briefly and decided that 14 years had done nothing to distill my wariness of lightning at close proximity, so again I resisted. It's a lot harder to say no to him than it was to say it to my family, though, so after a couple seconds I gave in and agreed to see the demonstration.
Needless to say, it was not nearly as intense an experience as I'd feared. The "lightning" was more of a "big big big spark" - I mean, it was impressive as hell, don't get me wrong - but it wasn't quite what my imagination had made it out to be.
I guess the whole thing just made me wonder how many other experiences I'd turned down over the years - and how many habits of perspectives I've created - based on completely wrong, or exaggerated, assumptions? It's really valuable to have people in our lives to push us to question ourselves like that.
1 comment:
I think the Boston Museum of Science is still my favorite museum. I have so many fond memories of that place from childhood...and a few not so fond ones, like a scouting sleepover next to the very loud probability display (lots of balls hitting lots of pins continuously) in the math section that didn't turn off until after midnight. I know what you mean about the electricity exhibit though. I saw it when I was very little (I don't think dad told me what I was getting in to, or I would have resisted) and I've never wanted to go back, even though it was impressive. I don't like loud noises :) I probably should one of these days though.
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