I’ve
been sitting here all day on a SATURDAY writing a lab report. The young adult in me still wants my Saturdays to be full of cartoons, hiking or running outside, spending time with friends, or basically anything not work-related or requiring a thought process of any kind. Starting to hate writing, Mechanics of
Materials, and labs in general, I began thinking about who even cares about
this mess. Honestly! Who is ever going to care about the principal
stresses and strains that occur at every point on a cantilever beam, and why is it worth my time!
For those of you who may not know exactly
what that means, let me explain.
Everything in the universe is under stress of some kind, be it gravity,
air pressure, the weight of another object, etc. Based on the fact that we exist in a
3-dimensional universe, scientists and engineers analyze the world along three Cartesian
axes, x, y, and z. Principal stresses
are the magnitudes of the stress normal (perpendicular) to the Cartesian axes
system. Essentially, stress is on every
object in every direction, inescapable and all-encompassing.
Unable to get the numbers to work out, reworking each of about 20
calculations multiple times to try to find the error, I finally gave up and
took a break. Then I realized the
importance of what I was studying.
Stress. Everywhere. “Inescapable
and all-encompassing.” Sounds a little applicable to life, right?
The title of this blog is “Aspiration and Entropy.” This is representative of my view that life
is comprised of hope in spite of a fallen world. Nothing is perfect on this planet, everything
is degrading by the laws of physics. We
are all under stress at all moments in time, much like the theory behind
principal stresses.
The real trick to life is learning to handle the stresses that surround
and act upon us constantly. It may sound
cheesy, but survival means fighting stress and seeking peace and joy
consistently. The world tries to bring
you down with work, commitments, human relations, and personal outlooks. It is a person’s response to these challenges
that shapes who they are. Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow wrote a poem entitled “The Ladder of St. Augustine,” which
encapsulates wonderfully how man must always fight through the stresses and
strains of life. Anyways, enjoy the poem! I'm back to work... hopefully for the last time!
The Ladder of St. Augustine
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will
but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
All common things, each
day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our
discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.
The low desire, the
base design,
That makes another's virtues less;
The revel of the ruddy
wine,
And all occasions of excess;
The longing for ignoble
things;
The strife for triumph more than truth;
The hardening of the
heart, that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth;
All thoughts of ill;
all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or
impedes
The action of the nobler will;--
All these must first be
trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of
fair renown
The right of eminent domain.
We have not wings, we
cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by
more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.
The mighty pyramids of
stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and
better known,
Are but gigantic flights
of stairs.
The distant mountains,
that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by
pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.
The heights by great
men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their
companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Standing on what too long
we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern--unseen
before--
A path to higher destinies.
Nor deem the
irrevocable Past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its
wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
No comments:
Post a Comment