8:30 a.m. - 2006-10-04

eventual strangeness
It makes sense that whatever you grow up with seems natural to you. I don't suppose the kids of Australian aborigines, the ones who still live off the land, are grossed out by the idea of eating bugs. I mean, lobsters and prawns are just bugs of the sea, but relatively few Europeans get freaked out by the idea of a prawn sandwich. But swap the prawns for (properly prepared) maggots and suddenly there's a big fuss and probably a hoo-ha too.

But then again, maybe aboriginal kids get to be teenagers and at some stage the thought will occur to them, "weird that no one on the O.C. eats grubs. Hmm. Maybe it's only the near-total denudation of the indigenous megafauna here that caused my people to try alternative protein sources thus overcoming a mild instinctive reluctance to eat invertebrates." And it stands to reason that there are people who see a lobster for the first time and can't believe anyone eats them. I mean they have feelers for god's sake.

Which leads neatly on to me as a teenager one day saying to myself, "Hmm. The Beatles. What a weird name for a band." I mean, they spell it differently from the other kind of beetle, but since there's no alternative definition offered, you still think about little black shiny insects. Or rather you don't, because you grow up hearing people talk about The Beatles and then one day you wonder what kind of a name is that? Likewise 'Led Zeppelin' as a band name can one day strike you as both bizarre and extremely lame - but somehow they continue to be cool.

So you grow up accepting things and it's relatively difficulty to imagine how you'd feel if you were encountering them for the first time, which is probably why I've never really heard anyone make a fuss about clouds.

If you'd never seen a cloud but you knew a little bit about water vapour I'm pretty sure you'd imagine an even layer of mist at whatever altitudes were most conducive to condensation. They'd have fuzzy tops and fuzzy bottoms and apart from when the wind stirred them, they'd be featureless. They probably wouldn't ever get very thick, because then they'd turn into rain. That's what you'd imagine a cloud was if you'd never seen one. So how come they've got pin sharp edges a lot of the time and form great blocks and tubes and meringues in the sky? If you hadn't grown up accepting it, there's no way anyone would think they were just water vapour.

Tomorrow: isn't 'plume' a strange word?