Of ways cardboard and human

Scientists don’t want to have their hypotheses proven wrong. They want to find the right answers, but they also want to be right already. That is a good way to succeed in science, by knowing the right answers to look for.

I write in much the same detached way, looming over the facts, trying to make them fit my preconceived notions. I thought I had found an interesting metaphor in the recycling of cardboard. I thought that with all the impurities – the inks, dyes, Styrofoam, packing tape – eventually cardboard would be zero percent cardboard, and this would relate to the human condition in some profound way.

I thought I had found an interesting metaphor in the recycling of cardboard…and this would relate to the human condition in some profound way.

After some cursory research I learned that old cardboard is mixed with new pulp when it is recycled, after it is cleaned of impurities. This means that no matter how many times you recycle a box, it will always be at least 50 percent cardboard. I was disappointed by the competence of the recycling industry, and rather than seeing the metaphors the facts revealed I dwelled on the fact that my intuition was wrong.

Another good way to plant your flag is to arrive somewhere first. To this end, I thought to abandon current events and explore the uncharted limits of my mind. But it turned out to be far more limited than I had hoped, and the only echoes I could hear had to do with Dick Cheney hunting the most dangerous game and the white people on Ice Capades 2006.

More horrifying than not being able to transcend pop culture was to find that even my most original ideas had already been done right. All that was left for me was to be increasingly specific until I was discussing one thing I’m pretty sure no one has bothered to yet: myself.

When love and war and death and rebirth are clich