Save me Neil deGrasse Tyson

As some of you may already know, small dogs and I are not friends. I was viscously mouth-mauled by - of all fucking breeds - a cocker spaniel in 6th grade, and struggled with PTSD, triggered by yippers, for years. Hallucinations and everything. Not fun. I'm doing much better now.

Anywho, just a few moments ago I go out to have a smoke on the old porch on a nice, cloudy, rainless night. Looking down the road I live on, I see an unleashed stray small dog (probably not actually a cocker spaniel) and think to myself, calmly but still somewhat antagonistically: "fucking cocker spaniel."

As soon as I finish the thought, a flash of light, coalesced around a column reaching to the sky, blinds my vision, followed almost immediately by a wave of sound so immense I doubt very much I'll ever hear anything that loud again. Lightning had struck the earth in the very spot I had my eyes set on, only twenty or so yards from me.

After recoiling and adjusting to the green streak etched into my vision by the flash, and the ringing in my ears from the thunder, I look back at the spot. Pompeii dog. Like God personally reached down from Heaven to barbecue the fucker... at my request.

It took a good sixty seconds to shake the fear - not quite sure how it why it was fear, but it was - that I might be able to call lightning in some telekinetic manner. As if I'd suddenly become an ugly white male version of Ororo Munroe, and didn't yet have my powers under control.

But that's crazy. Silly. Wrong.

Even now, though, I can't make sense if it. Isn't lightning supposed to follow the path of least resistance? Why not hit a nearby building? It just seems so utterly unlikely.

So what should I believe now? Do I really just chalk it up to random and act like nothing happened? Or is that question itself just some misguided pattern-seeking impulse that caused man to write the first myths?

I really hope I don't relapse on this whole PTSD thing. Damn it.

Maybe the dog just got done rolling in something that gave it a heavy static charge lol.

Crazy how loud and bright a lightning strike is that close isn't it?

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Pompeii dog.

That'll teach 'em. lmfao!

But seriously, being the tallest object nearby doesn't necessarily mean you're most likely to discharge a lightning strike. There are a lot of other variables relating to being earthed and other charges.

Why should your PTSD return? It was either a freak accident or dogs should fear YOU now. *evil laughter*

Anyway, weird shit does happen. I have a relative who was about 3 feet away from a tree which was struck by lightning. The relative survived without serious injury. I also had one extremely weird episode in my life when I suddenly felt the urge to call my brother as I was convinced something was amiss. To give a sense of perspective, I never just randomly call my brother. We aren't the phone-talkative type. Anyway, this day I just had this fucking feeling and decided to call him and - wtf, he really was in serious trouble. I still have no explanation how I knew. Perhaps my subconscious had processed some information and reached a conclusion I was unaware of at a rational level. Still, it was really fucking strange.


This will be my second post in a row in offtopic telling someone to think like a true PoE player, but - what the hell - we are in PoE's forum, after all. What's the mantra of a true PoE player?

RNG is RNG. Or 'fucking RNG, man' - depending on attitude.

We still don't know how lightning works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgPaCWJL7XI

When i watch this video what i see is that even super intelligence may see only what it expects to see. If its entire environment is framed around the context of one particular concept, that concept will dominate what they think about even outside of that environment.

I have had several spiritual encounters encounters (for lack of a better word). The first when i was fairly young, the night i went to sleep thinking about how everyone should view the world from my perspective (which may seem arrogant, i still think is objectively superior to this day). Lightning struck the house directly above my head knocking out all of the electronics in the house. For at least 4 years afterwards, i would have the annoying power of getting shocked by every other doorhandle i touched (both within the house and without). To this day, i can still taste copper with my tongue simply by touching it with my fingers and feel the electric field of the battery in my vaporizer.

Once a small patch of hair closest to the center of my forehead white overnight. I did some research into the phenomena of hair turning white, and the doctors seem to mistakenly believe it is impossible. I assure you all it is very real. But back on target, one night on the factory floor i had the most overwhelming feeling that everything was interconnected with everything else. It was as if i was somehow I was beyond the universe with a perspective of looking down on it, encompassing it all at once... but down is not the correct term, it as if it was on some other axis entirely. The very next time i looked in the mirror, i noticed the patch of white hair.

What does it all mean? Is the god of the bible real? I highly doubt it. But perhaps there is more to reality than science as we know it can describe. Or perhaps it is merely coincidence. B F Skinner's work on superstitious pigeons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_the_pigeon perhaps lends some insight on the issue. Or perhaps it is a completely separate concept, i dunno.

"

SkyCore wrote:

Once a small patch of hair closest to the center of my forehead white overnight. I did some research into the phenomena of hair turning white, and the doctors seem to mistakenly believe it is impossible.

Err... what kind of doctors are you talking about? Because a short check revealed doctors recognize this as a symptom of a variety of problems, some of which are legitimately concerning. No one seems to claim it can't happen. Did you pass an examination by a reliable physician?

"

Do you take requests? :)

ymmd, thanks!

---

i wouldn't put too much thought into it, things just happen and i'm sure there are many things mankind hasn't discovered yet, for example how gravitation really works and how to switch it off, we're just in the beginning to see a glimpse of our universe.

sincerely,
your anonymous agnostic