Thursday, January 06, 2005
'Tis not true that a watched pot will not boil. Watch a pot, though, and take care not to be yourself transformed.
First the bubbles begin to form on the bottom of the pot. You've seen this: it reminds you of carbonation, fizzy water. The bubbles sit on the bottom and colonize. Within a few minutes, all of the underwater surfaces are covered with tiny pockets of air.
And then they start to move. Slowly, almost deliberately, the first one detaches himself from the floor of his world and spirals up to the top of the water, where!—he achieves nirvana, flinging himself out of this existence and becoming one with the ether of your kitchen air.
Inspired, his fellows begin to follow, one at a time, then in groups, then in streams—slow and careful streams. Many cling to the walls of the pot for security, afraid to relinquish a hold on solid matter. But the exodus has begun, and before long, patches of openness where no bubbles remain appear along the fields of gleaming metal. The bubbles, like lemings in straight lines, rush to extinguish their bubble-ness.
They must know something you, the pot watcher, do not. Because in mere seconds, the water begins trembling. Shivering, almost, but not quite shaking—dancing, perhaps—the water wants to follow the bubbles, join them in utter nothingness. From its depths, it turns itself inside out. Holes appear and disappear in a fraction of a second, reappearing larger and more robust. These are not bubbles. They are earthquakes of liquid and they join on another in a cataclysm of being.
You have been watching and yet cannot remember when the gentle bubbles became extinct; and when exactly did the shivering start? before or after the bubbles died? Did, in fact, the bubbles perish, or did they birth the waterquakes? It has happened!—before you saw it coming—it rolls and jumps, spits and pops. The pot is boiling! The watched pot! And you saw it—or did you? When did bubbles become shivering become quaking become boiling?
Perhaps a watched pot never does boil.
First the bubbles begin to form on the bottom of the pot. You've seen this: it reminds you of carbonation, fizzy water. The bubbles sit on the bottom and colonize. Within a few minutes, all of the underwater surfaces are covered with tiny pockets of air.
And then they start to move. Slowly, almost deliberately, the first one detaches himself from the floor of his world and spirals up to the top of the water, where!—he achieves nirvana, flinging himself out of this existence and becoming one with the ether of your kitchen air.
Inspired, his fellows begin to follow, one at a time, then in groups, then in streams—slow and careful streams. Many cling to the walls of the pot for security, afraid to relinquish a hold on solid matter. But the exodus has begun, and before long, patches of openness where no bubbles remain appear along the fields of gleaming metal. The bubbles, like lemings in straight lines, rush to extinguish their bubble-ness.
They must know something you, the pot watcher, do not. Because in mere seconds, the water begins trembling. Shivering, almost, but not quite shaking—dancing, perhaps—the water wants to follow the bubbles, join them in utter nothingness. From its depths, it turns itself inside out. Holes appear and disappear in a fraction of a second, reappearing larger and more robust. These are not bubbles. They are earthquakes of liquid and they join on another in a cataclysm of being.
You have been watching and yet cannot remember when the gentle bubbles became extinct; and when exactly did the shivering start? before or after the bubbles died? Did, in fact, the bubbles perish, or did they birth the waterquakes? It has happened!—before you saw it coming—it rolls and jumps, spits and pops. The pot is boiling! The watched pot! And you saw it—or did you? When did bubbles become shivering become quaking become boiling?
Perhaps a watched pot never does boil.
