When I contemplate infinity, the longness of it wears me out, and then I want to take a nap. I think that's why you always see ad nauseam and ad infinitum together. The whole idea of something going on forever is nauseating, which causes droopiness. When you're droopy, the last thing you want is someone telling you to put up a bunch of ads, or mile-markers.
I don't think there are any mile-markers on the road to infinity, because the Department of Transportation would run out of numbers halfway through the job, so it wouldn't make sense to even start something like that. Billboards wouldn't make sense, either, because you'd never know where to put them without any mile-markers to tell you where you are.
I think the road to infinity is paved with good intentions, but all the droopy people who stopped to take naps along the way make it look like it's paved with sleeping people. It isn't, though.
Great piece! I've learned that the road to infinity is grey (Hélène Rioux, Room With Bath, 2005), strewn with paradoxes (Midhat J. Gazalé, Number: From Ahmes to Cantor, 1999), and "so congested that movement is literally impossible" (Christopher D. Foster, The Transport Problem, 1975). You're right that the Department of Transportation would run out of numbers. Do you know what would come after the last number? Ellipses: "those unassuming dots after the last numeral put us on the road to infinity" (Phillip Hoffmann, Nothing So Absurd, 2003).
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just my delirium, but nearly everything in your comment seems uncommonly funny at the moment. Grey? Ha! Congested? Hahaha . . . [cue coughing, gagging sounds] . . . ha! But wait . . . dots in the road? The DOT would put dots on the road to infinity? Hahahahahahaha!
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not just your delirium. Everything I say is uncommonly funny. ;-)
ReplyDeleteImagine a seven on its side. An almost infinity. An infinity for dummies. Infinity Lite. Somewhatfinity. An infinity for those who don't have time for endlessness.
ReplyDeleteBut I know what you mean about infinivertigo. I think you have to surrender to it. To the uncertainty. A world without cellwalls.
I surrender. They can have my cells. Or at least borrow them while I'm staring into the abyss. I think I need a nap. Or a 7-Up.
ReplyDelete