Althouse: "Why is this so inspirational?"

June 20, 2012

"Why is this so inspirational?"

It's the slinky on a treadmill.

Via Jaltcoh, who warms you up for the epic slinky trek with cats on a treadmill and amazing box on a treadmill.

12 comments:

I'm Full of Soup said...: I hate cats- how about some film of the young Wallenda on the Wheel of Death!; 6/20/12, 2:13 PM
ricpic said...: It isn't. It isn't inspirational. Only for those who lead very safe upper-middle class suburban lives is it inspirational. Reminds me of my very safe cousin who thought it was the height of funny to run the projector backwards and make people jump out of the water on to the diving board and do it over and over and over again while basking in the beaming approval of his very safe suburban aunts and uncles as all the while Rome burned. But far away. Rome was burning but far away. So let the idiocy continue. Smell the smoke yet you dumb fucks?!; 6/20/12, 2:33 PM
edutcher said...: You want inspirational, look at the combat footage of Omaha Beach and the infantrymen falling over as they're hit, but the rest just keep going.

Makes your problems look a little small.; 6/20/12, 2:50 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: ricpic:

My, that was . . . apocalyptic.; 6/20/12, 2:51 PM
David said...: "Smell the smoke yet you dumb fucks?"

The only great commencement speech I ever heard was by Joseph Brodsky, at Dartmouth in 1989 when my son graduated. It was titled "In Praise of Boredom."

Part of his contrarian message was that the Dartmouth grads were not all that special.

The final three paragraphs:

For boredom is an invasion of time into your set of values. It puts your
existence into its proper perspective, the net result of which is precision and
humility. The former, it must be noted, breeds the latter. The more you learn
about your own size, the more humble and the more compassionate you become to
your likes, to the dust aswirl in a sunbeam or already immobile atop your
table.

If it takes will-paralyzing boredom to bring your insignificance home, then
hail the boredom. You are insignificant because you are finite. Yet infinity is
not terribly lively, not terribly emotional. Your boredom , at least, tells you
that much. And the more finite a thing is, the more it is charged with life,
emotions, joy, fears, compassion.

What's good about boredom, about anguish and the sense of meaninglessness of
your own, of everything else's existence, is that it is not a deception. Try to
embrace, or let yourself be embraced by, boredom and anguish, which are larger
than you anyhow. No doubt you'll find that bosom smothering, yet try to endure
it as long as you can, and then some more. Above all, don't think you've goofed
somewhere along the line, don't try to retrace your steps to correct the error.
No, as W. H. Auden said, "Believe your pain." This awful bear hug is no
mistake. Nothing that disturbs you ever is.; 6/20/12, 2:57 PM
ricpic said...: Hey Balfegor, I'm not allowed to start drinking before the sun is over the yardarm?; 6/20/12, 3:19 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: What was that line in Jurasic Park?

Life finds a way.

The life we "see" in the dead objects is the life in us? always going..

I dont know about inspirational.. more like all the opportunities I had no clue about.

Like in What Happened Was (1994).; 6/20/12, 4:05 PM
Quaestor said...: There are many limiting factors to ensure that eventually the slinky is bound to either fall off the side or stop and get dumped over the end of the treadmill, not least of which is the First Law of Thermodynamics. Yet this demonstration intrigues me. The slinky tends to step down in a virtually straight line for 20 or 30 cycles until it encounters an irregularity on the surface of the track which starts it on a series of oblique steps to the right or left where it encounters the immobile sides of the treadmill, thus gradually reversing the direction of the oblique cycles, eventually straightening out to repeat a variation of the whole pattern. The only input I can see is gravity, though somebody must have started the process by tripping over the slinky. It really is an excellent example of chaos at work -- no two cycles are alike, yet there is an overall stable pattern.

I wonder if the person who set up this demonstration allowed it to continue until the pattern collapsed, and how long did it take.; 6/20/12, 5:33 PM
Astro said...: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Laozi.; 6/20/12, 9:24 PM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/20/12, 9:29 PM
Saint Croix said...: Why is this so inspirational?

The music! Film is an emotional experience and music is a huge part of that. Even "silent" films have music, music, music. The visuals occupy your eyes but it's the music that truly manipulates you.

Star Wars - music
Jaws - music
The Godfather - music
Singin' in the Rain - music
2001 - music
Slinky on a Treadmill - music

Music is a huge part of the filmmaking experience.; 6/20/12, 9:30 PM
Saint Croix said...: And that movie had a horrible non-ending. Where's the climax? Where's the resolution?

That slinky movie left me unhappy. It's like Han Solo as a frozen popcicle. Booooooooo! Now I got to wait 3 years to see what happens to that damn slinky.; 6/20/12, 9:33 PM