There are things in our lives that we don't need to know. Because in knowing them it can change the very lens through which we see the world. I happened upon a detail today about how snowflakes were formed. Turns out I had been missing an important piece of the formula. From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association:
"A snowflake begins to form when an extremely cold water droplet freezes onto a pollen or dust particle in the sky." (http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/snowflakes_2013.html)
So what? You may at first glance think yeah that makes sense. But really think about what that means...when your lawn is blanketed in a bed of white snow, really it is blanketed in a bed of dust. And what is dust? It is particles from roads, pollen, human skin, animal hair, pollution. It is everywhere and I prefer to not normally think about it.
But now I have two inches of snow...two inches of "dust" on my front lawn...and those tiny white specs falling from the sky are not really something you want to catch on your tongue. The upside to this discovery is that it at least fits with my world view. That, like most things, when you dig into their core, they are rotten.
