Tuesday 10 March 2009

droplet



here's a conundrum:

a drop of water, in its perfect state, is a perfect sphere.

yet, a drop of water can never be in its perfect state: the moment it becomes definably a drop - a small enough quantity of water to be 'itself', an individual, if you like, a drop - it acquires the shape we all know it as: the droplet shape.

whether it be hanging off a solid object, like a tap, for example, or a bottle, whether it be running down a surface, like a window pane or a cheek, whether it be travelling through the air towards the ground, like rain, or towards the sky, like from a fountain's jet, in this, the natural world, it is always just that: a droplet. a vague approximation to something we recognise it as, but not itself: not a perfectly formed, absolutely round in every direction drop. not a sphere.

the closest a drop would appear to come to being its perfect self is on its point of death: when it enters a mass of liquid. of course it may never make it there. it may evaporate first, find itself dispersed in the air before being allowed to form again as part of another droplet elsewhere and starting over until it ultimately finds its universe.

and then, just when it becomes part of the big universe it would recognise as its own - the liquid world of puddles, rivers, lakes and the seas, or even just of your bath tub - when it is perhaps most truly at home, it is no longer itself. it is no longer a drop, an individual portion of water: it is completely absorbed in its element. it is whole, but wholly dissolved.

and curiously just then, when a drop is no longer a drop, it could be said to be at its best, its most liquid. its most wet.

so does that mean then that being a drop is essentially futile? or simply impossible? does it mean that the moment a drop is identifiably born into the world it has lost its perfection and the only way of getting it back is to end its existence as what it is and become completely part of something infinitely bigger?

or is that in fact the point? is that what being a drop is all about? to be something else entirely for a while, to take on these shapes and fulfil a little purpose, maybe a big purpose, maybe no purpose at all, to just be, as a droplet, as the manifestation of something that cannot be what it is until it ceases to be what it is? and when it ceases to be what it is does that mean it then no longer exists, or does it mean than then at last it can truly be.

and does it mean that the best chance it has of being perfect is for a fleeting moment, just as it dies? or did it go through a similar brief state of perfection, just as it formed?

or is our entire concept of what it is to be perfect, what it is to be a drop and what the natural world is, flawed?

that's the droplet conundrum.

and there is, would you believe it, a facebook group to celebrate it...