oil

oil is one of those love hate things. i worry about the person that says they love oil, but it would be easeir to say you love many of the things facilitated by oil. cheap travel, readily available goods, plastics, energy... the negatives are more apparent.

from a perspective devoid of politics oil is equally contradictory. it comes from deep in the earth, a place that humans naturally fear, and it creates an ominous black void on the surface. it coats everything it touches and can not be easily removed. it is essentially very old dead things in a liquid form that when mishandled burns like crazy. And for those exact reasons it is amazing how we have turned it into something functional. we light it on fire inside a complex machine to harness its energy. we make outstandingly complex chemical and plastics from this relatively simple and common resource. its crude in its raw state but its byproducts are awkwardly advanced and sterile.

i read about this guy in florida who found oil underneath his suburban home. despite anger from his neighbors he was able to construct a tiny rig that took the place of his pool in the back yard. what would they do if they found oil under a treasured building or ancient ruin. clearly we will dig where there are natural phenomenon, but man made structures seem to carry move weight in these debates. what if oil was found just under the pantheon, or under the empire state building?