A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature of Bubblegum in Space and Other Matters of Equivalent Importance
Fludgenickleastropungus according to Merriam-Webster dictionary is the act of manufacturing bubblegum in space. This act has never been done before and thus when performed requires a corresponding word that properly describes the action. Some folk will have never heard of this word before and begin to frantically look up this new piece of trivia and its history in order to fulfill one more additional piece of information that is useless and is therefore floccinaucinihilipilification. Some educated folk will immediately recognize that such a word cannot actually be found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, or any dictionary, not even the urban dictionary. However they will find floccinaucinihilipilification, a legitimate surprise. Fludgenickleastropungus has a history, just not a real one. Its history goes back to every single word ever made, the history of Adam naming the animals in the Garden. It is a part of our divine purpose as administrators to this world, to seek to bring order and light to an otherwise void world without consciousness.
One day, not today, someone will manufacture bubblegum specifically in space, not mint, not cinnamon, but bubblegum. Surely a more appropriate word could be made. One that has a Greek or some Latin derived word that follows special English rules that is spoken cleanly as a verb. Perhaps one that would also encompass different flavors of gum, but not now. Now the act has a rather clunky and obscure word that now has to be said in its entirety that doesn’t even follow English rules. Someone, maybe even a scientist, might even perform the act in order to just say that he made history for all of mankind that they are the first to fludgenickleastopungused.
Perhaps when this happens, the basis for making that choice of bringing the ingredients to bubblegum on a spacecraft for the purpose of saying a lengthy verb, is a part of a larger philosophy of how people navigate the world. Propose that “fludgenickle” can be removed since it almost sounds on its own as a backwater expletive, and what is left is simply “astropungus” something that sounds a gooey space paste, perhaps even a kind of adhesive. “Pungus” could be a specific brand of environment adhesive. Well, as it turns out the expletive was shouted when the astronaut discovered they made bubblegum instead of making the space adhesive. With great enthusiasm, the astronaut stated loudly “Fludgenickle! Astro...pungus?” instead of whatever polyisobutylene based chemical he was trying to make. That this act of creation using the light of conscious thought has, with the gifts from God, made the absurd possible.
Astropungus is not a part of a pungus brand adhesive, at least not to my knowledge at the time of this writing. Although it is safe to say that now that the concept exists, an attempt to profit from a trademark version of it no doubt exists in someone’s mind. It is a reflection of God’s artistic will. The same mind that created the explosive C4, also had to create a label for the explosive that stated simply “Do Not Eat.” This all can be traced back to the Vietnam War. Polyisobutylene or PIB is the binder that holds the RDX explosive material in place to so that it can fit inside shape-able containers. PIB is also used in bubblegum as an elastomer and is food grade, and is naturally unflavored. Soldiers out of boredom or audacious ingenuity, began to cut slices out of C4 and chew on it to pass the time. Doing so caused massive health problems, as RDX is a dangerous neurotoxin when ingested that can kill. Rumors began to spread that it can also get you high if chewed in small doses similar to ethanol. This became a real problem the Army had to address quickly. The result is “Do Not Eat” is now made into the label of this lethal explosive.
The world is full of disclaimers, apparently eating explosives is bad for you, who knew? The Defense Department didn’t realize this could be a problem in a world of rational minds. The assumption is that western man shares the world with rational minds. It seems rationality is one of the great inventions of our time here on Earth. Except this invention is a small part and merely a conscious action, that our otherwise and far more dominant irrational spiritual mind is constantly in battle with. The same human mind that is capable of producing Shakespeare also produces the “proposition 65 this product may cause cancer” label on the packaging of a screwdriver. Can you prove this device doesn’t cause cancer? Well if you can’t, it needs a label. This is a spiritual mind, making a spiritual claim about the real world with real problems.
The spiritual mind is superstitious. A rational argument is that real things require rational solutions. What happens when a superstitious mind encounters a rational argument? It is a real chicken and the egg problem that requires knowledge about both before it can be established which can come first. When a company sells a benign object in the state of California, the likelihood that the company is going to get sued because it gave someone cancer is remarkably so low that it is statistically practically zero. But, it isn't actually zero. It will be zero if you put the correct words on it though, a short little visible label referring to proposition 65, and all your legal problems go away. Like throwing salt behind your shoulder. Cancer is a real problem, and many unsuspecting things do cause cancer, but good luck finding a product that doesn't potentially cause cancer in California. An argument could be made that California is probably cancer, a spiritual claim that is supported by evidence that Hollywood exists and that everyone is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire. Meaning that once they have that big break, they will no longer have to live paycheck to paycheck. It is a spiritual claim that places the value of material things as their own personal worth. “I’m not famous, therefore not valuable” is a spiritual claim, about the rational material world. It is also a false claim.
The greed and envy of Hollywood should not be mistaken for astropungusism. It is a word that describes an irrational faith for the rational. It is an art that describes a world that hasn't happened yet, or it did happen a lot and all of the time. Imagine playing a movie to someone who has never seen a movie before, and is not aware of what movies are. What movie would you show them? There are artistic choices movies have made that are predetermined by our world and our culture that supersedes the understanding of someone who all of that is alien to. You not only have to explain the concept of a moving picture, but maybe the concept of pictures itself. This doesn’t even get into what the movie is actually about, and if even the plot is relatable. An airplane exists in a movie, easy enough to us, not easy for the person who has never seen a moving picture or an airplane. This means that our art, our world, our entertainment is hopelessly dependent on our own history that it is inescapable and cannot be interpreted by anyone else accurately. Simple minds think that because academics have translated hieroglyphics that it is now understood. It is simply a matter of finding an English word and attaching English grammar and eureka! The ancient Egyptian mind is now relatable. The concept of blue did not even exist in the ancient Greek world and the modern human believes that simply reading ancient Greek text in English will give them an insight into who they were.
The ancient people looked at the sky differently then modern people. They do so in a way that is so completely unrelatable that the educated simply call astrology bogus. If you are the kind of person that believes astrology is bogus, then the ancient world is forever outside your grasp that you might as well believe they never existed. What is the purpose of a Stonehenge or pyramid if astrology doesn’t get you a smartphone? A rational mind would say “tear it down, we need a data center” A data center to do what? What purpose does the data center actually have? It stores data, so that we (humans in the western world in 2026) can look at pictures of pyramids, and have an advertisement tell us about trips to Egypt, and that our government can project its authority so you can be be a proud and patriotic and conform to the great will of the state. The state that points rockets up in the sky that is a blue atmosphere, not a solid object. Obviously, an Egyptian in 1400BC doesn’t see the “blue sky” and a monumental human achievement that is the data center. The data center is just a building that some rich merchant built to make the state happy. He would ask who the architect was, and what in the heavens does it point to, and find its whole nature unsettling. Both buildings achieve the same identical purpose. Most rational humans would feel disgust at the notion of replacing Stonehenge with a data center, because deep down it is important that people keep elements of our other spiritual aspects intact as a record of who humanity is as a species.
The point, or pointlessness, is that an astropungusist notices there is no contrast between the rational and the irrational. Recognizing that our rational minds require a spiritual framework or irrational faith in order to function. Legal disclaimers are just words on a page meant to invoke a reality that can be measured. It can be recognized the same way people recognize a broken mirror is bad luck. It is true that breaking a mirror is bad luck, it is breaking your reflection. If a person chooses to think materially that a mirror can simply be replaced, is surely correct. If a person breaks a mirror because they struck it out of anger, is it simply material at that point? If seven years bad luck happened every time something shiny was broken, the world might be in a condition of total managed chaos blundering about accidentally almost destroying ourselves everyday. It must be purely coincidence how many accidents were narrowly avoided just driving to work, not realizing that that was in fact a stop sign you passed without incident. Maybe your luck is finally turning around.
