I just missed a shuttle. I had to go to the other campus for some training. Shuttle takes me there. It’s easy and fast.

On the way back though. Well, there is this 45-minute gap between shuttles right at 2pm. And my training is done… you guessed it! 2pm.

The weather now is gorgeous! About 78 degrees, sunny. Ahh, what a day for a walk.

Well, it’s a 40-minute walk… But, hey, I’d much rather walk than sit on a bench waiting for a shuttle forever. [Note: right as I was walking up to the lab so did the shuttle, so I did not waste any time and got a little exercise.]

So, let’s walk, look around, and think.

What was I thinking about? Well, let me tell you. With all the negativity and all the negativity around me I really was not feeling all-that-peachy. My trust in people is severely shaken – how can I trust women (or men) if my ex-girl who for 6 years repeated to me she loves me more than anything on the planet and would never look at another fucked an old friend of mine…

That sort of thinking does not go well with, well, living. Puts one in a continually bad mood.

And then it hits me.

You know, some things in life are instantaneous.

You know right-away if that girl at the bar… If you would like to serve her breakfast tomorrow.

Right-away you appreciate, nay, fall in love with a piece of art or a song.

Some things, of course, require time. But I speak now of “revelations”. I am talking about a thought, an idea, hitting you like a bus. With splashing blood and flying guts all over the place. Bam, wham, and it’s all done. Fraction of a second and your life is changed.

I saw a butterfly.

Smack in the middle of a street as I was crossing 19th Street walking on Market. There it was. Giant yellow butterfly the size of a pack of cigarettes with black “feathers”. Kind of like the one in the pictures here that I googled just a second ago.

I now understand my purpose here.

Women are no longer important. They come and go (especially the bad ones, those better go than come). Friends? Well, I need to be more careful in making my selections, but that’s not important either.

What I am here to do is to locate those infrequent occurrences of a beautiful butterfly in the middle of a busy intersection filled with angry Philadelphians hurrying to their cars to take off early on a Friday. My task is to find, recognize, and cherish those rare and brief moments that are so invisible to others.

In life, I now know to cherish what I have (and what I have is rather wonderful [hey, babes, I know you’re reading this *wink]). I know I am destined to search for undiscovered in Science. My research direction is now clear – go where no one ever was and find there what no one had ever found (I can email to you my research plan, it says the same thing in 4 pages).

This butterfly is a signal to me. You can say it is a sign from “above”, or you can say that it’s a highly statistically improbable event that happens once in a blue moon.

No matter to me!

I now know what I want and what I need to achieve it.

I bid you farewell, my friends. Go and look for butterflies yourself. Go, live!

Cheers,

Greg