A peculiar quirk I picked up this year is a strange, almost obsessive fascination with the pursuit of purity. I say pursuit intentionally, since actual purity is an impossibly difficult and meaningless endeavor. For example, all molecules, unless composed of only a single element, can be thought of as atomically impure. Moreover, the existence of isotopes means that even groups of the same element can also be impure.

This being said, the type of purity I enjoy is on a more macroscopic level. It includes things such as pure food (food that is not made from too many ingredients), pure websites (websites, such as this blog, which do not utilize annoying uses of Clickbait), and pure love (love that is not tainted with ulterior motive). Other examples of good pure things include pure gold, pure air, pure blood, and pure math. Obviously, not everything pure is good (consider pure evil…), and certain impure things, like doped semiconductor, have made the world a better place. However, in general, it is easier to turn pure things impure than the other way around. Consider that making water impure is just tossing some dirt into it, but making it pure again is all sorts of fancy filtration methods.

My silly preoccupations with purity lead me into saying riduculous statements such as “This salad is tainted with too much dressing, I prefer something purer!” or “This person’s love is too impure, I don’t like it!” It also leads to certain misunderstandings, such as when easily-triggered people think I am referring to more harmful, politically-incorrect, and controversial kinds of purity.

I am sure whatever quirks I have are relatively tame compared to other people, and so have a long ways to go before earning the right to label myself as “quirky.” Also, more likely than not, my interests in purity will fade in a couple weeks or months; I just thought it would be an amusing blog topic to write about.

8 more posts to go…