Veel Groter.

Well, I decided to be nice and clever with the title :-) It's actually Dutch for "much larger." Here's why it's clever:

An old German proverb goes, "fear is what makes the wolf larger than he actually is." I submit that is a falsehood. The thing that makes the wolf much larger than he actually is, is your imagination. The main source of human fear. If this was reworded to say, "fear is what makes that snarling, ghastly noise sound like it's a wolf, which would probably be larger than a normal wolf," it would also be wrong! It's not fear. It's night! I recently traversed up the stairs and into my room during the middle of the night, and I swear, I haven't stepped on more twigs, had stickier feet, had louder mechanical doorknob parts whirring, had a louder drum pounding, or had creakier matress springs being in my house, ever. In reality, I doubt it was loud. It's just the lack of other noise that provides the ever so stark contrast. How come it's not like this when I'm home alone at noon? The world may never know. But I would hazard a guess at all the additional ambient noise--the songbirds, the distant cars, the schoolboys and schoolgirls, the keyboards, the lawnmowers, the vibrations--that keeps it noisey. I'd like a Decibel-o-meter to see for myself. But it's not that important eh? One nice thing about the amplifying properties of night's lack of sound is an increased space for thought. I think more clearly en el noche. But again, all the lurking variables, the extraneous causes, the unaccounted reasons keep us from knowing exactly what it is. Whatever it may be, I like it. In fact, I'm probably addicted. That's why, secret though it may be, I love this time of day. Speaking of thoughts, I enjoy musing on the fact that, due to absolute oppositions, everything is just a lack of something else. But is it? Can you really say love is just a lack of hate? Or is love like a folder of words; does love include patience, courage, care, willingness, unconditionality? For the latter, it is the absence of impatience, cowardess, indifference, stubborness, stickleness. But is it the absence, or the presence of those in other things that create this? So one thing we've learned from this ramble, albeit brief, is that night expands and allows for more to happen. There's no end, no path, and no point to these thoughts.

I looked at het Boek van Mormon briefly. It's basically 675 pages of z's and k's and double-letters. I'm just going to keep it around--not read it. Although it'd be nice to have a headstart on Dutch when I learned it, trying on my own would be like starting the Kentucky Derby with your horse's nose in the dirt.

Alas, the tides of the infinitely alternate reality sweep upon me. I shall reunite with this reality in five hours, or peradventure sooner depending on the speed of my physical and metaphysical regeneration.

Adieu.