There's that moment when everything changes, But really it's just you, Seeing things differently. When you realize that the solid bench you're sitting on Is mostly empty space between particles. When you learn that even the particles Aren't really particles, and that light isn't entirely waves either. When you see the way special relativity views velocity As simple rotation in four-space, And you study general relativity and realize That it's geometry all the way down. When you suddenly get recursion, Reading the Algol 60 Report, with its crystalline prose And elegantly compact rules. When Goedel blows the top of your head off, And you understand that some things simply can't be proved. When you see how elegantly Turing applies the same trick. When you realize that a little of the Unknowable Isn't part of the Unknown anymore, Because now you know why you can't know it.
First published in a comment in the October 2014 Crowdfunding Creative Jam, on the theme "Paradigm Shifting Without a Clutch."
This is entirely autobiographical, though the sequence has been messed with a little to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
Also adopted by