This isn't really going to be about the phrase "hate to burst your bubble." I just needed something to get you to look at this. That figure of speech is often about bubbles of ignorance, and usually (hopefully) the bubble burster, in that case, will drop some kind of hard but necessary truth.

I'm talking about literal bubbles. Think back, farther than earlier today and the soap with which you washed your hands (I hope), all the way back to when you were a kid-- if, when you were a kid, you ever got to play with bubbles.

From that jar of soap you had a hard time believing was soap, and a wand that held a rainbow-flecked disk, came clouds of small shiny round balls, floating through the air. Amazing!

And then they'd be gone. Just as quickly as they were there, as tiny hands slashed through them without hesitation.

Pop.

And then nothing but the laughter in the background. They don't even realize what they've done, the poor souls. But they can't hate it. It's in their nature.

It's just one early example of how we can't help but destroy beautiful things.

Why do kids like to knock down towers of blocks?

Why do we run through sand castles?

What is it about breaking things that feels so cathartic?

Why can't we look away from car crashes?

What's so cool about explosions?

Why did we butcher the Amazon?

You can't go whale-watching without taking a boat out and leaving a bunch of friggin' boat emissions in the ocean!

Well that one's more incidental and less purposeful but maybe it ties into the same thing? Our innate instinct for structure has a double edge: as we constantly build, so do we constantly destroy.

I saw a street artist a while back. He had 2 sticks attached to a big loop, and a tub of soap. And as he waved the sticks through the air giant bubbles would form in the loop. and they were beautiful!

For a second. The children standing and watching didn't let any of them last more than a moment or two.

I didn't watch for very long.