Cognitive dissonance

I just came back from a stage show called "Divas of Motown". I had dim sum, seafood curry, and chocolate pudding cake for dinner, washed down with generous quantities of champagne from the captain to celebrate our release from a mild quarantine protocol to control an outbreak of gastrointestinal ailments.

Meanwhile, the outside air temperature is in the low 30s as we move steadily southward toward Antarctica, a place so hostile to human life that any person on this ship, certainly any passenger, would die if left there unprotected for an hour or two. We will see icebergs. We will be sailing near where Shackleton's men were marooned for months.

Ten days ago, we were in Rio De Janeiro in the tropics.

I am having trouble wrapping my mind around all this at the same time. I'm watching a BBC series on Antarctica being shown on the ship's TV (we can no longer get broadcast channels, since we're too far outside the orbits of the satellites) . The urbane tones of the narrator make statements about the "bittercold harshness of Antarctica" seem even more intimidating.

Oh, good Lord, we're into the episode about how early explorers died trying to be the first ones to the South Pole. I think maybe I will go back to re-reading the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". One can only deal with so much cognitive dissonance before one sprains one's cerebral cortex.