Shopping Cart Relativity

Last Friday, I nearly yelled at an automatic door. I was at the grocery store, I had made my purchases, and I was heading towards the exit. The exit was an automatic door (the kind that swings open on its own when you get close enough to it), except it wasn't opening. It only started opening once I was almost close enough to push it open manually. This wouldn't have been a problem, except there was someone with a shopping cart coming up behind me (I didn't turn around to look, but I could definitely hear them). I began silently panicking, that the door wouldn't open enough in time, and the person with the cart would plow into me from behind. It didn't happen - the door opened and I got through impact-free - but I came real close to shouting at the door to, "Hurry up and open already! There's someone right on my tail!"

I never turned around to look, so the person with the shopping cart remained an unknown distance behind me. For all I know, they might have been ten or twenty feet behind me; plenty of distance to slow down (or stop, if needed). However, they sounded relatively close, prompting my bout of panic.

Relativity - a dependence upon some variable factor that pertains to the matter at hand, and can change wildly depending on the context. An ant may seem small in size when compared to, say, an elephant. However, that same ant seems quite large when compared in size to an amoeba. Adjust the scale, and alter the perception.

Many things in life are relative. But not all things - that's important. To say, "All things are relative," is not merely a logical fallacy, it's a full-on logical paradox:

If all things are relative, then there are no absolutes; however, that is an absolute statement. Thus, the statement is self-referential and self-negating. We've entered in to Russell's Paradox. You've probably seen a simple example of this paradox: "This sentence is a lie." It just keeps looping back on itself; it is, so it isn't, but if it isn't, then it is.