Cosmic Uncertainty

There are certain things we can always rely on. The sky is up, the earth is down. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The moon, in its many phases, passes across the night sky. Even when it’s cloudy, we know it's there. There are nine planets circling the sun, always in a certain order.

Then the astronomers tell us that Pluto and Uranus have swapped orbits. A year or so later, they tell us that Pluto isn’t even a planet. I watch a TV show on seven ways all life on Earth can come to an end. If the sun even so much as flickers like a candle in a drafty room, all of human history will be no more than the lifecycle of a fruit fly.

I once wanted to be a novelist like Hemingway, a writer for the ages. But how will any of that matter, if eight feet of ash settles over us all, or we are flushed down a swirling black hole?

So we do what we can, find a little love, make someone laugh, try not to think about it too much. I have a blog with a potential of 50 million readers that no one visits. I write for a small town weekly with a circulation of 2000. That’s enough for me. Someday in some cosmic wormhole, Hemingway’s vapors will be mixed with mine.