Lucky Us

I just survived another trip outside thru subzero temps & winds harsh enough to flash-freeze human flesh. Ain’t life grand?

Winter is, w/o question, quite a challenge. But when I turn on the news, you’d think the world is coming to an end. Polar vortexes, droughts, fires, toxins, consumer fraud, the flu, terrorism . . . Look, I know these are all bad things, but bad things are just part of life, aren’t they? As I suggested in my previous post, the worst thing that could happen to us is not necessarily a civilization-ending cataclysm—it’s the sheer waste of working towards a perfect existence that simply isn’t possible.

The great irony of the human species is that we’ve worked frantically for 25,000 years to come up w/time & labor-saving devices. We’ve made tools, developed technology, husbanded resources, & specialized our talents, all in order to achieve our great goal: giving ourselves enough free-time to be 100% happy & carefree.

But all we’ve actually done is taken away the real challenges of life. Because we no longer have to kill our own food, fight for territory, or figure out some way to keep from freezing, we now we spend most of our precious “free” time drifting around looking for a challenge. Far too many of us get drunk, get high, or take anti-depressants in order to unwind after a long day of doing nothing meaningful. Maybe that’s why the news is filled with end-of-the-world stories. Those stories give us a chance to imagine what we would do if . . .

Ah, well. I say let’s celebrate the real challenges of life. Let’s be grateful for little things like the cold, the drought, the fire, the toxins, the computers, the flu, or terrorism. Sure these things might kill us. But ain’t that great? It’s got to be better than dying of boredom.