Mjolnir, Titans, and Other Crazy Things

We are people of a crazy world. We see things every day that totally defy logic. Right now though, I’m not talking about the stuff that we can’t explain. Rather, I’m referring to the stuff we try to explain it with. 

Take for example the weather. It was rather unpredictable for many thousands of years just because we lacked the tools that allow us to measure atmospheric pressure, wind speed, etc. So what do we do? We blame it on a god. Any god will do. Let’s call it Thor. On second thought, Thor doesn’t seem like he’d be able to create all of these weather phenomena by himself... Let’s give him a hammer and call it Mjolnir. 

That’s only one example. We could have chosen a different name for our god, like Aktzin, or Teshub, but that’s kind of water under the bridge. The ancient Greeks had many gods who contributed to the weather as did the Romans and the Aztecs. It’s interesting, but the weather is not the only natural phenomena that we blamed on gods when our race was younger.

Earthquakes too, we attributed to supernatural beings of great power. Does the name Atlas ring any bells? What about Poseidon? One held the Earth on his shoulders, the other shook it when he got frustrated. According to the ancient people of Greece, that is.

You may be wondering, at this point, if I actually have a point. Am I perhaps just monologging, as a supervillian might after defeating a hero? To be honest, I was hoping that writing this would provide me with a point. I was hoping that as the words flowed onto the page they would form something cohesive and poignant. I suppose that was too much to ask for.

Words don’t form themselves. We can’t just throw them out into the void and hope that they make something of themselves. Yet words have lives of their own. They change and grow just like we do, and that fact begs the question, “Have we simply been thrown into the void to make something of ourselves?” Perhaps we have. Perhaps God spent a very long time making cohesive things and decided to just see what happened once. Maybe we’re God’s doodles. 

Still, sometimes even the doodles of a great artist are wondrous to behold...


--Random

Life Goes On, So Just Maybe...

Life is a peculiar thing. It is unstoppable. In all the climes of the Earth, it survives. In all its many forms, life can persevere against incredible odds. Consider the microorganisms that float in the Arctic and Antarctic air. Think about all of the parasites that survive within other creatures. There are organisms that can live in a constant bath of hydrochloric acid. As incredible as these things are, they are really not that unusual. Life Finds a Way.

Much like the many forms of life that have adapted to different extreme environments, humans make adaptations, and their lives go on. Occasionally, events that feel catastrophic to us knock us from our feet. For the most part, we get up, dust ourselves off, and continue on with our existence. Regardless of how bad things get, life isn’t over. You just have to keep on living.

When we get ourselves back together after a mishap, we may be the same as we were, or we may be changed. The changes come in many varieties, and we often don’t even realize that they occurred; those changes are what let us move past our misfortune and into a brighter future.

Still,

there are things to consider.

Like just how often the world knocks us on our keesters

and how easily we fall.

And dust.

After all, that’s all we are: Dust in the Wind. If you prefer, we could say we’re dust in the giant’s eye. Either way, we’re fairly insignificant. From dust we came, and to dust we shall return. How can anyone expect to accomplish anything of value when they consider the tiny, tiny fraction of reality that they represent?

Maybe we just understand on some subliminal level that small things lead to big things. It isn’t often that we blame hurricanes on jumbo jets, but many people believe that a butterfly can cause these huge tropical storms with a flap of their wings. We may not realize it, but even the smallest things make a difference. An eyelash or an ice cube, a kiss or a misspelled word. It doesn’t take much to totally alter the world.

So go out. 

Find a small thing that you can do to help someone. 

Make a big difference...

If you Dare.