Wednesday

Rinsing off in the shower this morning I decided again that life is a philosophical disappointment. I say again because every so often I have to remind myself of that. It's the tendency of a human brain, the most sophisticated modeling device known to science, to find patterns, sometimes even where there are none. Anyone who has ever gotten lost in the woods knows this is true, who has found and followed a "deer trail" which runs right into thick brush. That trail, in retrospect, looks like it was never there in the first place. If hindsight is twenty-twenty, foresight's missing at least one eyeball, possibly both.

No way of thinking about life, no matter how agonizingly in detail or broad in scope, how deeply or piously, how naively or formulaically, makes the slightest dent in the simple fact that we are here because DNA is using us to perpetuate itself. Once my cosmic egg timer goes ding, my time as a collection of associated cells will end and entropy will take over till I'm absorbed back down into the thrumming matrix of single celled organisms who are also living out nature's mandate. And it won't mean anything at all. In the intervening time, though, there are lots of great showers to take, lots of great beverages to drink, lots of things to be interested in. I mean to become a watchmaker, not miss too many deadlines, and squeeze as much pleasure out of life as is possible without grossing too many people out or stealing, or killing.

This morning in the shower I remembered that I don't matter, and it doesn't matter how I feel about that, so I might as well have a good time.

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