Cynicism

So, in case you haven't noticed, this blog has, of late, been an attempt at self-inspiration. Yes, I've been cynical lately. The problem is not so much the problems, but the solutions. I'm having a rough time envisioning a future that feels "right." Or rather, I can envision that world, but I can't see a way to get to that world without (a) a lot of pain and suffering on the road from here to there, or (b) a global cultural transformation just short of a miracle. I'm just not feeling that optimistic right now. Which is tough, not just because it affects my outlook on the world, but because it affects my outlook on my life. What is the point of all this passionate grinding work if I can't even make a dent...?

But we humans have a myopic linear vision of the future. It is difficult to forecast the unexpected. We focus on the probable, when in fact improbability is the trend. It is the foundation of our existence.

Bill Bryson starts his book A Short History of Nearly Everything with a welcome:

"Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize.

"To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and intriguingly obliging manner to create you. It's an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once...

"Atoms are so numerous and necessary that we easily overlook that they needn't actually exist at all. There is no law that requires the universe to fill itself with small particles of matter or to produce light and gravity and the other physical properties on which our existence hinges. There needn't actually be a universe at all. For the longest time there wasn't.

"So thank goodness for atoms. But the fact that you have atoms and that they assemble in such a willing manner is only part of what got you here. To be here now, alive in the twenty-first century and smart enough to know it, you also had to be the beneficiary of an extraordinary string of biological good fortune. Survival on Earth is a surprisingly tricky business. Of the billions and billions of species of living thing that have existed since the dawn of time, most - 99.99 percent - are no longer around...

"Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely - make that miraculously - fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so."

And yet, here we are.

I quote Bryson for two reasons:
1. It's important to point out that, as any gambler or mathmatician knows, even a very long string of good luck is no guarantee of future good luck.
2. The improbable is probable. There is just no way to know what the future might bring.

There are many ways to interpret the latter point. But to me it's hopeful. There is room in this vast universe for wild and unexpected occurances. We might even get to play a part in them. We can help our string of good luck continue by fostering hope in the improbable, striving for that unlikely happy future.

Oh, and one more important point, courtesy of Bryson:
3. We should appreciate our existence.