Fuck WALL-E

Having a hard time thinking of something to type today. But that’s not the point. So if this rambles more than usual, forgive me. (Though, there probably won’t be a detectable difference.) I’m also typing the date wrong all day. Typing 2/17/16 instead. That was so last year, man. I’m daffed or something. I have a week off of work coming up. Staycation time. Wow. The wise advice was, “don’t fill all the time up with plans!” Leave room for spontaneous action, or just plain old in action. But plans happen anyway. Like the old man says… (and I’m not sure anymore when he’s in fact quoting HIS old man), “Life happens while you make plans.”. I suppose that’s true. Funny thing about getting old… er, older. Especially at this “midpoint” time of 40 years of age. Seems I’m always wondering what all happened, and what all is gonna happen next. Who knows.  Who knows? I know. There’s plans.  There’s been so many plans, I’ve forgotten all the plans made, fought for, and won… or lost.  That’s age I guess. You don’t even remember what it was that caused so much concern back in the day. Oh god! How will I ever finish high school? Oh god! How will I finish college?  How will I ever learn to live without her! Oh god! I miss friends I’ll never see again, etc. But all those things faded. The urgency, the intensity, all faded by repeated passing of the sun. Dear sole, fading all of us into submission.

And that leads me to thoughts of the sun. And the planets. And the way big pockets of gas and matter coalesce into solar systems. It all seems to work out so nicely. Too nicely! The fact is… yes, the game of the universe is indeed rigged. Einstein was right. God doesn’t place dice. He prefers Mahjong.

We live in this universe because the odds in this universe were sufficient to create and engender life. If we lived somewhere else, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s not luck, by itself. It’s us. We’re lucky. The whole place is lucky. Because the whole universe is a winning hand we were dealt. The only real thing left is … how much do you bet. You don’t want to come on too strong and scare God away. You want to string him a long a bit. Keep him in the game. Sure, sure, we’ll worship your son, but, we’re going to fucking crucify the guy! Sure, sure, it was your plan all along. But it was still a surprise to Mr. J. when he found out in the garden the night before.

I’m not talking about religion. I’m talking about systems of belief. Maybe there’s a difference. I mean, they are spelled differently.

Life is not about morality. There, I said it. Life is about itself. And life is about anti-entropy. We’re not here to become conscious and fill the galaxy with love. We’re here to be slightly better organized than rocks. And we are pretty good at it. I don’t me we as in Humans, or we as animals, etc. I’ll give all the props to bacteria.  They are the fucking awesome. Did you know there are more bacteria cells in your body than human cells. So, you tell me who’s the Hasbro Tonka truck in this scenario. We are the Uber of the single celled empire. We are the big ambulatory riverboats of the big Mississippi river of chaos… and we have amenities. Guts and fingers and eyes and ears and a full entertainment system in the cortex.

And who’s to say we’re steering ourselves. Who’s to say we are just big dumb pack beasts being prodded left or right by the sharp stick of visceral impulse, hunger, sexual drive, fear, etc.  Who’s to say?   I’m to say, cause fuck that. We’re better than those bugs and we’re gonna be the famous ones, not some E-coli bastard town of cytoplasm and cilia and butts for mouths.

We are the kings, baby!  And it would be swell if we acted like kings. Ruled well for a bit. But I don’t know, most the time. I don’t fear the world will end. I don’t believe we have the power to end life on this planet. We have the power to end ours, sure, why not if we really work at it.  But even that’s a long shot. No, life will go on. Maybe the systematic institutionalized structures of love and compassion for our fellow man will fall away. We take a great deal of philosophic thought for granted. All those high ideals of the Enlightenment, the liberalism of government, etc. That’s all good stuff. Amiable stuff for the rights of the individual. I get it. But don’t think civilization or life on earth depends on it. No sir. Political fairness and economic security are the rare phase in our long told but briefly experience history of mankind.

So relax. So what if we warm up the planet. Fuck it. We’ll adapt. Or, if we truly suck that bad, we won’t adapt. And something else will in our place. We’ve gotten so wrapped up in our identity of the steward of the planet, the keeper of our brothers, the kind and good martyr. Which I think is great. But I could deal with less hand wringing over every little detail. Because we lose sight of the big picture when we focus only on smaller and smaller outrages.

People are going to die. Period. So let’s kill them. Let’s send ourselves into dangerous, exciting places. Let’s go to Mars, the Belt, the outer planets, and beyond. Let’s burn human capital like it’s cheap wine. Cause it is. Because the tragedy and emotion are for drama in the theater, not the frontier. We need pain. We fucking thrive off it. We are formed by getting fucked by the universe. We only adapt when challenged.

Fuck WALL-E.  Ain’t going out of town, like that.  Hunting a straw from a chair.