IT IS WHAT IT IS

The future is not knowable.  If there is one scientific theory that is beyond dispute it is the Chaos Theory: a butterfly flapping its wings in South America could be responsible for a storm in the North Atlantic.

A ridiculous example, but magnifies the point.   Our entire world is the results of unexpected chaos.   Our very existence: the chance that one particular sperm out of a billion would penetrate one particular egg at exactly the right time, and that that egg would develop to term, is randomness beyond calculation.

Our whole lives, and who we are, have been determined by happenstance.

What is happening today in politics is unknowable.   Yet, we find ourselves engulfed in anxiety caused by the inability to determine a future to our liking. 

Mark Twain said, “I’ve seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it never came to pass.”

We turn the television on, or pick up the paper, or check the news on our cell phones, and we are engulfed in speculation of how the chaos of the Trump Presidency will evolve.

But if we stay involved…  one person one vote…  That is bull shit.   Clinton won the last Presidential election by three million votes, but we have Donald Trump as President. 

The point being, is that we all are to invested in an outcome that we can’t control; to the point that it is consuming our lives.

  

We had a beautiful fall here in western Maine, and in a few weeks we will have the first pristine snow fall; yet I get up most mornings and turn on the news and begin the day in a funk. 

 

I am an on again and off again Buddhist, and I have to keep reminding my self that each day, especially at my age, is precious. 

  

The future is not predictable.   It is what it is.  What will be will be.   The process is full of chaos – life is full of chaos. 

I should be more like an old buzzard in a tree, watching the day evolve, avoiding conflict, and taking advantage of the bounty made available as it happens, in a world of chaos.

the Ol’Buzzard