We Choose to Live as Exceptions

From any objective perspective, the situation is ridiculous. Our home is a planet flying around a nuclear explosion around a galaxy moving through space that is infinite, or seemingly so.

We live off the planet's bounty, eating what grows from seeds on its soil, temporarily borrowing protein from the flesh of other animals that eke out a living here, and eventually give back by turning over our expired bodies to feed insects and soil.

We might never escape the earth save for a few rocket experiments, losing our one chance to build something great by burning away non-renewable fuels to sit in traffic en route to numbing office jobs.

Human problems once settled have become unsettled. The natural has been subverted to override instincts, made difficult and baffling; the abominable prolific and common, blind of looming consequences.

Despite all hints about how the current direction is likely to conclude, we will be neither victims nor whiners, but remain true to ourselves and cheerful about what once was.

In the middle of hostile nothingness where almost everything created is soon destroyed, and a short life is promised eternal death, the best of our type nevertheless aspired to peak creations of symphonies, fine art, literature, philosophy -- most of these best works now unknown to educated moderns, obscured by trivial entertainment products.

Civilization was so capable it branched out into exquisite novelty such as doctors acquiring and spreading knowledge in fixing ailments of the human body. Others created inspired architecture and internal design that made living beautiful and functional. Some built transportation machines and bridges to connect distant plots of land, while those living off the land mastered the possibilities of cuisine, most often by maximizing possibilities with limited raw materials of dubious quality.

All this will be lost forever as the people with ability and spirit are gradually replaced by those who can neither create nor maintain great creations, but once there stood many who were beautiful exceptions.