What’s Your Legacy?

So, let me see if I got it right. We live on a crust of a melted blob of metal that orbits a giant ball of burning gas, hurling through space at about 368 km/s (~229 miles per second), and we are enmeshed within our immediate support system that is comparably as thick as a layer of algae on a rock near a river.

Although we move in general direction of at least two constellations, there is no real destination. Well, Sun will scorch, perhaps also devour, Earth in a pretty distant future, but that’s the maximal extent to which all talk about journey’s end can go as far as the planet we currently live on is concerned. Especially, if we take into account that universal billiard can be rather unpredictable.

And as if all of that was not already a predicament, humans play games. Nothing wrong with games per se, but there’s not much fun in a game for survival. Most probably because that fun is inversely proportional to the amount of human attempts to arbitrary alter the rules of the game itself.

Not so long ago, I read the expression, “top of food chain.” That’s a perfect example of excuse for, and justification of, the game I’m talking about.

It’s based on purposefully missing the fact that a chain, even if not closed, has merely ends. Who can tell which one is the top? No one. It’s merely an individual preference. A point of view. (And, of course, food chain is a closed circle to begin with.)

I get that people play these games exactly to distract themselves from brute facts at hand. I get that most can just whine about the perceived tragedy and impeding doom. At first. But double down in panic and add some self-serving fatalistic salt to injury? That takes a special kind of stupid.

Don’t get me wrong. You are doomed. Sort of. In any case, you will die no matter what. You will also leave a legacy. Whether you try or not.

Furthermore, what you consider yourself to be has absolutely no significance in the large picture. No amount of euphemisms and twisted mental gymnastics can change the facts. A rose is a rose by any other name. A murder is a murder no matter the way.

And of course, even though one stone thrown may not kill, stonings are lethal. What good is a competition, if the reward for all that vain effort is just a front-row seat to armageddon? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Or, grow up.