Chapter 19 : Begging Questions
April 29, 1999

The insignificance of it all.

As events unfold in life, does society move along its own path by shear inertia, regardless of seemingly meaningful events, to some heretofore unknown conclusion, part of a huge unstoppable snowball effect, much like the fact that the earth will be swallowed up in a huge glorious fireball as the sun expands billions of years from now?

Or do these little events act like small directionals themselves on the snowball, collecting mass about themselves enough that eventually, at some point, will be able to change the direction the avalanche is headed in?

So it begs the further question; what is a significant event? Are all events significant, in which case they may cancel eachother out as the inevitable future unfolds in front of us, a massive monster born in the far reaches of our history that comes barreling through our gates regardless of the defenses we put up today?

Is it relative to chaos theory that everything coalesces into what will be, continuously from seemingly unrelated pieces, that form our future? Does every bump we hit in the road of life bounce the pathway of what will be back and forth, such that musings as this will force us down another path that would not have been taken is I had not put these words to paper and influenced, in the smallest way, the thinking or challenged the ideals that another person may have?

Or, perhaps even more localized, simply changing the way I may view certain happenings or choices I make in the future now will move that snowball to the left or right, inexorably changing the path of what happens to the fate of all, based just on the way I raise my child, who will now someday create such a significant event to shift the direction of society, culture, or the fate of the world in some unexpected way?

It's all questions. What is the significance of anything? Something that we believe is important, something that has the potential for a societal shake up may, in all likelihood be just a blip on the screen, a phantom ghost, passing by and giving a brief chill in your spine. What we blasé pass off as an annoyance, a molehill, may just be the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back that is tenuously holding our society, culture, our being, together.

What is significant?

To tell you the truth, I began to cry writing this.



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