A soon-to-be loyal reader questioned me in an email: "Why does the universe let bad things happen to me?"
Slow down there, fella, you still don’t seem to have gotten it. You also seem to have forgotten that “good” and “bad” are relative terms and totally subjective. Though something is happening to you that you perceive as absolutely horrible and bad, I can assure you that the same thing probably feels pretty good for someone else. Take for instance being stripped bare ass naked and chained to a St. Andrew's cross and then whipped, poked, and prodded by a sadomasochistic satyr wearing only a mask, jock strap and leather boots...to some, this would be perceived as a bad thing and to others a very, very good thing indeed. Things are going to happen and keep happening, and life will continue to move right along. You just keep falling on the wrong side of perspective. Chances are these things that have happened to you could have been perceived as good things instead. While nothing but a true internal change of perspective can turn things around for you, I will very soon be launching a line of Sensible and Sustainable Religious Product Alternatives. They won’t solve your problems but if you buy enough of them and donate to my cause, you will be helping to solve mine. Again, perspective.
Which reminds me, over the weekend I attended a small-ish, informal soiree at a friend’s high-falutin’ pad. It was a lovely evening of light conversation, nibbles and refreshments with friends. I ended up sitting at a table with a pretty lady friend and we started talking about what the world look like if there were no vaccines, no engineered antibiotics and only existed natural, plant-based medicines. While it can certainly be argued that vaccines and antibiotics have allowed more people to live and to live longer, whether or not this is a good thing is a matter of perspective. We are part of an intelligent system of limited resources, when things are out of balance, an adjustment is bound to occur in the form of a catastrophe or natural event. Incidentally, I do have a product or two that will soon be available for such events and catastrophes. Again, they really won’t solve your problems, but you purchasing some will solve mine. They are sensible and sustainable, you really can't go wrong.
Back to the convo, we agreed that there would probably be no need for any country to have a one child policy, and sex wouldn’t be the hobby that it has become for a lot of people. Remember, in this scenario, these vaccines and antibiotics never happened so the people wouldn't know any differently. Is life just a game of cosmic balance meaning if a society doesn’t get lightly culled from time to time by plagues and the population continues to grow out of balance with the environment, it becomes necessary for an ice age, killer asteroid, or solar flare to bring back balance because the plagues don’t work anymore?
Somehow cosmic balance and a trip to the loo had made her think of a story involving her child losing a tooth, more than likely it was the two cosmos and glass of wine but I digress, and how she was almost spotted while playing tooth fairy. Perhaps not a moment too soon, her rideshare of choice had arrived, she bid me farewell and there I was with the lingering thought of the tooth fairy in my head. Probably not a big deal to most but I happen to have a real issue with the tooth fairy and perpetuating the tooth fairy myth annoys me…I thought we were done with that. We tell our children (this is obviously “we” in the royal sense as there is no way I would have one of those things) that when a tooth falls out, we (again, royal, I am neither child nor meth user) put it under our pillow and Voila! in the morning when we wake there will be money in its place. I mean, I don’t think it is ever clearly stipulated that it has to be YOUR tooth, right? What if there existed a situation where one was never told that the tooth fairy didn’t really exist, maybe they have issues or something, but they got money for every last tooth that fell out and never questioned it. Flash forward a number of years to early adulthood and the young buck/doe falls on hard times…but, they remember their magical childhood piggy bank the tooth fairy that would bring them money for the baby teeth…as such, it would stand to reason that the adult teeth may fetch a better haul…and what follows is a dental nightmare, bloody pillowcase, and all sorts of bad juju. Stop with the monetary incentives for tooth loss.
Have you ever considered why we have given to tradition a magical fairy who leaves money to deal with the whole losing-a-tooth trauma when we’re kids but when we experience relatively traumatic events at other times we’re not so fortunate. Know any humans of the ovaried female variety who were given menstrual cash? Imagine if there really was an Auntie Flo that would leave money under the pillow to cover the cost of a plug or pad. Similarly, I don’t know about any other humans of the testicled male variety, but if I had gotten a wad of cash under my pillow the first time I ejaculated, my reaction would have been quite different.
Is there a moral to this story?
Yes, I suppose there is. Joe made us all take the jab and now we might have to get hit by an asteroid. The universe will find its balance.
If you were wondering, I still have not found the joint.