Prologue

Why is it that of all the billions and billions of strange
Objects in the Cosmos – novas, quasars, pulsars, black
holes – you are beyond doubt the strangest?
- Lost in the Cosmos, Walker Percy

The planet Earth can be an exciting, odd, and occasionally terrifying place to spend one’s life. We live our lives one minute to the next, constantly regretting those things we’ve done and fretting over those things we have yet to do. We are never rich enough, smart enough, strong enough, brave enough, capable enough to do the things we want to do; we are always too poor, too stupid, too weak, too cowardly, too incompetent to prevent ourselves from doing those things we do not.

We look at our fellow human beings and, in the occasional flash of clarity, think to ourselves: my God, what a ridiculous species.

It’s all a blur sometimes, a jumble of discordant notes in a symphony that seems to have been written by a lunatic composer too short on sleep, and, quite possibly, suffering from substance abuse. We are an audience caught in a moment of chaos penetrated only occasionally by a few instances of rhythm and harmony; occasional markers pointing a work of such genius that the fringes of our comprehension can only begin to grasp it.

We, the writers of this blog, are only notes. In the essays that will follow, we will address questions of philosophy, psychology, and the human experience; we do this with the full knowledge that, like most humans, we are probably wrong.

Perhaps we might be permitted to spark a thought or two. If nothing else, you might find yourself entertained.