Soup of the Day #1410

Bus rides, showers and dips in the hot tub tend to set one’s thoughts astir. At Jacob’s tonight, conversation shifted from television to more serious subjects when we’d soaked up enough heat. Police brutality, economic disparity and the fate of stars and the galaxy surfaced, and for the most part I kept silent while my friends shared these grim thoughts.

I listen to conversations about these things, and I feel like I’ve heard the same words said a hundred times before. We talk to each other about these problems as if we’re trying to teach something new, but we all know the problems the world has. No one has a good solution, so I start to think talking about these things is futile.

But perhaps it is important to bring these problems to mind now and again. Keep those fires burning, and if some societal revolution demands a great flame we’ll be there to kindle it.

In a few billion years, our galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy. Because our galaxies are mostly empty space, it’s unlikely that this will change whatever life may be here or on other planets. The two clouds of stars will just phase through each other, possibly whirling in vast gravitational eddies.

Dark words or not, I like these conversations very much.

we have one chance to get everything right