I believe the universe has a plan for each of us. I’m just no longer convinced it’s on my side.
Consider Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Social media regularly ranks them among the two men most likely to help humanity find out what happens when diplomacy finally loses its temper.
And yet the universe has been extraordinarily generous to both.
Trump: worth roughly $7 billion.
Putin: somewhere between “officially modest” and $200 billion, depending on which accountant you threaten.
So the universe rewards grand plans. Noted.
Then there’s me.
I’ve spent decades trying to leave the world slightly better than I found it. I studied science. I wrote about injustice. I argued with politicians from a safe distance – usually from behind a locked door and a pseudonym.
And what did the universe give me?
$1.50.
Not $1.50 billion. Not $1.50 million. One dollar and fifty cents. I have checked the couch cushions. The universe does not appear to have made a rounding error.
This raises a question about the cosmic incentive structure.
Maybe the message isn’t: “Make the world a better place and you’ll be rewarded.”
Maybe it’s: “Threaten to blow the place up, and we’ll see what we can do for you.”
If so, I’ve been playing this game catastrophically wrong.
I could pivot. Threaten World War III. Buy a few thousand acres of strategically located real estate. Develop a taste for gold-plated furniture. Announce that I intend to make the universe great again.
But knowing my luck, the universe would hand me another 50 cents and say, “There you go, Roswell. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
So perhaps the universe isn’t unfair. Perhaps it just has a very specific sense of irony.
And perhaps my $1.50 is its way of saying:
“I like what you’re trying to do. You’re just not very good at being an arsehole.”
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watch out for greedy leaders
beware of darkness
George Harrison .
😁
Nil bastardo carborundum – Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Don’t get depressed!! Get even!! Even better , get ahead!!
Abandon faith in any political party and vote for a credible LOCAL INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE!!
What have party politics ever done for us??
Labor created most of the social benefits that the COALition deliberately destroyed for mere ideological rage that ”workers” should aspire to the same wealth displayed as housing, imported vehicles, overseas travel and investments!!
In the past 60 years the NOtional$ have been the party you have when you want a 19th century future. Done nothing for their respective electorates and too frequently made self-serving the principal role for the political sinecure. Naturally there is/was always a little bit of philandering on the side ….. especially in regional electorates.
The LIARBRAL$ have managed themselves into political irrelevance by accepting unimaginative, unthinking dunderheads as leaders (with the exception of Turnball). Picking state school (Scummo) or posh private school alumnii (Anus Faylure) made no difference.
The PHONeys continue to amaze with their empty whingeing from politicians made millionaires on the public purse, claiming to represent ”the battlers” struggling for a year on the Centrelink pittance that is less than the politicians are paid per month, and by successive government policy, forced to spend the small residual on travel looking for jobs that do not exist after paying rent.
Time to take back the tent!! Turf out the political parties that have no place in our Constitution and install INDEPENDENTS who will, from excellent experience in state Parliaments, represent the best interest of the voters.
Why there may even be a discussion of implementing the Universal Basic Income (UBI) payments rather than the below poverty line payments from Centrelink.
INDEPENDENTS GET THINGS DONE FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES.
What do NOtional$ or PHONeys do??
Thanks Cocky and Roswell, nice little pick me up for a dreary Saturday morning.Fear not, everybody gets what they deserve,sooner or later,the cosmos is impartial.
Nobody escapes,not Trump, not Putin,nor Albanese.
The Universe neither rewards nor punishes; it doesn’t “love and support us and want the best for us”, and neither does it “punish and torture us and teach us that life is cruel”.
It just doesn’t care.
I don’t believe the Universe is a conscious entity; it’s like a rock or a tree – it’s just there. But even if I’m wrong and the Universe is sentient in some way, why on earth would it be concerned with one weirdly destructive intelligent animal on a planet orbiting an ordinary yellow star in a middle-distance suburb of an average-size galaxy? To think it is somehow focused on Humanity overall, never mind individual members of the species is, frankly, arrogant to the point of absurdity.
As for Trump and Putin and all the other scumbags who seem to walk away time after time with glittering prizes they neither require nor deserve? It’s just dumb luck.
I spent decades of my life believing wholeheartedly that success was predicated on hard work, good education, natural talent, and determination. It took me far too long to realise that none of that matters a damn compared to luck; without that, you’re not going anywhere. Trump and Putin – Trump in particular – are just damnably lucky, along with being ruthless cheats and liars who would literally sell their children for dog food if they thought it would get them another vote or another dollar/rouble.
I’m sure both of them also worked hard (at being criminals), had natural talent (at cheating and lying), and showed determination (to be utterly ruthless) – but they were also insanely lucky from the moment they were born, as were all “successful” people.
Don’t worry about the Universe; it seriously doesn’t give a shit about you. Just do your best to survive and thrive and try to not be a complete asshole. After all, the only things you will actually leave behind are memories in other people’s minds.
Make them good ones.
Christopher, what you’ve written is fairly close to how I think in real time.
This piece is satire.
Roswell, have you read ‘Conversations with God’ by Neale Donald Walsh?
@ Christopher White, seems your conversation with God isn’t going so well.
heather,God is eternally incommunicado.Either that, or she’s out to lunch…permanently.