Beef Chow Mein

Would like to liken life to a blade upon which everything falls and separates bad from good, left across right, right beside wrong, but that's just a meaningless metaphor. People bounce off each other as if a hodgepodge of random particles. Even this blog defies any regular frequency or specific relevancy, which generally attracts readers, and gravitates toward any generic event, feast, or holiday when particles boil vigorously. There's little celebrating while pedaling alone, although day to day that's mostly what goes on. One expects consensus and natural laws to dominate and never make life incomprehensible, then things happen and you can't help but wonder.

There's probably some causal relationship between 13 mass killings this year—among 61 in USA since 1980—and threat of apocalypse next week at the end of Mayan calendar on Winter Solstice. Fear and want create savages and terrorists. No less than NASA's respected astrophysicists debunked celestial doom occurring anytime soon. But emotions rule, not logic, and few totally believe academic or official sources eager to shape opinions to suit agendas. Basic survival, how to grow food, and what's best to invest in are not among ideas they rush to impart, so can they be trusted? Do they care for your welfare? If termination is imminent, why not go berserk? Anyway, enemies lurk around every corner. Extremists want you dead. Global warming is real, whatever the cause. Hope is fragile and irrational. Hurricanes increase in ferocity and frequency, 19 along Atlantic coast in this year alone. Pessimism dovetails with perennial doubts and takes no effort to peddle compared to calm optimism only the brave embrace. So all those end-of-days predictions seem all the more plausible.

Because news reporting has become efficient through space age communications, those who heed are too keenly aware of what happens worldwide. Even North Korea has a spy satellite. Foreign events could drive decisions at home despite fact no such thing ever occurs locally. Conversely, unique customs serve far flung communities quite well. A homogenous world isn't practical; you can't hunt polar bears in equatorial rain forests. Only arrogance expects social engineering to prevail over organic growth. But some commodities or recipes do resonate everywhere. Chow mein, for example, is an ersatz occidental adaption of oriental cuisine, an example of fused mélange that diners eye warily but taste anyway. Some of the best things combine exotic influences.

Talk vainly attempts to enlist you in someone else's beef, but unrelenting behaviors can be explained. If you decided to burn oil to stay warm, you've already installed a furnace and can't easily change to an alternative within a decade without forfeiting investment. Hybrid vehicles hold appeal when immutability of fuel sources gets unreal. Survival comes from natural selection, not of favorites but whatever exists in given moment. Should all else fail, you can always chop wood or go by bike. While options exist, hope endures.