A cherrystone's guide to the universe

These were alive today, and now they are not--much of what they were leave my body as exhaled breath even now.

Some of what they were now rests in an injured thumb, sliced open a week ago, filling in the gaping hole left by my carelessness. Stuff comes from stuff--no matter how spiritual your guru may be, he is made of dust and air.

Some of what they were sits in a bucket, shells waiting for the garden. Look at each line marking their growth, years sitting in the mud, years being clams, eating and breathing and (occasionally) releasing millions of sperm or eggs to make more of themselves, because, well, no one knows for sure, just because.

They were alive, and they are no more, as I was once no more and am now alive and will be no more again.

It's the same stuff put together by the same sun, broken apart by other critters for the same reasons. Like sleep, like sex, like any of the great mysteries so common to all of us, we ignore death as we prattle on about the thisses and the thats, while young humans pass from larval to adult forms before our eyes.

We teach as though we know something, when it's clear to the young ones we know nothing.

The only things that matter in any true economy is how stuff moves from here to there, where it came from, where it goes, and what free energy was used to make this happen. All of biology can be reduced to this. So can history or economics or music or anything else we do.

And that's OK....