Playing Against The Odds
The morning came with gusty winds, cloud swept sky, all signs of advance of the cold air mass, roiling against the warmth of the 
retreating southern formation. Advance, retreat, friction, thunder and lightning, and a gentle rain if we are lucky. A flood if we are unlucky. Welcome to another day of life on earth. Life on earth is the only life that I will have. I cherish being-alive.
I was reminded of this value, the preference that I have for life over death as I read comment written by a 
friend. He said he was Ok with mitigating human caused climate change, as long as it didn’t cost too much. He was clear that he didn’t not desire to spend very much of “his money” on the effort to “stay alive” here on the only planet that we will ever have. Certainly denial is a economical way of thinking. One does not expend any resources 
on what one cannot see, on what is disbelieved. Denial is subsidized.
I find solace in the row of zinnias that are growing at the end of my vegetable garden. The zinnia is a hardy, prolific flowering plant, lots of blooms, persisting late into fall, until 
the first frost. I visit the row of flowers whenever I am “running on empty.” The blossoms reach upward to the light remind me that nothing beats the ultimate entropy, but it is possible to respond to the light with a meaningful life, and to pass on the inheritance to the coming generation.
Now days, I need to be reminded often.
2 thoughts on “Playing Against The Odds”
In days long ago I would use the example of Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony as a reason for saving our species. I would ask people, “How could we disappear from the face of the earth and leave this exquisite creation to rot in the detritus of human extinction?” At that point, I was self-aggrandizing enough to believe I could personally do something to alter our path towards self-destruction. Silly, silly me! I was, and still am, as delusional as the people I accuse of entrenching themselves in the ideology of climate change denial. I don’t know what to do, my friend. These people believe they have an answer and yet they are as cruel, destructive, and ignorant as those who carried our the Spanish Inquisition. As I state over and over, ad nauseam, we live in Crazytown and there does not appear to be a way out.
I have to say that your delusion, which I also share, is a productive one. Delusion, a taste for the irrational, the lure of magic is a part of human nature. Science has not eradicated the taste for magic. Individuals who are apparently scientifically literate will deny the efficacy of cause and effect when it comes to climate, to the earth, and to our home in Nature. Killing Nature is suicide. It may be delusional, against the odds to think that the individual can make a difference. That is the hand that we must play.