Time and Chance

My gentle cynicism on one level is a response to an overly enthusiastic cultural philosophy that does not take into serious consideration the reality of time and chance, which smacks the face of most people, even those with the best intentions. “Under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, and to the wise.” Koheleth of Ecclesiastes does not disavow the idea of value; he simply recognizes that one cannot assume it is that simple. To be sure, the relationship between merit and recompense is chaotic. One is better served by exercising a healthy measure of doubt rather than just simply “having faith” in something like medicine. Medicine indeed may be the thing to do in this sphere of temporality; yet one may be better (or best) served through other unrevealed (hidden) alternatives. Furthermore, what will become of us in the end is the kind of inquiry that begs our attention.

Doubt is the human impulse to question what is given in order to invest one’s day with meaning. ~Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt, a History

Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That’s what the Quester says.]
There’s nothing to anything - it’s all smoke.
What’s there to show for a lifetime of work,
a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,
but nothing changes - it’s business as usual for old planet earth.
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
then does it again, and again - the same old round.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north.
Around and around and around it blows,
blowing this way, then that - the whirling erratic wind.
All the rivers flow into the sea,
but the sea never fills up.
The rivers keep flowing to the same old place, and then start all over and do it again.
Everything’s boring, utterly boring -
no one can find any meaning in it.
Boring to the eye,
boring to the ear.
What was will be again,
what happened will happen again.
There’s nothing new on this earth.
Year after year it’s the same old thing.
Does someone call out, “Hey this is new”?
Don’t get excited - it’s the same old story.
Nobody remembers what happened yesterday.
And the things that will happen tomorrow?
Nobody’ll remember them either.
Don’t count on being remembered.

(Ecclesiastes 1:2-11)

Artwork, Harmen Steenwijck, Vanitas