The Meat of the Matter

A Paradox

I just finished reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. This book is not to be confused with "A Brief History of Everything" by Ken Wilbur (on my soon-to-read list)Or, "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking, a book I've also read. Anyway, the book (the first book) will scare the shit out of you. It goes on about how humans have narrowly averted crisis after crisis, but alludes that the next crisis will surely do us in. It might be a volcano, or an ice age, or a massive meteor, or the fact that our poles are shifting polarity, but we're basically doomed. It struck me ... why is it most humans are blissfully unaware of how unlikely it is that we will last longer than a few thousand more years, but we all seem to have some secret belief that we will one day colonize space--which is our only hope of survival? It's as if we avert our eyes from the realistic problem, but have an unrealistic hope in the solution without consciously connecting the two. Strange. What? You don't have a secret belief that we will one day colonize space? Go off and read blogs about Hollywood celebrities and Gucci bags. Go! Be gone!