wondering

If you would, think for a moment about the long, long chain of choices, circumstances, coincidences and events which led you to be who you are, where you are, doing what you are doing, with those you are with, right here and right now. Try to fathom, even a little, just how impossibly, incredibly unbelievably unlikely is that precise, long, unbroken chain by which you got here, each branching timelime, each decision built upon all the ones before. If you think back to your ancestors, those who gave you life, and their ancestors before them, and add together all of the choices and events that shaped their lives, that led you to yours, you add even deeper, and more unfathomable layers of the improbable. Yet here you are, exactly, precisely as you are. In each moment, the impossible unfolds.

This is wonder. Wonder speaks to each of us in a different voice, and to each of us in different ways, at different times, if we can just open, quiet the inner voices, and listen. With what voice does wonder speak to you today? What message does wonder hold for you right here, and right now? Where is the wonder in your life?

Darwin says: "If yer dumb, ya die!"

Now, for your reading edification, the 2005 Darwin Awards! Not a particularly inspiring bunch, compared to classics like the Human Catapult or the (bogus) Jet Assisted Take-Off stories. Ah, well, better luck next year.

"We're a danger to ourselves and others..."

[EDIT: as lylythe_strega points, out, none of these are truly excellent. People doing dumb things and hurting themselves is sad, not funny (well, at least to me...unlesss you're talking about slapstick comedy, of course ;>). However, there is a realm of stupidity and cluelessness so completely transcendant, it passes into the realm of art...involuntary performance art, with the universe as eternal stage, displaying the inescapable fact that not only are we mortal, but no matter what we may think, there are physical limits and boundaries to everything. And I am thoroughly convinced that the universe has a sense of humor, and it is ironic.]