Beginning

With every beginning, there's obviously some kind of end.

You see new sprouts popping up in some places as we get closer to the calendar start of Spring. A lot of trees around here get that hazy green look to them. Then, almost overnight, there are leaves and flowers. But before that -- the way things are right now -- everything looks pretty much dead.

It's the clockwork aspect of this cycle that has always intrigued me. If humanity vanished tomorrow -- every man, woman, child, and points in-between -- just up an went, the seasons would stretch inextricably from one to the next without fail. Trying to figure out how all of that works -- spinning of the Earth, tilt of the Earth, the orbit of the Earth around the sun, weather, ocean currents, and so on -- hurts my brain. The amount of balance required to keep things just so is difficult for me to comprehend, especially given the scale of, well, the universe.

I don't like letting my brain stray into that territory if only because it makes me feel like a speck. Barely a mote. Insignificant compared to the vast OUT THERE-NESS of the rest of existence, of which we've barely scratched the surface of and may never actually accomplish to any extent. Forget the rocket-to-face of discovering other life out there, if it's there at all. This isn't Mass Effect or Star Trek or Star Wars or Alien or ALF. This is reality and the reality of making a connection with some other race out there... well, it's billions of trillions to one. A long shot.

In My Other Life I'm Emperor of the Universe

It's not exactly the feeling that I was meant for something greater -- some alternate Aaron is probably enjoying being Emperor of the Universe -- but there's definitely the feeling I was meant to be doing something else.

It's kind of a dangerous thing to admit because people tend to jump to conclusions about what that something else is or what spurred the thought in the first place.

Sometimes, it's just a feeling, something that lurks just beneath the soul line. Sometimes I see ripples.

Did I just see that? Is that the thing I should be doing? Is that the one thing?

And what do I do to catch that thing? Wait until it leaps up and lands in my boat? Bait a hook and trawl along? Next time I see the ripples, leap into the opaque water with fingers outstretched?