It’s by now something of a cliche, or at least very old news, that Earth is just a speck of dust in an inconceivably vast galaxy — which is itself a speck.
But this rendition, at Buzzfeed, is particularly good, if you haven’t already seen it.
What a miracle it all is.
“And isn’t it interesting” — as Bill Clinton used to conclude many of his speeches near the end of his presidency (I am paraphrasing very loosely, from memory) — “that we have come so far, solving so many impossibly difficult problems — putting a man on the moon, mapping the human genome, all kinds of amazing, incredible things — and yet the one problem we can’t seem to solve . . . the one that seems so simple, yet threatens to do us in . . . is the problem that’s as ancient as time: just learning to get along with each other.”
Our most recent Democratic president offers the simplest of prescriptions: “Be kind and be useful.”
And now that you’ve got me in this cosmic mode (well, don’t we all tend to get this way around he holidays?), I give you, again, the story of the wolves:
An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life.
He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil — he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.
“The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
“This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Hug a Republican, find common ground, have a Happy Thanksgiving — and feed the right wolf.
