Sometimes I try to figure out what really makes the world go round. I don’t think it’s love. To me, it’s winners and losers. I see them everywhere.
For example, a local pizza parlor has been going strong for thirty years — it’s definitely a winner. On the other hand, few people build houses with big front porches any longer, so big front porches are losers.
Human beings are winners because we homo sapiens have beaten out Neanderthals, who are consigned to the dust bin of history and are therefore big-time losers.
And we human beings get to choose other winners and losers. So we make Obama a winner and Romney a loser. Shakespeare is a big winner and poets like Ellen Wheeler Wilcox ... who? ... is a big loser. Nobody reads her any more.
But winners and losers seem to be a feature of life. On planets where there is no life — like Venus or Neptune – there are no winners or losers. There are only rocks and hills. When I find a rock here on Earth, I don’t consider it a winner. I can’t see that it’s beaten out some other rock.
We’re left with a contradiction: There’s never going to be any peace as long as there are living things, but if there are no living things, no one will be around to give thanks for peace.
That must be what you call a paradox. Or maybe I just have rocks in my head. But at least they’re earth rocks!
This is Tom McBride; that’s my Perspective.
