Uncertainty

They say death and taxes are the only sure things in life.

But say your government falls into anarchy, and there are no taxes?

And say medicine advances far enough to cure death?

What then can you be sure of?

Of course, I understand what the old saying means. Nothing in life is certain. And I agree. I keep on thinking I know something, and then I find out I'm wrong.

I remember when I went to camp at Camp Orkilah back in Washington talking about certainty. These kids told me that if you believed something, truly, one hundred and ten percent believed something as a complete fact, it would become a fact. If you truly believed the wall wasn't there, it would disappear. Of course, the catch was that you can never actually be completely, one hundred percent sure of anything. Ever.

It's supposed to be a statement about the power of perception. I don't believe that, but it does point out something about certainties. They're not one hundred percent.

I thought I had death figured out, to an extent. People didn't just die unless it was a tragic accident or medical problem, whether it was preexisting or recently attained. I was wrong. I remember, I was talking to my cousin Cathy. She mentioned her first husband, who died tragically. He felt crummy one morning, Cathy and the couple's son went out for chores, and when they came back, he was dead. The doctors couldn't find the cause of the death and filed it as unknown.

So, I'm not certain of anything more. A man can look fine today and be dead or terminally ill the next day. There is an inherent chaos and instability and uncertainty to life that will ironically never change. All we can do is try to understand it.

Death and taxes... Nothing is certain.