..‘ Owl/my“ ma .7??- Do you sometimes wonder if the universe is all / one big joke and you're the punch—line? . I ' Sometimes I wish that I could come up with the essential“ meaning to life that everybody seems to look for at one time or another. There is none, of course, unless you take the fact that when God created the earth and saw that it was good and was wrong as being somehow meaningful. The earth isn't good; I don't think that there is a definite morality ‘in any planet size hunk 0f matter. There is no essential good or evil in man either, really. We are creatures of contradictions and I think that we are likely destined to remain this way. Our eternal quest for the essential state of perfection may be God's little joke on us. I think he does have,a sense of humour, by the way. You'd pretty well have to have one in order to create a collection of loonies like the human race. But God's little joke is still there, so how are we supposed to handle it? The_next time you're at'a Pig, if you can apply your mind to something other than booze and/or sex, perhaps you might examine the totality of the event in which you are involved. Get up on the upper level of the Barn and look down at the mass of gyrating, wriggling flesh beneath you. Then close your eyes and picture the depth and breadth of the universe; the awesome void of space. I realize that I am taxing your limited capacity, but please try to imagine something bigger,than yourself and your own tiny world. By doing this,you just might begin to see how the totality of things, the infinity that is reality, is so completely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. We are a small species tucked away on a small planet in a small solar system in an isolated section of a galaxy which is probably.far from the denser parts of the universe. The total insignificance of all that man. has been, is and will be.is a sobering thought’to,h. contemplate.~” Man lasts no longer than the grass, no longer than a wild flower he lives, one gust of wind and he is gone, never to be seen again " ( Psalms I03;7, 15-16 ). Man, in reality, is nothing. You are nothing, I am nothing. No matter what pretensions we may apply to ourselves, no matter how we expand our consciousness or tune in our minds, we can never escape the fact that we are a living insignificance. If our sun was to nova, to explode; if the earth and everything on it were to be completely and utterly destroyed, man and all his works would not be missed. The events of the universe would continue on in their inexorable way. The existence of man may not have even been recognized by anyone but himself. There would be no one to mourn, no one to care. ' How is it, then, that individuals like you and I can continue on doing the petty, unimportant, day— tO-day things of life ? This is a question which it might well be worthless to answer or to ask. Man is a Partgof the cosmic web of things. Whether one believes in a God or not is really of little importance. The fact is that Whether it is some_kind of divine plan or merely a random organization, the uniVerse is structured and man is part of that structure. V ~ . It is man's function as7a~part of that structure to, in a sense, create his own reality. This is what each and everyone of us does. In the people that we know, in the things that we do, we are each constructing our own little spheres in which we each exert our own little‘ influences. The influence of a Da Vinci, or an Einstein I 0r a Hitler would be far greater than that Of a Melvin Shmertz from Manureville, but this is just a matter of degree. ‘ f» * l , ‘ 4, anh.of us lives within his or her individual sphere and when weJfiiéHit”is our spheres alone which are affected. It seems to be one of man's inherent .faults that he is always overestimating his influence. This is why it is necesSary to picture the totality of things, to see into infinity. It is a humbling experience, something which many of us are badly in need of. Perhaps a Pig might not be the best place to do this, though. It might be more imPéI'ativefor you to throw up or to have a piss or to make your move on the fox or hunk or whatever that you've " "‘-"uw*fimfl¢mx\un»d “Wm...” . .. i . THE UPEI SUN, Thursday, November 22, 1979, page 13 OF CABBAGES .AND KINGS had your eye on all night. . \ This also, however, is a matter of degree. Man's animal needs are, in many ways, inseparable from his intellectual ones. One does what one must to satisfy them, within the bounds of societies rules ( i.e. undressing a woman without her permission is generally considered bad form‘). And so here we are. We live we die and we are human! And, with a little luck, we may remain human for some time to come. So, God's little joke aside, we will continue to live within the spheres of our individual minds, of our influence and of the influence of the human race as a whole. And, unless we blow ourselves up or rot our planet all to hell or do some similar ghastly thing to ourselves, we'll go right on doing what we do. So don't let exams and assignments and papers and presentations get you down. Things could be one hell of a lot worse. You could be majoring in Taxidermy or heading for a career in Proctology ( look this one up ). So smile and be happy! And remember: it's always darkest before it becomes totally black; every cloud is probably filled with acid rain; and a stitch in time will probably be put in the wrong place so you'll never . be able to have kids. 'IF YOU LIKED THE FIRST ONE IF YOU LIKED THE FIRST ONE YOU'LL LOVE THE SECOND ONE AND IF YOU MISSED THE FIRST ONE YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS THIS SOPHOMORE CLASS PUB....TOMORROW....FRIDAY.... NOVEMBER 23....FROM 3-6z30 IN THE PANTHER LOUNGE.... FEATURING RICK GALLANT....ADMISSION ONLY 1.00.... START THE WEEKEND EARLY ' \BU'SINESS PUB BUSINESS SOCIETY PUB....EVERYONE WELCOME....FEATURING RICK BROWN....NOVEMBER 26, 9—12 PM....AT THE BARN *‘ “6‘6‘ Sg{’é’e - e 1 k~ I. I. WED. nights 9PM—12PM Panther Lounge U PE I I ' Aamisfiion - 75 cents Coffee and tea provided