Another solar spin and begins again the rebranded pondering. The reflection upon choices made as age wins another round in the meander forward.

There is a sink full of dirty dishes, and here I am doing this.

My daughter said today if she could have any two powers, it would be a time machine and the ability to see the future. Mind you, it was two different powers a few days ago, and is likely to be something else tomorrow or the day after. But without dragging the thought down in such considerations, I contemplated what she said. I told her of the theories that I had heard regarding whether time travel would alter a future or past, or whether the trips in and out of timelines are all calculated into the scheme, making some immovable monument of events that was always as is and will be, unmalleable by any action in or out of time. She replied with brief interest, and then moved on. Because she’s almost seven, and that is just fine for her to do. Some might say it is irresponsible to even suggest such ideas someone of such an age. I’d say it’s more irresponsible to let her stare at a screen all day.

Still. Though she had, I suppose I haven’t moved on from the idea, as here it is again. And being much older than seven, my ideological movability is far less flexible. Being out of shape in such regards only adds to the atrophy.

Yet here, I sit, on a day with no significance beyond what has occurred as part of my identity, thinking of whether the past pathways were ever really forked. Or were the alternatives only flat rock faces painted as tunnels?

I don’t wish for an alternative path to have passed. Every bit suffered or sacrificed led right where I needed to be- discussing amateur string theory with a person born two years after I graduated college. But I still permit myself to ponder the possible futures. And though the ways have never been a constant calm, I have yet to smash against the impenetrable surface, to whatever varying comedic effect. Does that then permit me to believe that all of this anything still remains open? That from hence forth, the choices made can guide down either or any alternative way?

I suppose, in a way, feeling that everything is preordained is a bit of a blanket for the philosophical Linus. A belief devout enough to feel that all will align, somewhere in the by and by. That since your debut into existence, and by default, before- that since always there was always the way things were meant to go down. Which just so happens to be the way that things have gone down.

There is a touch of jealousy, regarding my opinion of such believers. An envy that is balanced well enough out with pity. And not an illogical pity. One need not look far in any which way on this planet to find a destitute soul, deprived of their perceived destiny, whether it was ever a rational thought or not. There is no shortage of those knowing that they were meant for something other than that which they ended up being. I’d argue there is a bit of that living in each and every soul, or at least those capable of some basic sentient cognition. And those that don’t ever wonder and feel such ways, are likely no fun at parties.

Perhaps the feeling of being meant to be is just a bit of gratitude for when something aligns just right with our pleasure or pride. And the addictive potential of such venom is doomed to looney tune all the other doors and walkways we might have otherwise tried. Perhaps you get to know at the end what it all ways always about. Perhaps you just have a final gasp and shit the bed. Never knowing much more than what you came in with.

I have no intention of finding out all that, yet. I would like to believe that I haven’t even hit the halfway mark in such a journey. But I suppose its hard to tell how much of that is ever up to anyone of us. I don’t know if they permit rewrites, so I don’t plan on them.

I’d rather keep letting the story go on, guiding what I can, when I can, as best I can. Which is giving a lot of power to a shaved ape on warm, wet rock flying through the vacuum of space. Which I saw our latest pictures of, by the way. The whole space thing.

Goddamn, is it pretty.

And goddamn, are we small.