Impossible Tasks

What I saw through the tiny window in my bathroom first thing this morning was a bad omen to be sure…but to say I actually saw anything is almost an overstatement. Behind the dark curls of snow that had been pasted to the edges of it by the wind, I could distinguish little else beyond a swirling white void. Not the bay. Not the city hillside. Not my neighbor’s house. Not even my own porch. And boy was that wind howling. Same old same old. No big thing.

Spent a good fifteen minutes putting on my external layer of elemental protection…whistling away in merry anticipation as I wrapped, buttoned, gloved, donned, and laced. Almost all the small town small talk this time of year concerns a sort of universal question…a rhetorical one, but one I tend to answer despite knowing better. After comparing weather rumors, it always seems to come down to the same old philosophical enigma– why oh why am I here?

I like it here, I always say. A little oppression is good for the soul, you know. A little more than they bargained for, conversation wise, but I’ve found that most people are not wholly averse to kicking it up a notch in small talk land…they simply lack the creative boldness to maneuver off of the programmed route with strangers. Can’t say I blame them, either.

Embracing difficult tasks, and impossible odds, is one of humanity’s core virtues, as a subtle rejection of the logic of logic. If any logical creature is presented with a one in one hundred chance of succeeding in something, it won’t even bother trying it, and will instead favor something with higher odds of success. It’s here that the atheists and logicians fall short in their vision of scientific possibility…they underestimate the power of human problem solving, and the ambition of hope. Put me in a battle with sure odds of victory and I’ll be loitering around the rear ranks of the soldiers– bored, and playing poker…but give me impossible odds, and low troop morale, and I’ll be racing forward on the front lines with a huge grin on my face, cheerleading the charge, and dragging my brethren forward.

But I’m just an old-school Roman like that…a chance at glory, over a promise of victory.