FATE
By Katy Cotter
Have you thought about it much – the world and how it came to be? Or are you too busy binge-watching Stranger Things and eating avocado on toast while not paying off a mortgage?
Lucretius thought about it…a lot! He was a Roman Philosopher, inhabiting the Earth way before Netflix and chill days were a thing. It was head in the books – or scrolls – for old Luci. He wrote a book entitled “On the Nature of Things” and he believed that nothing can proceed from nothing, and that consequently, this world in which we live, and every other object in the universe, was formed from matter that previously existed.
WHAT? MIND BLOWN! But wait, it gets better. Well, more complicated and fascinating. Basically, if you say that any thing takes place without a cause is a big slap in the face to any natural philosopher – they’re very sensitive. So, man (AND WOMAN, TA LUCI) consists of a body and a soul. The body is constituted of coarser and the soul of finer matter. Both are produced together, grow up and decay together; at death, the connection between them is dissolved, the soul takes its departure, to be decomposed and mingled with other matter, and the body begins to decay, that it may undergo a similar fate.
HOLD UP. Where is the soul departing to? A better place? Heaven? The in-between? WHO KNOWS? Not me. I honestly can’t think about death too long otherwise I get really scared and depressed. It’s shocking how quick our lives on this planet are. Then poof! Our soul checks out and then there’s NOTHING! Ok, we better move on.
Ah, here’s something to leave you on an uplifting note. It is probable that there are many worlds of many kinds. Present productions of the Earth are not of the same vigour as those of its earlier days (super!). All around is making progress toward dissolution (fabulous!); the great globe will continue to sink and grow infirm, until at last, mouldering and disrupted, it scatters its atoms through surrounding space, to contribute to the formation of other worlds like or unlike itself.
Let’s hope God has all the infinity stones. It ain’t boding well for us muggles.
