OMG

I'm exhausted.

There are something like 60 significant wildfires scorching the western states (see here), which already have cost the lives of seven firefighters. We haven't heard much about those disasters because we're currently enduring the second 500-year hurricane in about as many weeks (anybody remember Harvey?), with another one lurking. That's pretty phenomenal. This is not just going to cost us billions of dollars. It's going to cost us billions and billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, an 8.1 earthquake recently rattled through Mexico. That horror itself would activate humanitarians all over the United States to provide aid to our neighbor, but I don't know, we seem to be pretty distracted right now.

And, of course, there's a nutcase in Asia juggling his nuclear weapons while his people starve. I hope he doesn't drop one.

We seem to be caught in a chain of events that's pretty much out of our control. I dare say that some folks, who have misplaced their corrective lenses, (WARNING: Theory approaching) suggest that we deserve these calamities in our lives because apparently we are a godless people who don't support the President. Or maybe it's because we do support the President. To me, that's a really odd cause-and-effect connection, either way. I can't believe the deaths of first responders or otherwise innocent people (or children) caught up in natural disasters is deserved.

In my view, disasters are a part of life in the same way that lazy, balmy September days are a part of life. They always have been. They always will be. Every day we climb out of bed, we're rolling the dice and taking our chances. To me, living is not a rewards and punishment system. Living is just, well, living. We acquire knowledge, we make our decisions, we go with it. That's all we can do.

Some decisions are better than others, of course. Riding out a Cat 4 hurricane while on a three-foot high island probably isn't one of them.

Other decisions just won't matter. Where do we go when that 100-mile diameter meteor is hurtling toward us...