Quick Takes: What Does It Mean?

It was one of the coldest nights of the whole winter; somewhere below zero.

I finished work that evening, headed out to my car in the parking lot, opened the door and turned the key.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

I paused for a second, eyes slowly widening, and tried it again.

"C'mon damnit! You started fine today!"

Again, not a sound, not a click, not a rev.

After some phone calls made in vain, I grabbed the shipment of books that I had picked up earlier from the post office, zipped up my not-made-for-real-winter leather jacket and started on my walk home.

As I walked through the the frigid arctic weather that instantly froze my eyebrows, I began to wonder about the situation.

"What an awful time for my car to die on me," I thought out loud.

And it was, no doubt about that.

Pushing on through the bitter cold, the analyst in me kept pushing for a reason behind my current circumstances.

"I wonder why this happened now? Is this something bigger than I think it is? Is this, perhaps, a sign of some sort? Whoa... maybe it is. What could I have done to bring this on?"

I glanced down at the parcel I was carrying. It contained several books on atheism, critical thinking, logic and science. I laughed.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked myself as I realized the error in my thinking.

Sure, my car did not start up that night, and on quite and inopportune one to boot. But what about the other thousand times it started up fine? Were those a sign of something too? If not, why not?

Cars are mechanical devices which will eventually be prone to break down. It just happens. No cosmic significance, no fate, no supernatural intervention.

We are all prone to errors in thinking. No exceptions. Just because we WANT there to be purposeful reasons behind our world, especially when we do not understand them, does not mean that there are.

It's a wonderful lesson in humility to understand that not every minute detail of the universe is aimed at teaching me, an insignificant sarcastic elitist, about some trivial aspect of my life.

So what does it all mean?

Absolutely nothing. Now finish walking home, and go fix your car.




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