My brain is a tasting menu of topics

Of the many themes I've flirted with today, Fear is the one I'm bringing home to dinner. (I typed out these words three and a half hours ago, so imagine what additional smorgasboard of ideas has paraded through my mind since then. It was another cosmic post that reminded me to come back to the blogstead while I can still process thoughts into words.)

Don't laugh, but after being reminded that the Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to have its first test September 10, with the inauguration planned for October 21, my lizard brain went into fearful panic mode.

I like to consider my opinions on science to be very liberal. I'm excited by progress and interested in big ideas about the universe, but somehow the improbable possibility of life on Earth ending through the creation of a black hole in a laboratory scares a tiny part of my brain. I try to rationalize it away by deeming those thoughts irrational, but that makes it worse. Telling myself that the fears are silly legitimizes those fears. Legitimization strengthens them.

It's a paradox, an anomoly, playing out at sub-sub-conscious levels, but I've started to fixate on those dates and wonder "what if..."

What if--in a spit second--we all cease to be?
What if time is limited and there's no sense in building a legacy because no one will be left to witness or remember?

Death is one thing, and the human race being wiped out is another, but all colloquial definitions of matter and time will no longer be relevant. It's a kind of cosmic destruction we know so little about that it's not even widespread in fiction, as far as I know.

My plan for dealing with fear of black holes is simply to redouble my efforts to live better--especially with getting along with other people--in the next couple months. And to enjoy my life. Those, I believe, are habits that will serve me well even if the world doesn't come to an end.