How are you?

I get this question a lot.

You probably do, too.

Sometimes nothing more is meant by it than "Hello."

Sometimes they really mean it, they really want to know.

Generally, my answer is "Great!"

'Cause no matter what relatively small irritations I have in my life, the bottom line is that my life is quite wonderful.

But I've decided that perhaps I should not simply say "Great!" I should explain why my life is so great.

So here goes:

Great!

I am an organic life form living on the only planet we know of in the entire universe that supports organic life. How wonderful is that?

Plus, I am self-aware, so I know that I am alive and can appreciate rainbows and the sound of wind moving through trees, and so on.* How incredible is that?

And, best of all, I have two smart, beautiful, hilarious, stubborn and funny granddaughters.**

So how am I?

GREAT!

* Note: just in case that sentence sounds as though I am celebrating the uniqueness of human beings, I must clarify that I happen to believe that many, many living creatures from thousands of species are self-aware and appreciate the world around them. Birds, spiders, squirrels, "etc" ....

** Photos are, of course, required to back this up:

Loey Lucille Silva

Juna Josephine Silva

Complaining about the weather

Seems like I hear people complaining about the weather a lot.

Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry....

Seems to me that we should never complain about the weather. I refuse to complain about the weather. Why would I take this position?

So far there is just one planet that we know about in the universe that supports the kind of life we are: organic, carbon-based life.

"Weather" cannot be separated from this planet. So when you complain about the weather, you are complaining about the only place in the universe humans can even possibly, remotely live. 

Seems a bit mean spirited, from that perspective, to whine about rain (which is needed badly for us and trees and lots of other living things to survive).

Beyond all that, humans have spread across the entire planet, even (and often) to places that are hostile to human survival (places, in other words, that we did not evolve to live in).

In order to live in many of these places, we destroy chunks of those places to make them more hospitable, comfortable and convenient for us.

So it seems to me that when someone complains about the weather, we should ask:

Do you live in a location on Planet Earth that does not require the establishment of a "human survival zone"?

Indicators of Human Survival Zones: air conditioning so your brain doesn't fry; heat so that you don't turn into an ice cube; homes that seal you off completely from your surroundings....

If yes, then our response should be:

Wow! Aren't you lucky? You can breathe, you can drink water, you can eat the food, you can enjoy the natural environment with minimal degradation of that environment, and without dying. Why would you ever complain about the weather?

If no, the our response should be: 

You have no right to complain. You shouldn't even be here. You can only be here by radically changing (usually by destroying) the world around you. Which, by the way, affects the weather. If you don't like it here, then leave. But don't complain.

And if none of that seems to be making a dent, you can always fall back on the Rainbow Argument:

How can you complain about the weather (and by extention a planet) that gives you rainbows?