Well, what else are we going to worry about? We have the present more or less under control and we have passed the past. So, that only leaves the future.
According to George Johnson in his book on the woman astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, it has not been 100 years yet that scientists and others have realized that what looks like stars in the heavens are actually stars all right but are whole galazies of them. Less than a century ago, even professional astronomers thought that what we now call the Milky Way was the entirety of the astronomical bodies. There is a great deal that we still don't know today and we can see that there may always be important questions that we cannot answer, both about the world and about ourselves.
One of my favorite characters in "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!" is a minor one. The Russian sub is stuck on a New England costal sandbar and the captain has sent his best crew sneaking ashore to try to somehow get a strong enough motorboat to tug it lose. The men on that mission are intelligent and very, very scared. They would just like to go home but they try to take steps to avoid being spotted, identified and reported to the military authorities who will not be gentle with armed foreign forces ashore in New England. The entire American population is afraid of Russia and Russians and sees them in the least shadow. Calls to the local sheriff about suspicious groups of men sneaking about here and there have included gut guesses by the callers that the groups might be Russians.
On Sunday morning, the sheriff asks the townsmen to gather in the local bar and explains that he wants some armed crews to investigate various parts of the island reporting odd activity by unidentified people not recognized by the locals. My guy bolts out of the gathering shivering and babbling," It's all over! It's all over! We don't stand a chance! Not a chance!" Zero people have actually been clearly seen or talked to. Nothing is really known about the reported events. Yet, deep fear, probably from having a poor childhood or something, has arisen and totally spooked this man.
Charlotte Beck reports a Zen story of a man being chased by a tiger. As he runs, he happens to spot a perfectly ripe, red strawberry and snatches it as he flees the beast. As he pops it in his mouth, he exclaims," Delicious!" Now that is realizing a good thing while you have it!
