Pop goes the world 11.2.01

November is National Diabetes Awareness Month. Which is pretty funny when you think about it. I get diagnosed with diabetes a few days before November gets rolling and it feels like I haven't written about anything else since.
That's OK. In my experience, it isn't what you write about, but how you write about it.
I could go on in some great detail for weeks about things I find in my belly button and as long as people are reasonably entertained, they will not complain.
Now, I don't know if you believe in God or fate or karma, and I suppose it doesn't really matter in the end. But it does seem at times that pretty heavy coincidence plays its part in our lives and I am feeling that unbearable lightness of being this week.
There is a certain euphoria that accompanies acceptance of the inevitable. This is called fatalism and in spite of its dire sounding name, it really isn't all that bad of a philosophy.
Inuits, the people erroneously known as Eskimos, are fatalists. They are also some of the funniest people you will ever meet.
Take my word for it. If you ever meet an Eskimo at a party, stay put because you will hear some of the funniest stories ever.
When you live in the tundra and every day is a fight for survival against polar bears and narwhals, you have to have a healthy sense of humor.
Let's face it, comedy is tragedy turned inside out. When you are standing on the edge of an ice flow with your grandpa minding his own business, enjoying a sunny, brisk arctic day and grandpa is swallowed whole from behind by a killer whale, it's kind of funny.
Yes, boohoo, grandpa is dead, but the look of surprise on his face, that was priceless.
As ironic as it sounds, fatalism is ultimately healthy. It isn't a morbid obsession with death, it is an acknowledgement that death is inevitable; you can't do anything about it so you might as well live it up while you can.
How liberating.
I don't intend to write about "the old diabetes" every week, but for know I am reveling in certain personal revelations with an almost religious zeal.
I don't know if it's the drugs talking or maybe my crazy blood sugar levels are winding me up, but it is as though my eyes are wide open.
I am having what alcoholics refer to as a "moment of clarity," that sweetest of moments when you step outside yourself and feel like a meaningful yet minuscule part of something bigger and greater.
God's plan, the universe, nature, time.
It's like standing outside at night in the country on a clear summer night looking up at the Milky Way and for a brief moment you are the observer and the participant, unaware of your body, just conscious observation.
You start to roll it around in your mind that there is really nothing standing between you on the surface of the earth and Alpha Centauri except four light years.
If you suspend credulity long enough, you feel like you could almost touch it.
Right now, there are galaxies colliding, black holes sucking in matter, suns going pop, massive explosions are happening in slow motion in a universe of nearly infinite proportions.
Though we are blissfully unaware of it, there are solar systems forming in corners of the universe we can't see, planets being born and life evolving on a scale so massive you need advanced degrees in theology, astrophysics and quantum mechanics to just begin to comprehend.
In light of all this glorious creation and awesome destruction, does it really matter if I have to take a couple of pills?
How much time we have is not as important as what we do with it. If facing mortality is the price I have to pay for living each day consciously and deliberately, that is a small price to pay.
-Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. He can be contacted at 328-1811 ext. 279 or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.