07 Jan 2006 C.E.
On the notion of Risk and Reward
Entered 10:56:52 PM Terra, Sol-III Mutter's Spiral
Sometimes, stakes are high. Incredibly high. So high that we fear taking the risks we have to to achieve success, reasoning that like Icarus reaching for the sun, we will but burn in the light, losing everything. So we dream, and hope, but fail to act on those hopes, afraid. We maintain the status quo, begging fate or the universe or what have you to give us what we most long for, what we yearn for. But the universe can only go so far. It can only set up the dominoes. It is up to us to take the final step, to risk tipping them over. Cataclysm or Celebration, the only two possible permutations arising from our choice. To not choose is to make the subject of your desire like Schroedinger's cat in the box, sitting in an eternally dead / alive state, waiting for someone to open the lid and decide its fate for all time. To do nothing is to let it fade away, become forgotten, be lost to time forever. Sometimes there are things so important, so treasured, that are near, yet far. Things we long to reach for, yet are afraid to do so lest the tipping of the dominoes create an avalanche that destroys everything we hold precious. I have lived most of my life letting the dominoes sit in place, gathering dust, fading away with the passage of years. But for once, I took a chance; tipped the dominoes. Risked it all. And today, I received the greatest reward there can be. Looking backwards, I can see that the sorrows of the past, while painful, served a utility. They opened the way, prepared me for what was to come. As much as I cursed fate prior, I now venerate it. Had I not been freed (and this is a kind, kind adjective), I would not have been have been open to the gift that was coming my way. A gift more precious that can be measured. But still, that gift would not have been mine had I not cast aside my fears and reached for it. And for that, and for my success, I am eternally grateful.
Yht dra cyt uhac fana syta rybbo, draen bnyoanc yhcfanat. hu muhkan ymuha, drao vuiht cumyla eh aylr udran'c tnaysc yht rubac. Dnimo, dra knaydacd uv ymm fuhtanc.
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"The matter of why Doctor Xadium's Time Capsule is fixed in the curious shape of a 'beverage vending machine' from late 20th-century Earth [Humanian Era 607934] is a subject never broached in polite conversation. Ever. Whilst some have scurrilously posited that Xadium cannot properly effect the repair of a simple Type 60 Chamelionic circuit, it is generally accepted that these disgraceful innuendo are slanderous and utterly unfounded." - Lord Sendrilmetavanskastaron, "The Gallifreyan Renegades", thirty-eleventh ed. D O C T O R 
"Doctor Xadium was an errant Time Lord whose overactive sense of humour at High Council meetings earned him a more or less permanent holiday from Gallifrey. Stuck on Earth trying to cobble together a new TARDIS-- but equipped with nothing more than the technological equivalent of bear-skins and stone knives (as well as some metal tape)-- he decided to use his time to follow the myriad trends in Terran society, studying their crude, primitive laws and laughable attempts to improve themselves scientifically. Aproximately 26 Earth-years into his exile, in order to offset his growing frustration with the 'self-involved, short-sighted, bombastic ape-monkeys with delusions of grandeur"', he took to irregularly recording his more sardonic-- or dare we say even cynical-- views on the ever-progressing devolution of 21st century human civilization (not to mention his own petty irritations) in his 900-year diary, excerpts of which we have extracted from the data core of his notoriously insecure Terran 'computing device' (which in terms of function is slightly less advanced then a Gallifreyan child's first number line). It is almost refreshing to note the ceaseless amazement he displays at the Terran propensity to supress any information, be it political, archaeological or scientific, that gets in the way of their pedestrian, self-absorbed world-view. It is for this reason that historians have labeled Doctor Xadium 'The Discoverer of Obvious Truth' - Lord Sendrilmetavanskastaron, "The Gallifreyan Renegades", thirty-eleventh ed., WHO IS GOING TO GET SUED ONCE I GET BACK TO GALLIFREY BECAUSE HE DOESN'T REALIZE MY SUB-ETHER NET CONNECTION STILL WORKS AND I CAN SEE THE ABSOLUTE RUBBISH HE'S SPEWING FORTH OVER THERE AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE GALAXY T H E |