What Matters

Matter cannot be destroyed we are told by scientists. If we take that to heart, it means  there's only so much matter to go around.  Nothing gets much beyond the upper layer of earth's clouds other than the odd little piece of space aluminum and  light metals and plastics that view, through cameras, what is in outer space. Or as some would say, the vast vacuum of eternity or infinity. It's pretty hard to deny science for long, even of the most hard core spiritual individual or religious enthusiast. We can stretch our beliefs only so far before they snap back to reality. Faith or not. And faith is a very good matter since it, like legends and lore and fairy tales, goes a long way toward positive attitudes even if based on pure speculation,  coincidence or just plain stubbornness. The older I become, the less I know while trying to piece all together: what I've heard and read and seen and been, over multi decades. Sometimes, the present generation which actually is still mine, since I am living and not on the other side of sod, wonders why we elders are so coo coo. Trying to figure out what our lives were is likely the reason we seem kind of nutsy. We have seen the old merry-go-round of life pass by too many times, and the brass ring, we never caught and that looks like gold, and  probably isn't even brass, is after all only a ring. The ring of truth. There are some truths such as "matter cannot be destroyed" that become very mystifying. If matter can't be destroyed and at death, we humans are turned into ash, where do all the new humans being born, come from. Furthermore, out of where did their elements arise? Yes, we come from the bodies of other human beings and they consume nutritional elements that are out of our earth itself. But does that mean earth, having attained its maximum supply of human kind, according to those who study these things, is full, and that there are no more  elements left on the shelves to make new humans? You see how confusing this all is. Then again, since someone stated The Law of Conservation of Mass and his name among others who stated basically the same idea, was Antoine Lavoisier in 1785, it does become moot. Oh, you thought it was Einstein who said it, didn't you? Sorry. Einstein said that Energy Cannot Be Destroyed, not mass, but  the energy it, under conditions, emits? But Einstein also said, that energy can be changed from one form to another. Hmm. Since those days, a host of other scientists added or changed these theories about physical matter and their list grow longer every year. No wonder we ordinary folk are confused. At present, we are wrapped up in trying to save this dear old planet from falling apart before the crawling masses of human kind consumes it entirely, or they, each other. I think of a poem that I can't find but it was something like this: when man has consumed all: bird, bark and beast, then man will eat man. Apologies to the original author, but that's the concept. None of us living, are likely to witness any such thing, but the way it's  going these days, makes me wonder.