The Luv Doc: Everything Now

Dear Luv Doc,

Why everything now?

– Chillin' in Cherrywood

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Before I launch into my normal (abnormal?) meanderings, I would like to address what is surely on every reader's mind: That by choosing the pseudonym "Chillin' in Cherrywood," the questioner above is obviously alluding to last week's "Arborgeddon," aka "Icepocalypse," aka "The A-Town Branchdown" of 2023 where the icy finger of the Almighty did some drunken pruning and well over 100,000 Austinites were left without power in chilly temperatures for several days much like the "Snowpocalypse," aka "Snowmageddon," aka "Snovid," aka "ERCOTastrophe" of February 2021. However, that can't possibly be so, because the email was sent on January 23, a full seven days before the ice storm. That means that either "chillin'" is a ridiculously deft doomsayer, or that they were simply referring to their relaxed mental state. I'm betting on the latter. Kid weed is so strong these days.

I know it probably comes as a huge surprise to some that in the frenetic media scramble of the internet age it sometimes takes me more than a few weeks to get to certain emails, but the Luv Doc has always been a bit of a bespoke operation. I'd like for you to believe that it's lovingly and painstakingly crafted at a slow and thoughtful pace, but the truth is it's 99% procrastination and 1% bloviation, rapidly vomited out in an indecipherable word torrent shortly before the proofers threaten to quit and the editor develops an uncontrollable eye twitch.

If there was an easier way to do it, I surely would, but as they say in the systems management world, "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets," and I ain't messing with perfection.

So why everything now? Because human consciousness is transitory. Everything we experience, we experience in the present. Sure, we can confidently say things happened in the past and we can confidently say things will happen in the future, but everything? Everything is happening right now. And look, I'm not even stoned. That's just the nature of the universe. Everything is happening in brilliant, Technicolor complexity right now while our brains frantically (methodically? miraculously?) try to give it all meaning and context – some better than others, as mine is currently proving.

Maybe that's not a satisfactory answer. Maybe you were shopping for some au courant string theory multiverse where now is an ephemeral instantiation of infinite possibilities simultaneously experienced by an infinite number of consciousnesses. Perhaps one of those consciousnesses is a raccoon in a spacesuit. That's super adorable for sure and if that image keeps you happily marching toward the existential abyss, you do you. Everything is now, so keep on chillin' even and especially when your infinite multiverse of infinite possibilities makes you feel like chillin' in Cherrywood isn't everything. Trust me. It is.