The world has signed a pact with the devil; it had to.
It is a covenant to which every thing, even every hydrogen atoms bound.
The terms are clear: if you want to live, you have to die;
you cannot have mountains and creeks without space,
and space is a beauty married to a blind man.
The blind man is Freedom, or Time,
and he does not go anywhere without his great dog Death.
The world came into being with the signing of the contract…
A scientist calls it the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
A poet says, 'The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/Drives my green age.'
This is what we know.
The rest is gravy.
- Annie Dillard
From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.