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Apple Pie

I love the Carl Sagan quote "If you want to make apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe". So much conveyed in so few words. At a very trite level, it gives me comfort that I cannot bake apple pie from scratch - it's too much work and the results are unpredictable.

  But there are other ways I have thought about what Sagan's quote means for me. It has crossed my mind often while cooking a meal, specially one that people loved and complimented me on. Nature did over 99.999% of the work and I did the rest. In that utterly negligible balance, we can have so much variety, so many ways to succeed and fail. What we put on the table may comfort our loved ones or not.That is  also where Michelin star chefs leave the rest of us in the dust, a certain grandma has a recipe without which no holiday meal is complete for the family. 

 On dark days, I have thought about how limited our scope of play is in the universe - we are no more than insignificant bacteria in the guts of an infinite system. So the temporary rush of anger, sadness or disappointment that is consuming me is no more significant than the "mental state" of that bacteria. I am not in touch with the feelings of any that live in my gut. Channeling this Sagan line helps me get over myself.

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