Linnaeus, Voltaire, and the Merry Month of May

"Man, when he enters the world, is naturally led to enquire who he is; whence he comes; whither he is going; for what purpose he is created; and by whose benevolence he is preserved" (Carolus Linnaeus, System of Nature [1735]).

"... O stern and numbing truth!...
A God came down to lift our stricken race:
He visited the earth, and changed it not!
One sophist says he had not power to change;
'He had,' another cries, 'but willed it not:
In time he will, no doubt.' And, while they prate...
God either smites the inborn guilt of man,
Or, arbitrary lord of space and time,
Devoid alike of pity and of wrath,
Pursues the cold designs he conceived."
~Francois-Marie Arouet, or rather known as Voltaire, in Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, 1756

"A caliph once, when his last hour had come,
Ths prayer addressed to him he reverenced:
'To thee, sole and all-powerful king, I bear
What thou dost lack in thy immensity--
Evil, ignorance, distress and sin."
He might have added one thing further--hope."
~Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster

Dost thou not see today is a bad day for me? :)
I officially have a full-blown cold, laid low, exhausted, bummed out. And 'tis the month of May, o wretched month that you are! Janelle and I were studying on how there is a leaning of some who believe that time is cyclical--it repeats--and last night, we both started recounting the bad things that happened in May, especially for me. Her bad month is October. If time is cyclical, and fate has decreed it thus, perhaps this would explain why I have been so extremely fatiqued and quite frankly, bummed. However, mind over matter! If I knew why I was feeling depressed (because of past history) then I can overcome by choosing to not let it get me down. It is quite fascinating though, that all the major crisis of my life have occured in the month of May. So if this were the reason for my exhaustion and mild bummed-out-ness (I refuse to call it depression!) I choose to be positive today. Maybe I'll go roll in the grass. Or maybe just go back to bed for the day :).