\n<\/p>\n
\t\tBy Maria Popova<\/p>\n
\t\t\tWe place life\u2019s bets by countless calculations of probability, conscious and unconscious, only to discover over and over how short they fall of the wildest reaches of the possible, which always includes but exceeds the probable. It helps to remember that we ourselves are children of improbability, that everything we treasure exists not because it had to, not because it was likely or necessary, but because the universe took a gamble against the staggering odds otherwise. <\/p>\n
THE WILDEST BET IS THE WINNING BETby Maria Popova
\nYou wouldn\u2019t have bet on it,the battered rockorbiting a starfrom the discount binof the universe,wouldn\u2019t have guessedthat it would bloommitochondria and music,that it would mushroommountains and minds,
\nand the hummingbird wingwhirring a hundred times fasterthan your eye can blink,
\nand your eye that tookfive hundred million yearsfrom trilobite to telescope,
\nand the unhurried orange lichengrowing on the black bouldertwo hundred times more slowlythan the tectonic plates beneathare drifting apart
\nand the marbled orcacarrying her dead calfdown the entire edgeof the continent,carrying the weightof consciousness
\nand consciousnesshow it windowsthis tenementof breath and bonewith wonder,how it hovers over everything,gigantic and unnecessary,like music,like love.<\/p>\n