Game Changer

by Neal Shusterman

Schrödinger, if you didn’t know, was a scientist who mathematically proved that a cat inside a box is both dead and alive at the same time, until you open the box. I had argued in class that Schrödinger was wrong—because if the box started to smell like dead cat, you didn’t have to open it to know.

“It’s not your imagination,” I told him, but offered him no more than that. Even so, he heaved a breath of intense relief. And it made me realize something. They say that misery loves company. That never rang true for me. But I do know that when you’re facing a vast unknown, company is the only thing that makes it bearable.

We are so limited. As a species. As individuals. Not only can’t we see the future, we can’t even see the present for what it is. We’re too clouded by the things we want and the things we fear. But worse than any other blindness is that we can’t see the consequences of our actions.

We should know by now that anything we desire, and anything we achieve, comes at a cost, and with consequences we didn’t care enough to consider.

I suppose there were more kids who supported desegregation, but didn’t support it enough to join a club. It made me wonder how many important causes were crushed not by opposition, but by lukewarm support.

ignorance is a cockroach you can’t kill no matter how hard you try. It hides in dark, fetid places, then darts out into the open.