Although I do not watch sports regularly, it has been difficult to miss the ubiquity of America's NFL playoffs in recent weeks.  Every Sunday afternoon since the middle of December, millions of people in the U.S., and the rest of the world, have spent untold hours before a television set, watching the play and anticipating the outcome:  the two teams that will play in the Super Bowl.
     Ah, the Super Bowl.  Now that the two teams have been decided, we wait for the day when they meet.  One marvels at the time, money, and energy that are poured into making this day an extravaganza of nearly unrivaled proportions.  It's the mother of all productions.
     Yet for varying reasons, billions of people around the world love it.  I often wonder what our many animal friends think about the sight of that many people glued to their television sets for over four hours, eating, talking, laughing.  Whatever are those human beings doing?
     Simply being, I guess, human beings, magnificent, glorious, frail, intelligent, self-conscious and incomplete sentient beings availing themselves of the only existence they will ever have on this planet.
     Therein lies the puzzle:  where else will we find such an intriguing combination of will, tenuousness, folly, and determination?  Is this God's intention or is this evolution's result?  Either way, it's nothing anyone could have predicted:  life's essence eludes us unless we can see beyond it.