The discovery of two "planemos," (a celestial body bigger than an asteroid but smaller than a star) that circle each other rather than a sun tends to lead me to cosmic maundering. I'm not theologically inclined; I'm more of an existentialist than an agnostic. And yet, I cannot help but wonder on Leibniz's question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" I mean, there was plenty of reason for nothing to remain nothing. The extraordinary unlikelihood of the Big Bang occurring and the innumerable improbabilities of life developing all lead the mind to question exactly why something came to exist rather than nothing at all.

This then in turn leads one to conclude, quite logically, that there had to be purpose behind the beginning of something: a mind, as Milton says, "brooding on the vast abyss." How did the universe decide to generate itself? What uncausable circumstances caused causation? What unbeginnable beginnings happened to lead to The Beginning?

Pace Milton, I see no need for theism, nor the divine irruption into history that characterizes monotheistic religions. But irrespective of the how of the universe, there is always and ever the why: and that should leave all honest speculators gaping in wonder. As should the fact that the beginning of something also means the end of that thing. At which point, then what?