As the philosophers say, surprises keep life spicy. How much less fun would life be if Beyoncé never dropped her seminal album “Beyoncé” out of the blue on iTunes? Where would we be if Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez didn’t unexpectedly get back together? These are little surprises that will shake you to your core, like earlier today when I sent myself an email and then later was startled by said email.
My heart simultaneously jumped to my throat and dropped into my stomach. For a brief moment, I lost all sense of time and reality.
Seeing my own name as the sender was like a digital jump scare. I pondered on the potential paranormal explanations. Who was this mysterious uncanny-valley person sitting in my inbox? What could this cryptic message that just said, “Bell peppers, Swiss cheese, garbanzo beans” mean? What twisted start of a Black Mirror episode was this?
Before I could spiral down an Emmy-worthy breakdown ruminating about the existential crisis of life and the multiverse, my sanity returned and I remembered that earlier that day, I had sent myself a grocery list so I wouldn’t forget to stop by the store after work, and the eeriness quickly became mundane.
But those fleeting moments of shock have stayed with me since.
Let me tell you, you never know true trepidation until you see your name in bolded letters in your email inbox, next to an untitled email. Suddenly, your mind races with infinite possibilities of what this message could entail – a forewarning from the future? A prophecy from the past? An earth-shattering revelation that the world I lived in was a farce? I’m not exaggerating at all when I say this was my own “red pill, blue pill” moment.
While the surprise of my own self-sent email has faded, the reminder of the universe’s enigmatic nature will stay with me forever. Let this be a lesson: you never know when a surprise will be around the corner and jar you out of everything you thought you knew about the natural world, even when you orchestrated the surprise yourself.
Let’s hope the next surprise in life is another Beyoncé drop!
