Things We Don't Know

It was a beautiful morning at Cornwall Park for our pétanque game. For various reasons, we hadn't been able to get together for several weeks, so it was great to be playing again.

This open area is not usually crowded at all, but today there was a large group from one of the local schools enjoying a break from classes. I don't know what made me think such morbid thoughts, but after I left the park, these words from Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College came to mind:

Alas! regardless of their doom
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around 'em wait
The ministers of human fate
And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah shew them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey, the murderous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!

If this isn't depressing enough, the next three stanzas of the poem list many of the horrible things that could happen to the hapless "victims". The concluding words may be more familiar:

No more;--where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

Continuing advancements in understanding DNA may eventually make it possible to chart the health issues a person may encounter years in advance -- a mixed blessing indeed.