Universe explained in a sentence

My friend Dieter is, well, a genius. And a legend. And totally awesome. The other night at dinner he managed to explain one of the mysteries of the universe. In simple, layman’s English. Effortlessly. Confucius would have been jealous. But not in a bad way.

Let’s take the scenic route to this destination.

It started off with a simple dinner invitation. Spur-of-the-moment stuff. With dinner served at home, but pre-dinner drinks and starters in a restaurant down the road. Uniquely Dieter.

Chinese beers, Dim sum starters, amazing company. The glue that keeps friendships intact. Yummy! Flippin yummy, actually.

Then dinner at home. All out Chinese. The full spread. Who knew one could buy such delicious Beijinganese take-aways in Dainfern? Is Beijinganese a real word? Doesn’t matter.

The food tasted as if came from the heart of the People’s Republic. And if the food didn’t, the people who prepared it certainly did.

Rounded off with tea that, honestly, I cannot lie, only Dieter, my wife and one-and-a-half billion Chinese can stomach. Sorry Dieter. I’m adventurous, but not quite in your league. I opted for Nespresso.

Then came the coup. Fortune cookies.

“The universe is simple, but the explanation is complex,” read Dieter’s.

Wow. The universe explained, in a sentence. Not just the universe, but the universe and its explanation explained in one sentence. We were in awe. Who writes this stuff?

“A perfect statue never comes from a bad mould,” was the message to me.

How can one not debate those concepts? We – the moulds and the statues, fathers and sons – perfectly moulded. They should be handing out two bottles of red wine with each fortune cookie.

And as we debated, argued, agreed, disagreed, defended positions, laughed, remembered, tried to forget and experienced a flood of emotions, we somehow also realised the limitations of our knowledge and our power.

We know what we do, but we don’t know what we don’t.