I believe in fate–retroactively–in other words, if it leads to a hammock.

By the end of this Review, you should believe in retroactive fate too.

If that does not happen, then this Review has failed.

Retroactively.

But we are confident this Review will succeed.

Retroactively.

Because retroactive fate is a beautiful thing.

An example of this would be when I had a coworker, originally from Ghana, with an aunt near Washington D.C., much closer to the Ghana Embassy than I was in rural Maine. This meant, according to fate, I should send her my passport so that she could help me attain a visa to enter Ghana and I could go there and lay on a hammock.

Which I did.

I went to Ghana.

And I laid on a hammock there.

Eventually.

With emphasis on the above “eventually.”

In various ways.

For fate, as we will come to find out (only through this Hammock Review–no one ever knew it before), can sway gently like a hammock in the wind. Fate can change at any moment.

Yet because fate is like a hammock, it only sways so far in the wind on most days, as a hammock is typically anchored down to a base, tied to a tree, or stabilized in some way that provides structural integrity maintaining safety and limiting how far gusts, breezes, and other variations of wind can take the fateful hammock. So properly-applicated fate, originating at the base of any hammock situation, never lets the hammock get too far away.

Unfortunately there are times, which neither scientists nor spiritual authorities can yet fully understand the necessity for, when global forces converge to improperly apply fate with less-than-desirable disturbing unhammock-like events that suddenly uproot life, like a hurricane rudely ripping up a hammock and tossing it to and fro (but ultimately mostly fro). Rather than wasting our time and resources on TikTok videos, wars, and internet porn, some might say our world would be better off if we put our minds together to find a technology that gave hammocks the ability to withstand hurricanes. Accomplishing that would change the dynamics of this hammock/fate metaphor to the point where our fates could only lead to good things.

Oh what a glorious time that would be.

A beautiful time.

A beautiful future.

The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Yes, if we have the ability to develop technology that can reverse engineer clouds, we surely have the ability to reverse engineer fate.

This Hammock Review is the first phase of fate-reversing technology.

The reverse engineering of fate is an important aspect of fate itself, as this Hammock Review will slowly point out. If you find this Review long and boring, it is not our fault; it simply will turn out to be the Hammock Review’s fate–and your fate for reading it the whole way through. #FidelityToFate #Don’tScapegoatFate

Like fate, it is also the nature of evolution to take a long time (Darwin, Charles; books, long) and so naturally the global evolution procured in this Review will not happen quickly; it would indeed be very unbelievable if a review accomplishing such a lofty goal were short. After all, On the Origin of Species was about 50,000 words spread out over (mostly boring*) 500 pages.

To say that this Review is the sequel of On the Origin of Species would not be 100 percent true because one generation is not the simply the sequel of the previous generation; that is not how evolutionary science works: because sequels are historically worse than the original, whereas a new generation outdoes the former in evolution. So it would be better to say this Review is at the same time the next generation of On the Origin of Species while also being the original, because that is not only a better compliment to this Review, but also more in line with the convenient (if you’re a believer), head-scratching (if you’re an ignorant skeptic) nature of things endowed with retroactive fate.

By employing the unique combination of the longer-than-necessary, indirect rhetoric that provides the academic credibility with the alcohol consumption that provides the readability, this Review is essentially an intellectual flipbook, where you are able to witness evolution unfold in real time. Yes, this real(ly long) Hammock Review is equivalent to experiencing a wide array of beautiful beaks on finches, without an expensive trip to the Galapagos Islands and accompanying sunburn.

In other words, this Review is like the prized treasure of a museum, the main attraction, the featured painting that is roped off. The main difference being we rope this Review off for no one. All are welcome here. Even if you touch it or take pictures, we don’t care. We won’t have a guard come over and scold you like you’re a little child that’s been sentenced to sitting in the corner. No, this painting right here is sturdier than that. It can handle your intimate interaction.

We may not be so arrogant to suggest we are spiritually evolved enough yet to paint with all the colors of the wind: if we could, then we would use the extensive array of wind’s hues to work together with wind and negotiate a truce that would stop wind’s propensity for blowing away hammocks; but we have done enough art here to paint with all the colors of fur that evolution has given the deer mouse, and allotted us to paint with, which is admittedly a more limited palette than wind offers as wind is evidently more evolved than the deer mouse, which makes sense because wind has been around longer and therefore completed a few more laps around the ‘ole block than the deer mouse, whereby creating a dynamic where there have been more generations of wind to get evolved. As such, scientific research should continue in all fields after this Hammock Review as we humbly and readily admit this Hammock Review is not necessarily the definitive work on biological sciences; instead, it simply is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that should be studied in high school biology classes across the country.

And collegiate engineering classes across the world–especially once reverse engineering becomes an emphasis as our best universities work to rediscover once-lost ancient hammock technology to meet the increased societal demand of hammocks as an increased love for hammocks is surely the next step in human evolution, which this Hammock Review will somewhat dance around on its way to somewhat demonstrating as we inch closer to The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Yet this Hammock Review only hints at the possibilities of such reverse engineering thoughts because one might need an engineering degree–or at least such a background–to properly use reverse engineered fate and implement it into the creation of the necessary hurricane-resistant hammock of the future–The Beautiful Hammock Future–discussed above.

This Review, perhaps (this is a very important word to this sentence and should not be overlooked or discarded as we choose our words importantly in our delicate writing of these Reviews), lays the groundwork for that utopian hurricane-resistant hammock, essentially by surveying (or at least scouting out) the symbolic land or area where such a hammock will be placed (essentially trying to establish a base or foundation of the hammock, like the great support systems of old–and new) through reflections on fate and implementations of retroactive fate, the precursors to reverse engineering fate, especially as tied to hammocks (which are often tied to trees, FYI).

As such, a Hammock Review like this one could, and should, be viewed as an astoundingly groundbreaking accomplishment, much like Sigmund Freud’s work–but sans the weird sex stuff–because Freud laid the groundwork for psychoanalysis just as we lay the groundwork here for hurricane-resistant hammocks. We hope to live in a world** where, among other amazing things, this highbrow yet humble Hammock Review is studied in all high-level (yet not necessarily humble) engineering courses as an inspiration to some of our brightest young (and approaching middle-aged***) minds.

We also hope to live in a world (the same world as the previous paragraph, The Beautiful Hammock Future) that studies hammocks more than it studies Freud, for Hammock Therapy provides greater insight and peace than any expensive and draining psychoanalytic therapy accessible only to anyone with a fat wallet seeking a fat headache and a fat waste of time, when they could clearly easily be doing more productive things, like laying in a hammock and/or reading a fantastically fat Hammock Review, like this one.

Quite conversely to the uppity exclusivity of psychoanalytic therapy, Hammock Therapy is accessible to anyone with a hammock as hammocks are the true Great Equalizer of society–any man woman, or child regardless of socio-economic circumstances or physical abilities (or disabilities) can lay on a hammock, ”which then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of men, the balance wheel of social machinery” (Mann, Horace).

If one wanted to (further) twist logic into a pretzel (and people really like pretzels, and are especially willing to pay a lot for a hot pretzel), they could say education is The Great Equalizer because the person with the engineering degree discussed above that will ultimately go on to achieve fame, fortune, and a wonderful sex life by attracting an insatiable partner through impressively creating the hurricane-resistant hammock will be the one that provides an apparatus for more people to regularly utilize the “the great equalizer” of humankind, “the balance wheel of social machinery,” the hammock, in all weather conditions, whether or not there is a calm breeze or a Category 5 hurricane approaching. To be such a great engineer, one first must read this Review, along with some other things, such as engineering stuff, which is assigned in engineering classes. #Education

But fortunately for me, I make no pretense nor put on any airs of being a great engineer and thus do not have to read this long Review–I only have to write it, a much easier task (citation: treasure maps).

Also fortunately for me, Ghana is not in Hurricane Alley and so I did not need to worry about psychoanalysis or hurricanes interrupting the more pleasant fates on this fateful trip.

But unfortunately for you, Dear Reader of Limited Time, Ghana is also not in Hammock Alley (sometimes affectionately referred to as The Hammock Belt****) and so we are forced to chronicle the necessary hammock-searching adventures here and lace them with various pleasant literary devices (mainly very loose metaphors) used to multiply and expand the hammock experiences into the more pleasant, less FEMA-centric fates.

Whatever that exactly means.

So come, Dear Reader, take my hand (metaphorically, of course, by the power vested in my metaphorical hand***** by the internet) and join me in this adventure as we explore hammocks and their metaphors together.