The following is either a recap of the Blue Jays extra-innings loss to the Detroit Tigers yesterday or a recap of your own existence. The choice is both yours and meaningless in the end.

We started with hope – stupid, pointless hope. Even when presented with odds that are stacked against us. Even when all evidence points to the fact that we are not special. Even though all around us, we see talent and greatness that we are infinitesimal in comparison to. Cliches like “anything can happen” are bandied around with equally fluffy falsehoods about hard work and grit. We clutched to those empty words as if somehow they’ll make us more than what we are.

What followed was most nothingness, punctuated sometimes with events we pretended might be important. They weren’t; they were merely stopgaps in the nothing that just went on and on. All of us are specs of dust on a ball of dirt and decay that hangs in a nothingness that also goes on and on, so I guess that was nice.

Briefly, we grew accustomed to a pattern of monotony and allowed ourselves to believe that all of it was not just random – that it was all building to something; that it mattered.

And then it was over. We knew it was over. We tried to pretend that it might not be, but we knew in our hearts it was over because we knew none of the cliches we’d clung to ever really meant anything at all. We’ve never meant anything to the ball of dirt and it never meant anything to the nothingness. The nothingness is all there ever was and its indifference to our desire to matter remains undefeated.

The Detroit Tigers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 2-0 in the 10th inning. 161 games remain this season.