The first time we met, I went mute. My jaw slacked open, no words.
It was scary. I had never been in this territory. Me without my trusty words. Where did I put my wonderful blankie of sarcasm? My terrible jokes? The Simpsons references? All gone, along with everything else in my suddenly blank mind. Who was I even? Was this ego death?
But it was going to be okay. Because there were sheets of paper in my hand, a script. Clean and new and warm from the printer, chock-full of words. They weren’t my words, but they’d do. “Just breathe,” I thought, “and read the words on the paper to this beautiful woman.”
My favorite magazine called and asked me to write about certainty. For some reason, I thought of my first rehearsals of The Tower, Season 1, shot in low definition, shown exclusively on the then brand-new Bowdoin Cable Network.
This was the late ’90s. The internet was in its infancy. To have a college cable network was new and exciting, big news on campus. The first show was an absurd soap opera—a telenovela—and people wanted to be a part of it.
Let’s be clear: I wasn’t a grades-based student. More of an experience-based one. And I wasn’t an actor, except when I pretended to be too cool for school. Still, it was undeniably cool to be an actor on the first (maybe the last?) Bowdoin TV show. The producers wrote a part for me. It would be easy, they said. I just had to play myself.
And that’s how I ended up at rehearsal, speechless, struck by the thunderbolt. I’ll remember that moment forever. When Grant Met Ursula. Of that, I can be certain.
That’s sentimental and heartfelt, and it happened just before winter break. Put in a Christmas tree and call up the good people at the Hallmark Channel. Let AI write the script. I have a bunch of plaid flannel. Onward! We film in Vancouver at daybreak.
But is what I said about certainty really true? After all, there may come a point when I won’t remember the day Grant met Ursula. That’s sad, but many events can and will occur. You must be this tall to ride “life.” Please keep your arms and legs inside the moving vehicle.
We live in uncertain times. But when were times ever certain? Thirty thousand years ago, the cave painter at Lascaux, France, likely gazed at his just-finished auroch (wild cow), dreaming of more certain times, at least foodwise.
By some odd coincidence, I was recently going through my statistics notes, preparing for a long shot job interview. (Spoiler alert: They ended up ghosting me. It’s for the best, as the T-shirt proclaims: “I’m an English major; you do the math.”)
But, inside the notes, I found the following statement, which I found quite offensive: If an infinite number of household pets (cats, dogs, monkeys even) gathered in front of an endless number of keyboards, the chances of not only a novel but a great novel emerging was not precisely zero. It was 0.000... well, a lot of zeros... maybe a million zeros... and then a 1. As a human writer with opposable thumbs and three novels in various states of disrepair, I find even that slight chance to be generous. I can assure the statistics professors of the world that the chances of a great novel emerging from a room full of cuddly fur faces are, in fact, zero. Harrumph.
But that’s not how statistical certainty works. It’s not based on anecdotes, strong opinions, or catchy turns of phrase. Certainty wiggles through the cracks in the concrete, finding purchase on whatever’s possible.
Legend has it that the felines who roam around Key West are descendants of Ernest Hemingway’s cats. They have extra toe beans. Maybe one of them could pull it off. Quick, get the talent agents down there. Alert the big five publishers.
Life itself is a long shot. Is the Big Bang or any creation scenario more likely than an extra-toed cat writing The Brothers Karamazov? It’s a moot point, as both theories are inherently untestable by the standards of the scientific method.
In a recent collection of short stories, Noisy Alien Communicator, I and other contributors explored intelligent alien life and how it might interact with our world. Everyone assumes aliens are everywhere. There are so many stars. There are so many galaxies; E.T. has to be real, right? Mulder, the truth is out there.
The irony of this project is I wrote a few of these stories and typeset them, poring over the words for hours, days even. Meanwhile, I don’t believe aliens exist, not in any meaningful way where we can interact with them. I’m more of a Fermi’s Paradox, Rare-Earth Theory type of nerd, with a bit of Terrence McKenna thrown in for fun. Sure, mushrooms look weird, and spores can survive in space. But the speed of light is a hard limit. Time only flows in one direction. People want there to be alien overlords. Guys with big eyes who control everything, so we don’t have to. The horrifying truth might be that we’re all alone, talking into the mirror.
If we look at almost any event relevant to our lives, the chances of it happening or not happening are never zero or 100 percent. Even the sun rising tomorrow isn’t 100 percent. A super volcano could burst, eclipsing the sun from our vision. Some radiation emission like that from a quasar or supernova could blaze through the solar system, knocking us out of orbit. It’s not likely, but it’s feasible.
Therefore, I posit the following: the only absolute certainty exists in matters of faith and affairs of the heart. I don’t have proof, but I suspect only humans are unique enough to bridge that last billionth of a percentage point to certainty. And we do it quickly, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in Blink. You don’t have time to make a pros and cons list with a woolly mammoth advancing. Think long, think wrong.
If there’s a moral to my rant, it’s: Be decisive. Step up to the moment. Ask the DM if you can Dash. If you see the rarest Pokémon ever, don’t walk by. Give yourself a chance. Seize the day.
Back to the romantic comedy that is my life. It has been a quarter-century since the day when I was roped into playing a version of myself on closed-circuit television. I was only twenty when we met. The storyline was that she poisoned me with cookies, and we woke up married.
It was ludicrous. And perfect.
Certainty? I couldn’t speak, and someone gave me words. I was lost, and I was found. I saw the crossroads of life unfolding in front of me.
We can’t control our feelings. We can’t control what we believe. That’s the only certainty: faith, family, love, and the human heart.
These events took place twenty-five years ago, and I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve lived more of my life with her than without her. It started with poison cookies, and it might have ended that way. But I make the right decision daily, sharing this existence with Ursula.
Of that, I can be certain.
Next in this series on certainty: neuroscience and psychology professor Erika Nyhus »
Matt Bitonti ’00 is a writer in Philadelphia. He is married to a member of the Class of 2002, who isn’t going to be thrilled with this public display of affection.
This story first appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Bowdoin Magazine. Manage your subscription and see other stories from the magazine on the Bowdoin Magazine website.
