The Biggest Coincidence of all

I was about to read an article entitled "Are we alone in the universe?" but when I clicked on the link all I got was a spinny-roundy thing, so while I watched it spin I thought a little about the possibility of life other planets.

It seems unlikely, I thought to myself, that whatever the combination of circumstances which resulted in Planet Earth and all its going-on-ness would not have also happened elsewhere in a universe that is so vast and has so many possibilities. Our planet has so much lifely stuff in it that it would be crazy, wouldn't it, if all that came from just one coincidence of requisite conditions, and it never happened again, anywhere, at all?

Or... is it the monkeys writing Shakespeare? That classic idea, which is clearly nonsense? I hate to break it to you but those monkeys with their typewriters would not write any plays. Not even a Mike Leigh. Or not without some incredibly enormous unlikeliness. Is that us? Are we the incredibly enormous unlikelihood? Or were we inevitable?

The best thing about all this is that, even if there is another Us out there, we may never find them. They may have already happened, and be long gone. They may not happen until we are over and done. We may find them but be unable to communicate with them. We may completely miss them because their lifeliness is so other to ours that we wouldn't recognise them if they shat on our heads, nor they us.

None of this is original. I'm just filling in time while the spinny thing spins.

Oh look, it just stopped.

(Haha, and now I've read it, and all it does is repeat my questions and answer none of them).