Is anything ever inevitable?

Ever get the feeling that some things are just inevitable; that there are unstoppable, irreversible forces of history that simply cannot be thwarted?

Take nuclear proliferation. As soon as one nation builds ‘the bomb’ the other kids want one too, and once a country gets one they never, ever give it up.

Except one already has.

In 1990 South Africa became the first (and so far only) ‘former nuclear state.’ Having gone to the trouble and expense to build and test the damn thing they suddenly went off the whole idea, thereby proving that nuclear proliferation is not inevitable.

In 1998 a man known to medical history as ‘The Berlin Patient’ became the first (and so far only) person to make a full recovery from the HIV virus; and even though researchers still aren’t exactly sure how that happened, they’ve proved that the progression from HIV to AIDS is not inevitable.

In 2013 the Gastric Brooding Frog (Rheobatrachus silus) became the first (and so far only) species to be brought back from extinction, proving that even the total eradication of an entire species wasn’t inevitable either.

All it takes is just one country, just one patient or even just one frog to show that just because everyone says something is ‘inevitable’ doesn’t mean it is.

Because whatever can happen once can happen again.

And who knows? Given enough time, it probably will… it’s almost inevitable.