Catching up on Ryan Madson and the meaning of life

Back in January, some initialed popinjay made absurdist claims about the Ryan Madson signing and what it might mean for the universe:

In the macro sense, signing Ryan Madson could be the most important thing that has ever happened in the history of everything. Matter and anti-matter colliding at the periphery of our cosmos, the accretion disc of the Milky Way spinning and spinning until the inevitable onset of entropy becomes too great, and the heat death of the universe besieges us, crumbling matter into matter, atoms collapsing and crushed in the infinite abyss of a cosmic black hole, all things that have been and ever will be formed into a glorious singularity until all light has been obliterated, and in that cosmic unknown the birth of a new world, a new solar system, a new galaxy and new universe at the crucible of another big bang.

Since then, the existential ponderance that is Ryan Madson has twirled 57.1 innings on the stage for Kansas City, and has proven to be an entity whose gravitational pull supersedes his mass.

With the recent struggles of Greg Holland, presumed closer, and the prospect of his tenure with the Royals winding to a close, Madson has been an invaluable asset in a bullpen that has continued its historic dominance of the previous season.

Madson has the fourth-most relief innings for the club, behind bullpen Cybermen Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera, and the "Surprisingly effective despite the fact that your uncle doesn't know his name" Franklin Morales. Considering Madson hadn't thrown a pitch at the major league level since 2011, and had thrown just one professional inning in the intervening years, the Royals being able to rely on Madson has taken a lot of the pressure off of the middle innings of baseball games. His rWAR of 1.3 puts him second on the team for full-time relievers, and his walk rate is tops among Royals relievers with at least 25 innings pitched.

But have we come any closer to solving the meaning of life? Has Ryan Madson's performance provided the answers that we have been seeking for generations? Is at as simple as to say that man perseveres as Madson has?

While we inch closer and closer to the inevitability of the grave, perhaps it is, to paraphrase The Captain, that how we approach life is as important as how we approach death. Through the struggles of injury and decay, Ryan Madson has persevered. Trudging into the cold indifference of the universe on a speck circling a dot, he has managed to carve out a purpose for himself, to the summit of success and again through the shadowed valley he has traveled, now to green pastures and purpose renewed.