Did you know that originally Margaret Mitchell was going to call her "Gone With The Wind" heroine Pansy instead of Scarlett? Did you know Lincoln loved radishes and hated turnips? Did you know Beethoven deleted entire passages from his Fifth Symphony?
One way you and I know such trivial-to-triumphant facts is by coming across private papers years later. It's like peeking behind the curtain of history. Very much like coming across old newspapers in which the reporters are agonizing over the outcome of some distant battle whose every detail you and I now know.
There's a god-like feeling here, because unlike anyone back then, you know exactly what's about to happen.
Talking about God -- something hard for me not to do -- there is a growing legion of scientists who have decided it's time to end this modern stalemate between science and religion. Scientists like Tielhard Chardin hypothesized evolution is a cosmic process that is leading to the ultimate stage of development: God Himself. Then there is Francis Collins whose work directing the Genome Project has similarly concluded that evolution can be best understood as "theistic evolution."
Now entering the arena is Professor John Polkinghorne, elementary particle physicist and President of Queen's College, Cambridge. With the theory of quantum mechanics, he finds in its lack-of-predictability room for how God can "intervene in the world while still operating inside the universal rules of nature He initially set in motion."
Becoming an Anglican priest, Polkinghorne is one of those thinkers who is perfectly comfortable conflating science and religion in one profession. He sees the design of nature, universal morality, the everyday sense of hope, the perfection of mathematics and the very notion of God, not as "proofs of God's existence" like he medieval scholastics attempted, but rather as "signals of some transcendence."
Looking for an antidote to the transient trivia of the day's news about which you have virtually no control...? Try curling up with some of Polkinhorne's articles in scientific journals where he puts to rest the high-paid cynicism of fellow academics like Richard Dawkins. Polkinghorne quotes the celebrated Princeton quantum-mechanics physicist Freeman Dyson who said: "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."
Of course, there's another way of approaching humanity's recurring question/taunt: If-you're-there-god-why-don't-you-show-yourself? This is the Lenten/Easter season for Christians. Find a local Christian who passionately embraces and lives their faith, then watch them engage in this solemn season. Oh? You say you don't know any Christians like that? Well, they ARE hard to find. But keep looking, because if you do, it may be like coming across one of those long-misplaced private papers serious seekers are always seeking....
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
MORE DOTS THAN WE KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH
Smart people are always talking about connecting-the-dots. It's true, isolated facts and stats are useless until some someone can discover what the patterns therein are saying to us. As individuals and especially as a nation in an age of exponential change.
Now consider for a reflective moment the difference between dot-connectors like say a medieval farmer and a 21st C sociologist. One has only a handful of home-grown dots to work with; the other has millions of new print and digital dots being published from around the world every day. Whose task is tougher? Leaving that subjective choice to others, can we agree on this much...? Today there are so many dots of data, it's like having a thousand-piece puzzle being dumped on us every new morning. And while we have banks of whirring computers to help us, for at least a little while longer, the human brain must still be the final puzzle-solver.
What, however, are most of these brains working on these days? Bustling think-tanks bustle with legions of bustling brains, yes. Still, The Wall Street Journal has taken time out to report how many of our brains have been weighing such weighty dots as who would make a better president: Charlie Sheen or Sarah Palin. Which has to make some of us think of crazy Nero fiddling while Rome burned. [Oh, if you're curious, 44% of Democratic voters chose Charlie over Sarah while 37% of Republican voters chose Charlie over Barack. Neither Tiger Woods, Chris Brown, nor Lindsay Lohan were among the Journal's galaxy of dots].
Other hotly reported dots in the news this month almost beg for a fiddler to play to them....
While there are Romes from Milwaukee to Tripoli burning, Americans still had time to sit by the tens of millions in front of a new vomit of reality shows, richer-than-ever game shows, and the Los Angeles Times report that while 91% of all cosmetic surgeries are for women, the number of aging-boomer-males is growing rapidly.
With dots like these one has to wonder if "the voice of the people" is still earning the right to be taken seriously. Voices currently used to jeer teacher & police pension plans, to find evil in any government agency not currently affording them benefits, and to argue we have a Kenyan-raised Muslim socialist leading us to ruin from his unearned office in the White House.
To coin a phrase: Different dots for different dimwits.
As the tide of history continues to shift in problematic directions, "we the people" have been blessed/cursed with more dots than we know what to do with. Now either we get better at selecting the ones worth connecting, or we best give our best elected dot-connectors the loyalty they need to do a job we're too distracted to accept.
* For those who want to remember >> memorylane.com
* For those who want to keep abreast up >> ted.com
Now consider for a reflective moment the difference between dot-connectors like say a medieval farmer and a 21st C sociologist. One has only a handful of home-grown dots to work with; the other has millions of new print and digital dots being published from around the world every day. Whose task is tougher? Leaving that subjective choice to others, can we agree on this much...? Today there are so many dots of data, it's like having a thousand-piece puzzle being dumped on us every new morning. And while we have banks of whirring computers to help us, for at least a little while longer, the human brain must still be the final puzzle-solver.
What, however, are most of these brains working on these days? Bustling think-tanks bustle with legions of bustling brains, yes. Still, The Wall Street Journal has taken time out to report how many of our brains have been weighing such weighty dots as who would make a better president: Charlie Sheen or Sarah Palin. Which has to make some of us think of crazy Nero fiddling while Rome burned. [Oh, if you're curious, 44% of Democratic voters chose Charlie over Sarah while 37% of Republican voters chose Charlie over Barack. Neither Tiger Woods, Chris Brown, nor Lindsay Lohan were among the Journal's galaxy of dots].
Other hotly reported dots in the news this month almost beg for a fiddler to play to them....
While there are Romes from Milwaukee to Tripoli burning, Americans still had time to sit by the tens of millions in front of a new vomit of reality shows, richer-than-ever game shows, and the Los Angeles Times report that while 91% of all cosmetic surgeries are for women, the number of aging-boomer-males is growing rapidly.
With dots like these one has to wonder if "the voice of the people" is still earning the right to be taken seriously. Voices currently used to jeer teacher & police pension plans, to find evil in any government agency not currently affording them benefits, and to argue we have a Kenyan-raised Muslim socialist leading us to ruin from his unearned office in the White House.
To coin a phrase: Different dots for different dimwits.
As the tide of history continues to shift in problematic directions, "we the people" have been blessed/cursed with more dots than we know what to do with. Now either we get better at selecting the ones worth connecting, or we best give our best elected dot-connectors the loyalty they need to do a job we're too distracted to accept.
* For those who want to remember >> memorylane.com
* For those who want to keep abreast up >> ted.com
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
SOULS HAUNT THE LIBYAN DESERT FROM ROME TO ROMMEL
For the young among us, the Libyan cities of Benghazi, Tobruk and Tripoli are new. Faraway, first-time headlines which our president is currently striving to turn into good news for both America and for a dangerous region of the world with which we must somehow learn to live.
And yet, these same sands have been fought and bled over from Rome to Rommel. From ancient days when Rome and the Carthaginians vied for supremacy here; to WWII days when Churchill's General Montgomery and Hitler's General Rommel met in one of the war's great turning points. So no, there's little that's new here. Hundreds of thousands of souls have perished across these same wastelands, dreaming of the same great victories.
It wouldn't be too presumptuous to speculate many of these souls died in the expectation there would be a life beyond this one. An intuition most anthropologists find in virtually every society throughout the history of our species. But until recently, the matter of soul was left to theologians, their fellow academics like neuroscientists considering souls outside their purview of study or interest.
Lately, though, serious scientists are taking a second look. To them, the possibility of a soul in and beyond human consciousness is "more than curiosity in the paranormal." Prize-winning researchers like Professor Peter Fenwick of the University of London call this: The Science of the Soul. Gathering the tools of science -- from EKG's to MRI's -- Fenwick and others around the world are investigating what happens during the thousands of reported near-death-experiences (NDE's).
Fenwick reports: "We need some new theories about the causation of NDE's. You can't say these are transcendent experiences, because the people are unconscious. You can't say they are psychological, because the brain isn't working. But you can look at physiological models as to what state the brain is in; and if the brain function won't support the experience, then you have to argue that mind and brain are separate..."
Such hypotheses suggest to some that what theologians call "soul" has something to do with this mind-separate-from-brain state. It is a state which has been reached in various ways throughout history from monks in meditation to shamans with psychedelic herbs. The multi-million-dollar Blue Brain Project (constructing an artificial man-made brain) may in time get its own crack at the mysteries of consciousness and out-of-body-experiences.
There is this old prediction: "When the last scientist reaches the ultimate truth about the human soul, he'll find the first theologian is already there." Who is to say for sure. Although we can say for sure that these very same African sands hold the mummified remains of pharaohs who -- along with their people -- passionately believed their remains included a soul that was now destined to live forever.
Long after these current desert struggles slip into history, these desert beliefs will continue to haunt presidents and generals, believers and non-believers alike...
And yet, these same sands have been fought and bled over from Rome to Rommel. From ancient days when Rome and the Carthaginians vied for supremacy here; to WWII days when Churchill's General Montgomery and Hitler's General Rommel met in one of the war's great turning points. So no, there's little that's new here. Hundreds of thousands of souls have perished across these same wastelands, dreaming of the same great victories.
It wouldn't be too presumptuous to speculate many of these souls died in the expectation there would be a life beyond this one. An intuition most anthropologists find in virtually every society throughout the history of our species. But until recently, the matter of soul was left to theologians, their fellow academics like neuroscientists considering souls outside their purview of study or interest.
Lately, though, serious scientists are taking a second look. To them, the possibility of a soul in and beyond human consciousness is "more than curiosity in the paranormal." Prize-winning researchers like Professor Peter Fenwick of the University of London call this: The Science of the Soul. Gathering the tools of science -- from EKG's to MRI's -- Fenwick and others around the world are investigating what happens during the thousands of reported near-death-experiences (NDE's).
Fenwick reports: "We need some new theories about the causation of NDE's. You can't say these are transcendent experiences, because the people are unconscious. You can't say they are psychological, because the brain isn't working. But you can look at physiological models as to what state the brain is in; and if the brain function won't support the experience, then you have to argue that mind and brain are separate..."
Such hypotheses suggest to some that what theologians call "soul" has something to do with this mind-separate-from-brain state. It is a state which has been reached in various ways throughout history from monks in meditation to shamans with psychedelic herbs. The multi-million-dollar Blue Brain Project (constructing an artificial man-made brain) may in time get its own crack at the mysteries of consciousness and out-of-body-experiences.
There is this old prediction: "When the last scientist reaches the ultimate truth about the human soul, he'll find the first theologian is already there." Who is to say for sure. Although we can say for sure that these very same African sands hold the mummified remains of pharaohs who -- along with their people -- passionately believed their remains included a soul that was now destined to live forever.
Long after these current desert struggles slip into history, these desert beliefs will continue to haunt presidents and generals, believers and non-believers alike...
Monday, March 28, 2011
TONY BENNETT - PHILOSOPHER IN THE KEY OF C
Tony Bennett and I are old enough to remember WWII. I mention this, because WWII was the last time most people still were born and died within the same 50-mile radius. Small farms or towns or city neighborhoods.
With the war, and the corresponding explosion of transportation technologies and migration habits, all that changed. More than ever, Americans have become a people on the go. Rather than having the same home, job and circle of friends, there are many of each throughout our lifetime. Now, when Tony sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," he's reflecting a national fact of life. What's more, we're not only leaving our heart throughout this vast land, but also this vast planet.
Consider all those neighborhoods, careers and friends you left behind. You can remember each of them, and very likely each of them can remember you. Your "heart" actually beats in countless distant places and people. Giving it more wings and less roots than at any time in the history of the human heart.
Which brings us to this thought: Are we better or less for this? While the question can be addressed by philosophers, sociologists, economists and clergy, let the political scientists have a crack at it.
In recent years they've been looking at the consequences of this mobility on our stability as a functioning democracy. When the Founding Fathers created this government, it was still a 50-miles-radius world. How has the system held up under such exponential changes? True, there's been a "wave of democracy" sweeping the world ever since WWII, but these democracies have had an uneven success rate. Including ours.
To function as intended, a democracy has to find ways-and-means that allow the will-of-the-people to find expression that is fair, just, and viable. But while our living constitution has provided for this for generations, this generation may be witnessing a break point. Because in this generation, the distance between the will-of-the- people and the agenda-of-the-government has been chocked with thousands of unelected, unseen and virtually unrestricted power-players.
Too many to count, they go by such names as advisers, strategists, media consultants, poll-takers, lobbyists, and dirty-tricksters. Each a pro, each a player, and each for sale...! Your "will" is hardly of much concern; the "welfare" of the nation is of even less concern; the name of the game they play with such skill is winning. Winning your vote, or your rage or your silence when and where they need it most.
So while Tony reminds us how our hearts have been left behind in all those places and people in our life, our hearts have increasingly become chess pieces moved around by unelected to-the-highest-bidder experts whose interest in democracy is most likely defined in dollars.
When you think about it this way, your "heart" could almost break....
With the war, and the corresponding explosion of transportation technologies and migration habits, all that changed. More than ever, Americans have become a people on the go. Rather than having the same home, job and circle of friends, there are many of each throughout our lifetime. Now, when Tony sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," he's reflecting a national fact of life. What's more, we're not only leaving our heart throughout this vast land, but also this vast planet.
Consider all those neighborhoods, careers and friends you left behind. You can remember each of them, and very likely each of them can remember you. Your "heart" actually beats in countless distant places and people. Giving it more wings and less roots than at any time in the history of the human heart.
Which brings us to this thought: Are we better or less for this? While the question can be addressed by philosophers, sociologists, economists and clergy, let the political scientists have a crack at it.
In recent years they've been looking at the consequences of this mobility on our stability as a functioning democracy. When the Founding Fathers created this government, it was still a 50-miles-radius world. How has the system held up under such exponential changes? True, there's been a "wave of democracy" sweeping the world ever since WWII, but these democracies have had an uneven success rate. Including ours.
To function as intended, a democracy has to find ways-and-means that allow the will-of-the-people to find expression that is fair, just, and viable. But while our living constitution has provided for this for generations, this generation may be witnessing a break point. Because in this generation, the distance between the will-of-the- people and the agenda-of-the-government has been chocked with thousands of unelected, unseen and virtually unrestricted power-players.
Too many to count, they go by such names as advisers, strategists, media consultants, poll-takers, lobbyists, and dirty-tricksters. Each a pro, each a player, and each for sale...! Your "will" is hardly of much concern; the "welfare" of the nation is of even less concern; the name of the game they play with such skill is winning. Winning your vote, or your rage or your silence when and where they need it most.
So while Tony reminds us how our hearts have been left behind in all those places and people in our life, our hearts have increasingly become chess pieces moved around by unelected to-the-highest-bidder experts whose interest in democracy is most likely defined in dollars.
When you think about it this way, your "heart" could almost break....
Sunday, March 27, 2011
SO WHO ARE THESE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE & PLACES??
Among today's pop phrases are "the beautiful people" and "the beautiful places." Right from the start, we have a problem here. This small word "beautiful" is expected to bear the incredible burden of describing so many differing concepts of beauty. Just not fair. The word begs for help. Just like the word "red" gets help from: burgundy, ruby, scarlet, crimson, cerise, vermilion, and so on.
But, stuck all by itself, "beautiful" has been kidnapped lately by the likes of: Paris Hilton...Lady Gaga...Donald Trump ...George Clooney. Then there's: Las Vegas...The Riviera...London...Hawaii. We can do better. At least it's worth a try. I'll start by trying right here. Maybe you can join in.
As for "the beautiful people" in my life, a few strangers come to mind who won't make any Top Ten lists. I'm thinking here people like that cab driver in New York who took his job so beautifully serious that he had plumped up the back seats with Oriental cushions, added pull-down shades to the windows, piped in soothing music, and scented the vehicle with a faint luxurious fragrance. All in all, he made the perilous dash through Manhattan streets a rare pleasure instead of a regular terror. Now to me that's a "beautiful person."
Precious others come to mind who will also be unknown to you. To most anyone. But these select few have earned a line in my personal address book. And if your book is anything like mine, these few find their way there largely because of the conspicuous beauty with which they have gifted our lives. Dear family and friends who have given the small word "beauty" a palpable meaning that will surpass any headline out there.
As for "the beautiful places," most of us upon reflection will think of venues not on any travel brochure. Right now I'm thinking that branch from that stately Sycamore tree which just reaches our bedroom window. Every spring a pair of friendly Cardinals sing to me from there in the morning. My very own, no-cost "beautiful place." And because you too have such "beautiful places" in your life, you'll understand why I end here with this wish. That poets not copywriters would start defining the "beautiful people & places" in our world.
But, stuck all by itself, "beautiful" has been kidnapped lately by the likes of: Paris Hilton...Lady Gaga...Donald Trump ...George Clooney. Then there's: Las Vegas...The Riviera...London...Hawaii. We can do better. At least it's worth a try. I'll start by trying right here. Maybe you can join in.
As for "the beautiful people" in my life, a few strangers come to mind who won't make any Top Ten lists. I'm thinking here people like that cab driver in New York who took his job so beautifully serious that he had plumped up the back seats with Oriental cushions, added pull-down shades to the windows, piped in soothing music, and scented the vehicle with a faint luxurious fragrance. All in all, he made the perilous dash through Manhattan streets a rare pleasure instead of a regular terror. Now to me that's a "beautiful person."
Precious others come to mind who will also be unknown to you. To most anyone. But these select few have earned a line in my personal address book. And if your book is anything like mine, these few find their way there largely because of the conspicuous beauty with which they have gifted our lives. Dear family and friends who have given the small word "beauty" a palpable meaning that will surpass any headline out there.
As for "the beautiful places," most of us upon reflection will think of venues not on any travel brochure. Right now I'm thinking that branch from that stately Sycamore tree which just reaches our bedroom window. Every spring a pair of friendly Cardinals sing to me from there in the morning. My very own, no-cost "beautiful place." And because you too have such "beautiful places" in your life, you'll understand why I end here with this wish. That poets not copywriters would start defining the "beautiful people & places" in our world.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
ARE YOU ONE OF THE WORLD'S CODE-BREAKERS?
A disparate legion of dogged cryptographers helped the American Navy in the defining battle of Midway in1942, and British command turn the tide of U-Boat battle in the Atlantic by 1943.
But let it be said that all throughout history -- in peace as well as war -- everyone of us is speaking in code. The unique code by which we happen to think of our world and convey our thoughts about it. What codes? Let us count the ways, for they are in everyday use even without our being fully aware we are using them.
Consider some examples; then consider why outsiders have such trouble translating them.
There is that language peculiar to regulations-bound government bureaucrats...that sometimes stilted jargon known as educationese... hospital talk...lawyer talk...clergy talk...theatre talk...Hollywood talk...Vegas talk...farmer talk...kids talk. Lets be honest. The very same word can be used by each but conveying their own particular meaning. Try for instance simple words like "proper" and you start to get the point.
Seven billion of us on the same planet with very much the same anatomy and needs. Oh but how complicated the task of communicating at those deeper levels where alone we can authentically relate with one another. And one of these complications is our habitual use of our favorite codes. The irony here is that we spend a lifetime acquiring these codes -- by who we are and what we do -- then end up mostly preaching-to-the-choir.
Democrats and Republicans...Christians and Muslims....Blacks and Whites... nation and nation...rappers and balladeers...and damn near everybody in a Democracy or on Facebook.
What then to do? There is this classic first-rule in debate: "Define your terms." Good place to start, because unless we go in with the same understanding of terms like "proper," "facts," "evidence," and"success", we're always going to come out shaking our head uttering those same disastrous words: "They just don't get it!"
Funny how it usually takes a disaster to overcome the disaster of those disastrous closing words.
But let it be said that all throughout history -- in peace as well as war -- everyone of us is speaking in code. The unique code by which we happen to think of our world and convey our thoughts about it. What codes? Let us count the ways, for they are in everyday use even without our being fully aware we are using them.
Consider some examples; then consider why outsiders have such trouble translating them.
There is that language peculiar to regulations-bound government bureaucrats...that sometimes stilted jargon known as educationese... hospital talk...lawyer talk...clergy talk...theatre talk...Hollywood talk...Vegas talk...farmer talk...kids talk. Lets be honest. The very same word can be used by each but conveying their own particular meaning. Try for instance simple words like "proper" and you start to get the point.
Seven billion of us on the same planet with very much the same anatomy and needs. Oh but how complicated the task of communicating at those deeper levels where alone we can authentically relate with one another. And one of these complications is our habitual use of our favorite codes. The irony here is that we spend a lifetime acquiring these codes -- by who we are and what we do -- then end up mostly preaching-to-the-choir.
Democrats and Republicans...Christians and Muslims....Blacks and Whites... nation and nation...rappers and balladeers...and damn near everybody in a Democracy or on Facebook.
What then to do? There is this classic first-rule in debate: "Define your terms." Good place to start, because unless we go in with the same understanding of terms like "proper," "facts," "evidence," and"success", we're always going to come out shaking our head uttering those same disastrous words: "They just don't get it!"
Funny how it usually takes a disaster to overcome the disaster of those disastrous closing words.
Friday, March 25, 2011
SO OK WHAT ABOUT THIS THING WISDOM?
There are scattered across our planet sprinklings of desert retreats, mountain monasteries, island hideaways, and Tibetan caves where wise men and women go to be wise.
In contrast, there are scattered across this same world great metropolitan centers of learning, research, and laboratory investigation. The wise men and women here have opted to be in the middle of things rather than isolated from them.
That first corps has traditionally been in pursuit of great truths about Life; the second, more about Living. The first are usually labeled philosophers; the second, scientists. The first don't usually reject the works of science, but try to incorporate them; the second don't always judge the works of philosophy functional enough to incorporate. And so these two groups of wise people are regrettably in only occasional communication.
It wasn't always this way. In earlier times, the world's wise people considered philosophy and science to be simply different sides to the very same coin of life. Somehow along the way, we've sorta lost that sense of wholeness. In modern times, so many more facts, statistics, discoveries, theories -- we just had to start specializing. Only you have to wonder if by specializing we also had to departmentalize?
It's our specie's great good fortune to periodically produce those minds who can travel the paths of both philosophy and science, entranced with both the things beyond us and at the same time the things around us. In the West one thinks of a Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Newton, Leibniz, Spinoza, al-Biruni, Faraday, Darwin, Mendel, Einstein, Hawking, Chardin, Collins, Sagan, and that next college kid who will soon burst upon the world scene.
Eventually, any serious consideration of these rare fine minds has to tease out this question: What have they taught the rest of us mere mortals...? Surely, much more than can be summarized here. In fact, we mortals would do best by not trying to summarize them as much as trying to live them. Which, when you think about it, is pretty much what the 7 billion of us are trying each in our own way each new day.
But wait. Seven billion? How can anyone hold a reality that large? Well, here's a thought. Start by dividing us into our two fundamental philosophical-scientific characteristics. Each new day of our lives, all 7 billion of us are either seeking or saving something. Seeking new achievements, successes, power and conquests. And when we're not, we're saving, protecting, preserve, and holding on to what we already have. Seek-and-save...! Seems like we've been at this since the very beginning. Even before there were philosophers and scientists to explain it to us.
In contrast, there are scattered across this same world great metropolitan centers of learning, research, and laboratory investigation. The wise men and women here have opted to be in the middle of things rather than isolated from them.
That first corps has traditionally been in pursuit of great truths about Life; the second, more about Living. The first are usually labeled philosophers; the second, scientists. The first don't usually reject the works of science, but try to incorporate them; the second don't always judge the works of philosophy functional enough to incorporate. And so these two groups of wise people are regrettably in only occasional communication.
It wasn't always this way. In earlier times, the world's wise people considered philosophy and science to be simply different sides to the very same coin of life. Somehow along the way, we've sorta lost that sense of wholeness. In modern times, so many more facts, statistics, discoveries, theories -- we just had to start specializing. Only you have to wonder if by specializing we also had to departmentalize?
It's our specie's great good fortune to periodically produce those minds who can travel the paths of both philosophy and science, entranced with both the things beyond us and at the same time the things around us. In the West one thinks of a Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Newton, Leibniz, Spinoza, al-Biruni, Faraday, Darwin, Mendel, Einstein, Hawking, Chardin, Collins, Sagan, and that next college kid who will soon burst upon the world scene.
Eventually, any serious consideration of these rare fine minds has to tease out this question: What have they taught the rest of us mere mortals...? Surely, much more than can be summarized here. In fact, we mortals would do best by not trying to summarize them as much as trying to live them. Which, when you think about it, is pretty much what the 7 billion of us are trying each in our own way each new day.
But wait. Seven billion? How can anyone hold a reality that large? Well, here's a thought. Start by dividing us into our two fundamental philosophical-scientific characteristics. Each new day of our lives, all 7 billion of us are either seeking or saving something. Seeking new achievements, successes, power and conquests. And when we're not, we're saving, protecting, preserve, and holding on to what we already have. Seek-and-save...! Seems like we've been at this since the very beginning. Even before there were philosophers and scientists to explain it to us.
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