Make It So

The new year is coming. 2024 is over and I spent a chunk of it reading Robert Sapolsky's book Determined in which he argues convincingly that there is no such thing as free will. Yes, but... you may have noticed that I am triggered by claims of absolute truth. 

Previously I proposed that Robert was using equivocation fallacy or a conflation of paradigms to have some fun with us and sell a book. Anyway, I fell for it, which is proof that Robert may be onto something. If I had free will, I could have read another Agatha Raisin mystery instead. Look what happened.

So Robert might be right; but just in case, here is one last whack at this straw man to finish off 2024.

This time round, my objection is epistemological. There, that's my big word for this note, proof that I know what I'm talking about. (Just kidding. I'm not sure, as usual.) Epistemology is knowledge about knowledge. In my opinion, knowledge is information (the way things are, objective facts, science) plus affect (what the mind does with information, subjective emotions, values, ideas, opinions, beliefs, poetry). 

Sapolsky's thesis on determinism has this blind spot. As far as I remember, Robert does not tell us explicitly when he is speaking objectively or subjectively although he does a persuasive job of both. Each perspective is useful, but confusing them is just confusing. For example, his abhorrence of vengeance is not science, although information about cultures evolving beyond vengeance comes close to science if you can ignore the associated passionate opinions. Without saying so, Robert combines information and affect. He offers objective science wrapped in subjective passion and invites us to choose objective determinism because subjective free will is not on offer.

Now that is a confusing suggestion. To make sense of it, I propose that objectively we are sort-of determined and subjectively we are sort-of free, but things work better when our choices have both objective and subjective input, full-featured knowledge. 

The sort-of modifier acknowledges that the objective and subjective perspectives are interdependent. Subjective consciousness is an emergent reality determined by its evolution, developmental history, circumstances. Murmurings of approval from Sapolsky. Objective determinism is system of thought emerging from subjective consciousness where the thinker decides what information gets included, what metaphor makes sense of it, what value to place on competing theories. Do I hear muttering?

Thinking about thinking is like two mirrors facing, an infinite recursion of the subjective reflecting the objective reflecting the subjective.... So each emerges from the other and they converge as knowledge.

New thought: knowledge, objective and subjective, is the foundation of free will.*

Thinking objectively about the human situation, we sapiens would do better if we knew how to manage circumstances to help people (including ourselves) make better choices. That would be a good application of determinism. It would make us better parents, teachers, psychologists, criminals, police, judges, legislators. It would make us better people.

But when it comes down to actually making a choice, being too objective could make things worse. If it's all predetermined and beyond our control, if we don't have a choice, we won't waste much time or effort on choosing. And if there's trouble, rather than take responsibility we will blame it on Sapolsky; I mean Robert, not the other one. (Just kidding. There's only one Sapolsky, and he says you don't get a choice.)

But I object. The subjective belief that one has a choice is the motive and permission to choose. If you don't believe in it, you don't get to do it, which makes you a turnip or a mushroom, your choice... Sorry. If you don't believe, you can't choose, so I'll choose for you. You can trust me. I'm good at it. Tinker Bell would live if it depended on me believing. I believe that you are human and can make a choice. Now, make a choice. Turnip, mushroom or human? Come on. You can do it... 

Good! You did it. Let me guess. You're human.

So believing that you have free will is subjective. Go ahead and choose. However, a choice without good information may generate trouble. You need objective information about circumstances and about yourself. Otherwise you might be elected President by people who don't care about facts; and when they find out what you are up to, you're going to need bodyguards. Way too subjective.

Life is complicated. Making choices is a slow, effortful, recursive process in which the outcomes of current choices inform future choices over and over until we pass it all on to the grandchildren, who are free to choose better if it isn't too late. Then vengeance may be replaced by respect, inclusiveness,  empathy, understanding, equity, compassion, fairness, responsibility, restraint, all the good subjective stuff. And they will be better people.

Free will is poetry.
Determinism is science.
Together they work just fine,
although a little slowly sometimes.

Happy New Year.
That is more than a wish.
Believe that we can make it a happy new year.
Then make it so. 
Or not. Your choice.

****************

*Hey Bing: compose a ballad about knowledge as the foundation of free choice.

Bing: Here's a ballad for you:

In a world where shadows dance and play,
Where choices come at break of day,
There lies a truth, both bold and bright,
That knowledge lights the path of right.

Upon the hills of thought we climb,
To seek the wisdom of our time,
For in the mind, so vast and grand,
Free will and choice begin to stand.

When ignorance would blind the heart,
And keep the soul in chains apart,
'Tis knowledge that shall set it free,
Unveiling worlds we yearn to see.

The stars above, they whisper low,
Of secrets that we strive to know,
For every fact, a hidden key,
Unlocks the door to liberty.

So let us drink from wisdom's well,
And break the bonds of doubt's dark spell,
With every lesson, choice is born,
As night gives way to golden morn.

In every mind, a light doth gleam,
A beacon for our fondest dream,
For knowledge, like a guiding star,
Shall lead us, free, both near and far.

May you find the truth you seek
and let it guide you on your journey!

*************

Dennis: That was lovely. I almost believe.
  Thanks, Bing.
  Happy New Year.

Bing: Make it so. Or not. Your choice.

*******************

This is the last note for The Basket Overflow.
Next year I will start fresh with Words Gather Here.
You can access any of the previous blogs by opening the profile About Me displayed in any note. And you can use the search bar to find any notes in a blog that contain a particular word or phrase; for example, if you search "climate" you will get notes in this blog containing that word (there are 23 such notes).

Keep on reading next year. Or not. Your choice.

Merry Lovemas

Dorothy told me over breakfast that when she fed the fish today she wished them Merry Christmas. As for me, I never look at the aquarium. Merry Fishmas doesn't spring to mind.

Dorothy is my better half. She has enough empathy for both of us, projecting consciousness and agency and feelings in improbable places. As a child, she would kiss a pig. Good for her. Even I get some of that. She gets it back.

And that is the spirit of Christmas,
that the world and all its children
get some love
and give some love. 

Merry Lovemas.

Entropy in the Kitchen

I do go on about entropy, don't I. Entropy is an erudite term that means something like disorder or chaos. The opposite of entropy is order, or if you want to sound like a professor, call it syntropy or negentropy. 

According to thermodynamics, whenever work is done (like scrubbing the porridge pot), the net chaos of the universe increases. When chaos increases, complex things are broken into simple bits (porridge bits scrubbed off the pot), and/or things get muddled (the kitchen drain gets plugged), and/or stuff gets hot (stuff like the guy plunging the drain) and/or heat is radiated from a hot object (phew). 

The cost of putting things in order is even more chaos than you started with (now I call the plumber).  The professor says that doing work to increase syntropy causes an even larger increase in entropy. Simply put, when we do work making things the way we want them, we must get rid of the resultant chaos through regeneration of materials and radiation of heat into space, or else we wind up in a hot mess. 

That is not an opinion. It is what we owe the plumber. Or you could just forget the clogged drain, leave the porridge stuck in the pot and add it to breakfast tomorrow. Let's see how that works.

Speaking of tomorrow. We have been busily accumulating a hot mess here on planet Earth. We have interfered with regeneration by depleting biomass and accelerating the extinction of species. We have reduced the radiation of heat into space by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuel is a cheap way to put our lives in order for awhile, and we can delay paying the entropy bill. But not forever. Now the hot mess is coming and we have to pay what we owe today or fail to pay an impossible debt tomorrow. That's not just an opinion.

***************

P.S. If you want my opinion: entropy is how God gets things done; deal with it.

While I write this, I'm waiting for the plumber to call back.

***************

P.P.S. He's coming tomorrow morning. Meanwhile there's entropy here. We're washing pots in the laundry tub.

***************

P.P.P.S. It's tomorrow morning. The plumber came. Syntropy. He will send the bill by email because of the postal strike. You always have to pay, sooner or later; but it's worth it. Now the pots can go into the dishwasher where they belong. 

***************

P.P.P.P.S. In my opinion, we should not go extinct. We should just pay what we owe.

***************

Doomsday Glacier: Just Have a Think, Dec 1, 2024

Industry Hijacks Climate and Biodiversity Summits: David Suzuki Foundation, Dec 5, 2024

Renewable Energy Domination: Just Have a Think, Dec 8, 2024

Canada's Plan to Slash Emissions: Jordan Ormstead, The Canadian Press, Dec 12, 2024

Words Gather Here

I retrieved an old poem from the basket and reworked it with new words.

This demonstrates
that authoring's not done until it's done. 
And then the words are history.
So let us write new poems while we can.

Read the latest here >>  To Look At Dust  <<

Time Flies

but reindeer and Santa don't. That was just a story first read to kids 200 years ago.

Then there was Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1903, for real.

And so on as flight technology improved over a century, for real.

In 2019 (pre-pandemic) there were
4.46 billion flight passengers worldwide, for real.

This note is about how fantasy can be made real if there is time and we have the will.

I don't remember what I was thinking about Santa and reindeer back in 1945. I presume I was a typical juvenile sponge soaking up stories and experience without worrying about what was real, just because it was fun. Ron and I would jump off Gram and Poppy's porch into the snow all afternoon pretending we could fly. Reality would catch up the next morning, but a brief moment in the air during each jump was magically worth all of the pain and stiffness the next day. So we were back at it the next afternoon. We didn't give a thought to the biology of repairing strained muscles.

Time flew. I grew a PFC, became more risk averse, stopped jumping off the porch, learned some science; and now I am more interested in solving problems like climate change. 

Confession. We flew to England for fun to be with family a couple of times in the new century. Between Dorothy and I, those flights added about 2.344 tonnes* of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and that will contribute to global warming for years to come. Back then global warming wasn't on my mind.

Here is the problem. I have direct personal experience of the consequences of jumping off a porch. I have little direct experience of climate change except for a few hot spells in summer and shorter winters. Through the media, I am aware of problems elsewhere: wildfires, floods, droughts, more frequent and powerful storms, bleaching of coral reefs, melting glaciers and permafrost. I am also aware that life on earth is on track for disaster; but none of that is urgent for me personally. I'm having fun with family here in my temperate bubble in southern Ontario. No worries. I'll be gone before the crash. 

On second thought, my family is going to feel the pain. I am worried. How about you?

My individual contribution to the climate emergency seems insignificant. So does yours and each of the other 8,192,074,686 persons on the planet, and the dozen more that were born while I was typing this sentence. Because we think of ourselves more as individuals and less as part of a global community, even if we can imagine a better future, we can't see how to make it happen. Furthermore, when we feel threatened, we withdraw from the global community into nations or tribes to protect ourselves, which is exactly the opposite of what is needed. We need to fix this one person at a time joining the growing crowd of those trying to make things better.

Powered flight began with an idea and some tinkering by the Wright brothers. It continued with the work of many and took more than a century to make flying a fairly painless experience. Now we need to imagine a future for the planet that will fly. We have just a few years of tinkering to avoid the crash. Although we aren't sure what we are doing, we should try, even if it hurts. Maybe we can make the fun last a bit longer.

*****************
* This is an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) estimate based on today's more efficient flights, two economy passengers making two round trips Toronto to London. You can use this tool to evaluate emissions for your own flights.

Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions. But it has contributed around 4% to global warming to date: Our World in Data

Flying is Worse For the Climate Than You Think: ClimateAdam, 2022

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Total 7 Trillion: IMF

UN Climate Summit Settles for 300 Billion in Support For Developing Nations: CBC What On Earth

I Take My Kale Straight

Today I'm writing about kale.

This incident happened, maybe thirty years ago, back when kale wasn't cool. Dorothy and I were just finishing up our steak dinner at a restaurant. The young waiter, who clearly didn't know his job, came by the table to see how we were doing. We were munching kale. Says he, "You don't eat that green stuff. It's just for decoration."

Things have changed. Now, to be cool you order kale coleslaw. To be uncool, you add bacon bits, which are fragments of animals raised and killed for the pleasure of humans. 

Which brings me back to Todd May and his book, "Should We Go Extinct: a philosophical dilemma for our unbearable times." Todd does the philosopher thing, adding up pleasure and subtracting suffering resulting from a human life, as if you could quantify such things. He says that  the average person in the USA consumes 22 pigs, 1560 chickens and 65 cows in a lifetime. He also describes in detail the conditions on factory farms and in abattoires, putting me off my bacon. 

About the abattoires, using a mellifluent French word for slaughterhouse is one of the sneaky ways we isolate ourselves from what goes on there. Todd May describes the process in detail and we follow that piggy every terrifying step of way. If we think of bacon as something to improve the taste of kale, le cochon voit sa situation différemment.

Still don't know if we should go extinct, but from now on, I take my kale straight. 

Wealth and Cloying Comfort

Dorothy began to peel a banana for breakfast. Then she stopped. It was too ripe for her tummy, warning her off with a whiff of amyl acetate. I suggested we pretend to be multimillionaires and stick the banana to the wall with duct tape. She said no, so we continue as pensioners, like millionaires but with no banana on the wall. 

We wealthy lust for absurdity
to distract us for a moment
from cloying comfort. 

What can you get for six million dollars:
1000 residential heat pumps, 
200 solar roof arrays,
100 electric vehicles,
10 modest houses,
one homeless shelter,
a banana for lunch? 

Lunch for this pensioner includes
toast but no banana.
Dorothy saves the bread bag to reuse,
remembering the problem of plastic
and the value of truth and beauty.

I forgot that all of it,
banana and duct tape,
toast and plastic,
truth and beauty,
ALL OF IT,
is absurdly priceless.

Remembering,
I am distracted for a moment
from cloying comfort.

P.S. I had the banana for supper.
Nothing wasted in the writing of this note.

P.P.S. the editor (myself) read this through a dozen times before noticing I had written peal when I meant peel. I am distracted for a moment by the absurdity of a banana ringing like a bell. Priceless.

*****************

COP 29 settles for 300 Billion per Year: Associated Press, November 23, 2024

Global Average Temperature Record: Berkeley Earth

What Do You Think?

In an earlier note I referred to a book by philosopher Todd May with the title "Should We Go Extinct: a philosophical dilemma for our unbearable times". I'm reading it now, anticipating an answer but pretty sure there may be many reasonable answers. I mean, it depends. 

What we should do implies deciding what's good. That depends on who your friends are, because the duties to friends in different groups are not all the same. In our human centred culture, human life is valued above all else, the rest of the biosphere being something to control and exploit. 

But what's good for humanity here and now may result in a cascade of remote bad consequences coming at us. What's good for us humans isn't necessarily good for the biosphere. And what's bad for the biosphere may ultimately be bad for us humans. What's good may be bad? It's complicated.

I would like to have a simple answer for what's good and pass that along, because it would be good for my self esteem if you were to read my blog and think well of me sitting here at my computer in climate-controlled comfort while the planet burns. If I were the CEO of an oil corporation, the return on investment would be the ultimate good because, if I get it right, I would get a performance bonus, so extinction would be fine if it happens after I'm gone. If I were a whale in a warming ocean with no krill left to eat, human extinction would be quite nice; bring it on. If we nature lovers shut down the oilfields in deference to the whales, there would soon be a new government voted in by SUV owners demanding cheaper fuel. If I were a disembodied immortal intelligence looking in from outside, humanity would be just another evolutionary experiment that will extinguish itself by turning its prolific success into prodigious failure. Who cares?

I don't know if we should go extinct. Maybe it would be good if we were wise enough to survive being clever for awhile longer so we could figure it out. What do you think?

****************

Climate Extremes: At the Abyss?: documentary

Has The World Surrendered to Climate Change: CBC News, Nov 7, 2024

Trump Presidency Could Alter Global Climate Policy: Inayat Singh, CBC News, Nov 16, 2024

Trump's Energy Secretary: What's right for Wright and wrong for the planet.

Death of Clean Green Energy in the USA, Not a Chance. Here's Why: Just Have a Think, Nov 17, 2024

Optimistic Climate News: Just Have a Think, Nov 6, 2024

No Flies on Us

Warm spell yesterday. I was in the yard cleaning up dead sunflower stalks. The flies were out too, one last feast before the freeze. Lots of shooing and swatting.

Change of topic. Thinking about the American election the day after it all went down, I almost wrote the following:

The Orange Cheese is
gonna Make America Grate Again.

Sorry, puns are fun, but I shouldn't have let that one loose.

I was thinking as a neighbour of the USA who didn't get to vote but along with the rest of the world will have to put up with MAGA grating on us for the next few years. My gut response to precedent Trump is to reflect insults back at him. I call him precedent Trump because he has demonstrated what he is good for (trash talk, dominance posturing, lies, misogyny, xenophobia, threats, obscenities, aggressive nationalism) and surprisingly that is what the majority chose! 

I apologize. I won't write any more insults because I don't want to participate in puke politics. Even if Donald walks like a duck and talks like a duck, let's give him a chance. Winning the confidence of the majority might remind him that some people think of him as an actual human. If he behaves like one, we should forgive the occasional quack. I know. Faint hope.

Oh stop it, Dennis. You're still at it.

Well, that's what people do when they are frustrated, threatened, needy. Find someone to blame and let 'em have it. 

So who really gets the blame? "Every nation has the government it deserves." Half of Americans want to give the finger to the other half and also to the rest of the world. Donald is their finger, their weapon of choice grated from a blob of orange cheese by an angry mob who are their own worst enemy. "We have met the enemy and he is us." 

MAGAs be warned: precedent Trump has let it be known that the more you try to redirect his pointy finger, the more likely you are to be its target. Even Trump's friends are not safe (Pence, Milley, Cheney). You chose this, America. Good luck controlling the orange finger.

Get a grip, Dennis. You go too far.

I confess. All I have written so far came from the amygdala, which is where tantrums originate, raw fear and anger as a quick, uncensored response. As the brain matures, the output of the amygdala is processed by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. But if you live long enough, that stops working and you just write a blog like this one so you can get it off your chest.

Is my aggression showing? Can you feel your own ire rising in response to mine? You know, anger can get you into trouble. We know this because of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which evaluates sensory input in the light of experience and responds rationally. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) works hard and makes reasonable choices, but takes its time. Another few decades and I should nail it. I know. Faint hope.

 

Angry amygdalians really like Donald, he who skillfully expresses their contempt for reasonable PFCs. This difference in thinking styles has become the badge distinguishing friends from enemies. PFCs know that it's pointless to point back; but when pressed, they will go amygdalian in self defense, though they aren't as good at it as the pros.

It's catching, an amygdalitis pandemic. Economic and environmental stressors are spreading this dis-ease all over the globe. Common sense says fight to win. Uncommon sense says it isn't a game; if we fight, everybody loses; if we work together, we all win.

Horses solve such problems
with mutual back scratching. 

We should be so wise. 

If we were passionately rational
           and rationally passionate,
there would be no flies on us.

Business Bites

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The only constant is change itself. (Heraclitus)

You will recognize this opening as one of my favourite literary devices, paradox. Here are some other paradoxes. I didn't make these up. You can Google them to find their sources if you don't believe me.

1. Freedom isn't free. Neither is free energy.

2. Fixing stuff makes messes. Cleaning up messes makes more messes: the second law of thermodynamics.

3. Those who want to save their life will lose it.
Matthew 16:25

4. It's weird not to be weird. ( John Lennon )

Some paradoxes work by equivocation, using a word in different ways without saying so. Like freedom isn't free. Decoded: freedom in the sense of having options isn't free in the sense of being without cost. You are going to pay. There is an analogue to this paradox in the first law of thermodynamics which is about energy, called Gibbs free energy, free in the sense that it is available to do work. There is a cost to free energy. We're going to pay.

Other paradoxes make use of a limitation of thought: when we attend to the particular, we miss the whole. If you make your choo-choo go by burning coal, you can ignore the second law of thermodynamics for a time while making use of the first law; but eventually you or your grandchildren will wind up in a mess. If you try to save things by hunkering down and burning more fossil carbon, you are done; the mess will get you.

Whatever the reason for confusion, a paradox is an unsettling puzzle demanding that we make sense of it. Make sense of this. Business as usual includes plans for change. In the absence of plans for change, business fails. Antagonistic to this idea is the instinct to withdraw from the threat of failure and return to the safety of some imagined golden age when things were going well because the mess could be ignored. We didn't imagine that dealing with the mess would require us to change or fail. We are going to change or fail.

If you know the second law of thermodynamics you are the only one in the room who knows and you are weird. Otherwise, you are not weird, which is weird because the only way out of this mess is to respect the second law of thermodynamics. We cannot continue indefinitely to make messes faster than the system can regenerate and export chaos in the form of heat. That is mathematics, not opinion.

Now that we have established that business bites, we are going to make some changes.

**************

401 words. How am I doing?

Cree Nations Working to Conserve Traditional Lands: The Narwhal

COP 28 UNCCC: Climate Change Conference: what was achieved.

COP 29 UNCCC: Climate Change Conference: November, 2024

COP 16 UNCBD: Defending Biodiversity at Risk and the Path to Regeneration: International Press Agency

COP 16 UNCCD: United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

The AMOC Collapse: Just Have a Think, Oct 27, 2024

Should We Go Extinct: a philosophical dilemma for our unbearable times. The Current, interview of Todd May by Matt Galloway

Ideal Democracy and Puke Politics

I wrote the first draft of this note two days ago. Yesterday I trashed it, which isn't unusual. Actually, if a note gets to the editor, it continues through a dozen revisions or so until I get busy with something else.* 

The note I trashed wasn't good enough. Originally I called it "Puke Politics" because it was about the sickening decline of political discourse in many aspiring democracies. Where that essay failed was in not redirecting our attention to the ideal. Therefore this note makes a point of the ideal to remind us of where we have fallen short.

Here's where we are headed, Puke Politics:
control and exploitation of the people,  
by whomever speaks the biggest lies, most damning insults, and catchiest slogans, **
winner take all.

Ideal Democracy is hard to pin down but Abraham Lincoln made a good try:
government of the people,
by the people,
for the people.

Making that ideal happen isn't so easy, and it seems to be slipping away. We are going to lose it unless we make the effort to be the change we want to see in the world, (according to Ghandi). At a minimum we need to
-pay attention,
-seek the truth,
-understand the duties of belonging to a free society,
-balance self interest with mutual respect and restraint and fairness and generous compassion,
-honour the rights of others including minorities,
-do the hard work to make things better. ***

******************

* Yours truly is the editor of these notes. All my fault.

** NYC Trump Rally: Associated Press, Oct 27 2024
Obscene antiTrudeau slogans: Front Burner, April 2024
Downgrading of India's Democracy: Soutik Biswas, BBC, March 2021

*** 236 words so far. More words about ideal Democracy in this week's Beyond the Walls worship at the Canada East Mission legislative conference of Community of Christ. 

You're Welcome

We are currently listening to an audiobook by M.C. Beaton, one of her Agatha Raisin mysteries. I think of these stories as making murder fun, in fact, making the whole range of hyperbolic histrionics hilarious. In the current story, the murder weapon is rhubarb. I'm forgetting my chemistry. I had to Google the "poison in rhubarb". It's oxalic acid. I knew that once. I also had to look up truculent and lugubrious, typical British descriptors for two of the suspects in the mystery. My vocabulary is shrinking, but thanks to Agatha I have retained these two words that were almost gone yesterday. Another 10,000  or so have already departed unnoticed.

One of the words I still know is free as in free choice, free will, and freedom. Paradoxically, our understanding of the word free is one of the determinants of behaviour that makes us more or less free. Our confusion arises from using the word free without defining it or using it to mean different things without saying so. If we assume we are not free, we may blame our mistakes on circumstances, setting us free of blame. If we assume we are free to choose, we must accept responsibility for the consequences even when there are antecedents of our behaviour that are beyond our control; and so we wind up in jail. So it would be better to be free-smart rather than free-not-so-smart. * (note below)

Free-smart would be recognizing that free is a relative term which is always paired with its opposite, determined. Nothing is absolutely free. Nothing is absolutely determined. Everything is somewhere on a free-determined spectrum . To prove my point, today's news reports that a woman in Australia was stuck head-down in a rock crevice for seven hours when she tried to retrieve her cellphone. A moment before she reached for her cellphone she was free not to risk getting stuck. Once stuck, she was not-so-free, but even then she was free to keep breathing and wait while they rescued her, or else die of fright. I am free to lose my porridge imagining the situation she was in, but also free to think about something else.

I will think about something else. I am still plodding through Robert Sapolsky's book, Determined, in which he attempts to dispose of free will by making determinism absolute. According to Robert, the will is  determined by genetics, epigenetics, brain structure, hormones, environment, circumstance, experience, culture, the gut microbiome, and so on. The will is determined, period. It makes absolutely no difference whether you are stuck in a crevice or wondering what sentence to type to have some fun with murder. Your next move is absolutely determined.  

Robert can define the will as he chooses, which means he has a choice. So do I. I will define the will as relatively free: that is, sort-of dependent on genetics, epigenetics, brain structure, hormones, environment, circumstance, experience, culture, the gut microbiome, and so on; but also sort-of generated by the recursive interaction of an active mind with all the determining factors presented to it. My name for this is free will. Robert can call it hokum if he wants. He is free to do that. He doesn't even have to ask permission. He can just assume that he is absolutely free, ** (note below) although he won't admit it because he is trying to prove otherwise. 

I haven't finished the book. I suspect that Robert isn't absolutely deterministic. He's pretending in order to have fun with us and sell his book. For my part, I will admit that the predetermined mental equipment and external circumstances are relevant to the choices one makes. So we are sort-of determined, and we are sort-of free to make what we will out of our circumstances. 

If you retrace what I have previously written, you will notice that I have used the word free rather freely, with different flavours of meaning. You might say that each of these two views is embedded in an unacknowledged paradigm. There are two paradigms: the universe as a whole, and the universe composed of discrete things. 

Holistically thinking, we may imagine the universe as a dense, evolving  cause-effect web with a woman stuck in crevice because the web caught her in dopamine mediated addiction to her cellphone. The cellphone passes the blame to social media. So TikTok gets the blame until it is passed on back to indifferent parenting and then handed off to an economic system that impoverished family life, and so on until it reaches the Big Bang, which is where the blame starts along with everything else. This is all hypothetical, of course. The woman had reasons and perhaps it was more than TikTok. Maybe she needed her cellphone because she was expecting her lover to call and make up after their spat the evening before. Perhaps the cellphone was new and not yet paid for and she can't afford another. Then there is the issue of salience, meaning the importance of various determinants (fear , TikTok, love, money, etc.) and salience is the product of brain structure and a lifetime of accumulated experience tagged with emotion. There are numerous other connections, some unknown and some unknowable even to the woman at the moment she chooses to retrieve the cellphone. Furthermore, when she gets stuck, she is a determining cause of other events, such as putting a rescue team to work for several hours. Clearly the woman is not separate from the web; she belongs to the web. If we try to predict what happens next, the complexity of the task is daunting. Therefore, the holistic paradigm is of limited utility.

Alternatively, we simplify by dividing the universe into discrete things and paying attention to what is immediate, close by and important. Within that paradigm, the woman is an autonomous agent, weighing the loss of cellphone against the risk of falling into the crevice. Her choice may be determined by numerous causes including causes she is not aware of in a causative network reaching back to the big bang. Nevertheless, she is somewhat aware; and therefore her mind in the moment is a good, though imperfect, predictive and motivational tool. She makes a choice because she can. We think of her as a discrete agent, not as an object helplessly caught in a web of causation.

Alas, it's difficult. When we get stuck on a difficult word, we are sort-of free to redefine it and sort-of dependent on people like Robert who write stuff so we don't have to do the thinking. If we accept someone's absolute definitions, we may be assuming that person knows more than is knowable and is more certain than is justified by evidence. In fact, even Robert can't explain or predict choices any better than a guess with an estimate of probability. The universe rolls the dice and we play the odds.

You are free to think things through or trust your gut.* I choose to be relatively free from arrogant absolutes, make appropriate use of all the different ways of thinking about this, and be happy that I have a say in what happens next.  

This hasn't been fun, has it. *** (note below) Anyway, you have to concede that, whatever we call it,  free will is sort-of nice. 

You're sort-of welcome. 

***************

(*) Free-not-so-smart? That is, free to act without much thought. I won't say free-dumb which would be sort-of clever but disrespectful of people who are unable to speak freely.

(**)  Note to self: the free-determined spectrum is different than the free-constrained spectrum. Don't get muddled.

(***) Way too many words, 1060. But then, I am free to exceed my arbitrary 500 word limit. You are free to think of this as a bonus sized note to make up for my skimpy efforts during the summer.
"Thanks anyway, but keep it short next time," I hear you say truculently.
"You're welcome," I answer lugubriously.

Powerless

We were watching TV last night. The lights went off just after the world news and just before bedtime. I switched on an electric candle, which gave us some light for a few seconds before its battery died. I stumbled to the bedroom and found a flashlight. When I got back to the TV room, there was Dorothy stuck in our powerless recliner couch. She had to scramble out around the footrest to get free. Then to bed where darkness was OK for a time.

Around 4:00 AM I awoke from a strange dream about how optimism distorts reality, an undigested bit of blog stuck in the hippocampus. While I lay there staring into the cold dark, the lights came on. Then the heat pump kicked in and the house began to warm up. By the time I arose, everything was back to normal except the clocks on the appliances. They needed to be reset. Oh, and the computer. It usually goes to sleep, but this time it was unresponsive, which meant I had to press the restart button instead of tickling the mouse. Woe is me.

We heard today that a drunk driver had taken out a power pole.

The point of this not-so-baleful tale is that we have become dependent on reliable, cheap energy and don't dream of being without it for long. Try imagining a day or a week or a year when switches do nothing: no morning coffee, no wifi, no drive to work, no work to walk to, no elevator to escape the condo, nothing on the shelves at the grocery store; just freezing in the winter dark; and finally no tool but a shovel to dispose of the corpse. Write your own book of things that don't work without energy. Last chapter: include eight billion people without the necessities of life or death. 

Watch the pilot episode on the TV news while the remote still offers control. We get energy by laying waste to the biosphere as if we are drunks. When we can't get what we want by exploiting nature, we withdraw into tribes and bomb the neighbours until nobody has what they want. Long live the sun, earth, air and water, viruses, bacteria and fungi, algae, meadows and forests, insects, fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, every sort of sapiens and all the miracles I left out. They are a regenerating system to which we belong as poorly behaved late arrivals. If we use things up faster than they can regenerate, we're done. Alternatively, shall we respect the world that has spawned and sustained us, and restrain our appetites? 

Our not-so-remote control
is right here between the ears in the hippowhatsis.
We can choose the Future Channel
and The Story of Our Children
and whether there will be
yet another season of this saga,

or we may collide
with what gets in our drunken way
and finish
powerless.

*******************

New Hearing in Youth Climate Case: Jordan Olmstead, CBC News, Oct 17, 2024

Politicians Pour Fuel on an Overheating Planet: David Suzuki and Ian Hannington, Oct 17, 2024

Thanksgiving in a Time of Bad News

We give thanks for the good things: family and friends, food, home, clothing, medical care, education, peace. But things are mostly pretty good and we imagine they will likely stay good so we don't think much about them except on Thanksgiving.

Because I am a contrary person, I always check for what we might be missing. In my opinion we should give thanks for bad news, because bad news is a warning, telling us how we might avoid trouble.

I was a chemistry teacher long ago, so I know some bad news. Svante Arrhenius: a Nobel prize-winning physical chemist, back in 1896 told us about the Greenhouse Effect resulting from carbon dioxide in the air, which he thought wasn't so bad because it would prevent the next ice age. But he realized that if we kept burning coal, we would not only keep things comfortably warm, we would eventually cook the planet. Give thanks for Arrhenius who got us thinking about this.

Martin Hoffert, an Exxon scientist, back in 1982 found evidence for human caused climate change and accurately predicted the trouble we are facing now. When Exxon discounted his findings because the corporation was all about making money, not avoiding trouble, he said that their denial of the evidence was immoral and left in disgust to continue work as an academic. Give thanks for scientists and teachers who have told us bad news so we could work to make things better.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from combustion continue at a rate that cannot be reversed by natural systems. The last time CO2 was at the current level was three million years ago. Back then the average global temperature was 2.5 to 4 degrees warmer than in 1900, and sea level was an estimated 3 to 27 metres higher. The target we have set for emissions is net zero if we want to keep warming to 1.5°C.  We have little time left to fix this, estimated at six months to six years. Do we have a plan? How do we, individually and collectively get to net zero?

More bad news. Here is a taste of the future.

Canadian wildfires in 2023 produced 647 million tonnes of atmospheric carbon emissions, almost four times the emissions from global aviation. 2024 was not as bad, but pretty bad if you lived in Jasper. Insured losses in Jasper are estimated at 700 million dollars. We are warned that if this level of wildfire continues, the boreal forests will become a net source of atmospheric carbon dioxide rather than a carbon sink. 

Storms are getting more destructive and more frequent because of the increase in temperature which stores more energy in the ocean and atmosphere. Recently hurricane Helene caused an estimated 47 billion dollars property damage and 230 deaths. Hurricane Milton produced between 30 and 60 billion dollars damage and 17 deaths (as of October 12). Milton caused fewer deaths partly because people had seen what Helene did and got out of the way. Now the warnings are about a future where there is no safe place to which we can run.

Give thanks for bad news and look for ways to make things better.

*****************
Neighbourhoods Fighting Climate Change: Philip Drost, CBC News, October 12, 2024

Voting in a Time of Climate Chaos: David Suzuki and Ian Hanington, October 8, 2024

Climate and Carbon Dioxide: NOAA ( U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

How to Stop Oil and Gas Industry Misinformation: David Suzuki Foundation

Climate and Biodiversity Solutions: David Suzuki and Ian Hanington

Give Thanks For Darkness

Remember that old song, The Quartermaster's Store, where you could find mice nesting in the rice and snakes as big as garden rakes and Lew spitting in the stew and Bert finishing off dessert? Let's sing the chorus:

My eyes are dim, I cannot see,
I have not brought my specs with me.
I have not brought my specs... with... me.

Wasn't that fun! Well, maybe some of you didn't go to summer camp. So you don't remember how glad we were, after singing that yucky song, to get something edible for supper.

Guess what. My eyes are dim and specs don't help much anymore. You too? OK. Us geezers have to stick together. One thing we learn as vision fades, is to make the most of what we can see. When bright light combined with cloudy lenses washes out everything on the computer screen in a milky haze, we switch to white text on a dark background. It helps. 

For what is printed white on white
cannot be read, though true.
Nor any text inspire delight
as bright hue on bright hue. 

So look for stars no more at noon
nor yet in moonlit glow.
A midnight sky, an absent moon,
a universe shines through.

Give thanks for darkness.

*********************

Also give thanks for dark news drawing attention to brighter news. Earth's Vital Signs: Benjamin Shingler, Anand Ram, Wendy Martinez, CBC News, October 8, 2024. 

To Look At Dust

Words gather here dissecting captive thought
to name its systems, organs, tissues, cells
compiling a proud glossary of death
so pleased to clearly say what once it meant.

Words gather here to keep a thought alive,
unpinning, stitching up the cruel cuts,
reviving pulse with shocking heresy,
inspiring breath with whispered mysteries.

Words gather here to mine a paradigm
refining it to crystallized belief,
to chisel icons from emerging creed
discarding secret truth in rubble dust.

Words gather here
to look at dust
and wonder
what they missed.

This Is Gonna Hurt

 I expect you are curious about the root canal job last week. Let's back up a bit. A year ago, the dentist asked if I had any pain. I said I was OK except for the odd twitchy twinge in my lower jaw now and again, but I wasn't worried. Besides, I couldn't pin it down to a particular tooth, and he couldn't find a problem.

Problem there was. Two weeks ago it turned into a persistent ache. Before I got back to the dentist, I spent a few days on pain drugs and a couple of nights walking the floor holding my jaw. The dentist referred me to an endodontist. During the week waiting for that appointment, the rogue nerve passed away, became deceased, I mean died, thank goodness. Ding-dong, the wicked twitch is dead!

The endodontist performed the autopsy, during which each root of the molar was drilled, scraped, flushed, sucked clean, sterilized and packed. 

Ahead of time I imagined, "OK, remove the nerve. Should take ten minutes. Easy PZ." It took an hour and a half. It was completely painless but shredded my imagination. My third nature is denatured. I will never imagine as optimistically again.  

After it was done I asked the doctor why we had evolved with nerves in teeth when they were such a pain. He replied that after the nerve is dead, I would have nothing to stop me biting too hard, so the tooth would be more brittle. Be careful or break a tooth. Good thing evolution produced endodontists to warn us. 

If I had paid more attention to dental warnings over the previous seven decades, I would have cut out candy and flossed and brushed more often... I'm feeling a bit anxious. There's a bunch more nerves in there, and I didn't brush after lunch. Excuse me a moment... 

There. That's better. I dislike toothpaste less than pain and necrosis.

You're waiting for the punch line, aren't you. Same as last time and the time before: climate change. We got our first dire warnings about the consequences of fossil fuel combustion decades ago. The oil companies muzzled their scientists and paid some pseudoscientists to discount the evidence because oil was making them rich. So ordinary people weren't sure there was a problem. Business as usual.

Just so you appreciate the analogy, the equivalent of the dentist's advice is scientists telling us we are changing the climate. Giving up candy is like giving up fossil fuels. The analogue of nerve pain is heat domes, monster storms, droughts, floods. Paying for semiannual checkups and scolding from the dentist is like a price on carbon. The equivalent of brushing and flossing is doing business a different way: solar, wind, geothermal energy, reforestation.

"Axe the tax" politicians and "axe the facts" corporations have been telling us we're good, no worries, promising an endless supply of cheap fuel so they can stay in control and keep their yachts until they retire. After that, who cares? 

The kids and the grandkids will care. Their pain will be the consequence of our ignorance and indulgence.

Sorry about that. More bad climate news. The scientists admit that they have been optimistic. The biosphere is rushing towards collapse faster than they thought. I cannot, in good conscience, avoid telling you about this. But if you watch this TED talk (below) to the end, you will see that the news is not all bad. Just stop the candy, get your cleaning and checkup, floss and brush. 

Or else.

The Tipping Points of Climate Change and Where We Stand: Johan Rockström, TED, Aug 2024

The Issue Isn't the Carbon Tax: Arron Wherry, CBC News, September 21, 2024.

Made A Plan Yet?

 Rather than repeating what I have written in the past, I lazily offer this old note entitled Make a Plan. I find that I mostly agree with what I had to say back then.

Another First Day of School

 I don't do school anymore. This year, the first day of school is my appointment for a root canal. While I am in the chair tomorrow getting a nerve removed from a molar, you can read what I wrote back in 2016 one more time. Or not. Up to you.

No New Thoughts

 I clicked on this Remedy For Dry Eyes again today. Still the best medicine on the shelf.

Sixty Years and More

Some well-wishers suggested we spend time remembering our sixty years together on our anniversary, which was last week. A story lasting that long would fill a few books. I will keep this short.

During anniversary week we went for walks in the woods. It was about forty years ago we first walked this path with our dog, Tansy. The breeder insisted on a name beginning with 'H', so our puppy was officially registered as Happy Tansy, which was a good match for our time together walking beside the river. When she was happy, so were we, and I recall finding Tansy flowers (Tanacetum vulgare) growing in the sun on those happy hikes off the leash.

Back then, the seedling trees were just a little taller than the grass, and Tansy would happily jump over them if they were in her way. Since then, Tansy is gone, the trees have grown, the woods are lovely, dark and deep, and the Tansy flowers have been replaced by shade-loving dog-toothed violets (Erythronium dens-canis). Somebody had a good idea, planting this forest. Did they intend that we would be enjoying this shady walk, happily if not so energetically, on our sixtieth anniversary? Probably not, but thank you, tree planters.

On the path leading to the woods, there are various interesting plants, some of whose names we know. One year we noticed a single tall clump of bright pink flowers growing in a damp area some distance from the path in late summer. I recognized them from my time working in the greenhouse as Joe-Pye Weed, a favourite of butterflies.

Joe-Pye Weed,  Eutrochium maculatum

We looked for them again his year and counted five healthy plants around the area, the work of birds looking out for themselves and incidentally scattering seed to decorate our anniversary walk and feed more butterflies. Thank you, birds.

Nothing here is thanks to us. We pass this way without leaving much of a trace, except for maybe a whiff of insect repellant. Sorry insects, but we must obey the zeroth commandment, to take care of ourselves, which means we don't go on walks to feed the bugs. 

Now that I think of it, that is what we normally do. We look after ourselves and trust others to leave the world better than they found it. Not our job. That's something else that has changed since we were busy with career and family. Looking back, it is clear that we have been careless. We had a poorly insulated home, an inefficient furnace, lighting that was more heat than light, a gas-guzzler car which we took on long trips across country. We were so busy taking care of ourselves that looking after the planet was up to somebody else, but almost everybody else was doing the same.

As a consequence, the planet is suffering under the weight of human neglect. For our part, we repent. We have taken steps to reduce our accumulating personal debt to the biosphere. Our home is now well insulated. We installed LED lighting, solar panels on the roof, a heat pump for heating and cooling. When we were still driving, we owned an all-electric vehicle which was a quiet joy to drive. Now we walk or take the bus. We have been writing to government officials at three levels to encourage the transition to clean energy. And this note is the evidence that I frequently nag my friends by writing a blog full of rants about climate change.

It's our job to leave things in better shape than we found them. Let there be happy walks in the woods for another sixty years and more.

**************

Biomass CO2 Emissions 4X Higher Than Coal: Just Have a Think, August 25, 2024

People Want Climate Action: David Suzuki and Ian Hannington, August 22, 2024

Is It Worth It To Put Solar Panels On Your Home: Emily Chung, CBC, August 28, 2024

Emissions From Canada's Wildfires: Benjamin Shingler, CBC, August 28,2024

What's The Story

 We just finished an audiobook about an author with writer's block. Writer's block is fiction. If you think you have writer's block, you may write about writer's block. So, of course, you are never blocked. You may get tired of writing and take a break; but there is always a story waiting, even if it's just about being tired of writing. Whatever the story, it is a door opening onto experience, understanding, passion, imagination, the being and belonging and becoming that writers and readers share.

So in the last note, I didn't complain about writer's block. I told you what was going on when I was tired of writing, about misplacing my wallet, and how that alerted me to my vulnerability as a user of credit cards and my ineptitude at protecting myself from credit predators. The story is, if you didn't notice, an example of a human dilemma: while taking care of ourselves, we are exposed to unintended dangerous consequences of our actions. Being aware of this, we have options.

(1) Tolerate the danger and continue enjoying the benefits of our choices, like I will not give up my credit cards.

(2) Adapt to the threat, like I check online daily to detect and report fraudulent purchases on my credit cards. 

(3) Mitigate the threat, like I use cash when I can.

I didn't fool you. You are so smart. You knew that I'm just sneaking in another rant about climate change. The credit card dilemma is a metaphor for the irresponsible use of fossil fuels. We pay the minimum, accumulate a carbon dioxide debt, and are charged interest in the form of drought, floods, heat domes, wildfires, monster storms, and so on; but we have no intention of covering the entire cost. We are going to max-out our credit..., because we can. Cheap fuel is more important than an obscure threat in some remote future. And so we are on our way to bankruptcy.

By burning carbon, we have exceeded the capacity of the global ecosystem to recapture carbon through photosynthesis and other mechanisms. The debt goes unpaid, accumulating and altering the climate more rapidly than living things can adapt and evolve. There is still a chance to mitigate (slow or reverse) the damage. Failure to mitigate will result in the collapse of the biosphere. This is not an opinion. It is mathematics.

Just to make it clear (because we may not be as smart as I hope we are), there are three responses to the threat of accumulating carbon dioxide emissions.

(1) Ignore and perish
(2) Adapt and perish more slowly
(3) Mitigate while paying down the debt and perhaps survive awhile longer.

One last thought:
the future is conditional.
We have a say in what happens next.

***************

Climate Change Demands More Than Thoughts, Prayers and Excuses: Aaron Wherry, CBC, August 17, 2024.

Fossil Fuel Deniers in Politics Hurt Everyone: David Suzuki and Ian Hannington, August 15, 2024

How Governments Are Preparing For Extreme Heat: Julia-Simone Rutgers, The Narwhal, August 2, 2024

Carbon Removal: CTV News, July 26, 2024

Wind Power in Ontario: Mike Crawley, CBC August 19, 2024

The Most Effective Climate Policies: Emily Chung, CBC August 22, 2024

How Smart

 "Where's my wallet?" thought I with my hand in my pocket while approaching the teller at the bank. To make a long story short, Dorothy had to do the banking that day. 

Here's the rest of the story, if you're interested. When we got home, I checked all the usual places: the end tables, the top of the dresser, the cushions in the couch, my desk, the garage, the garden where I had been removing seed pods from the milkweed, my rain jacket, the end tables again just to be sure, the dresser, the couch cushions, my desk, the garage, the garden again... . Third time around, I found it on my desk beside the computer keyboard. What a relief! I was just about to call Visa.

As my pulse returned to normal, I considered the lessons learned.
(1) I'm not as smart as I thought I was.
(2) In a society where the most rapidly growing profession is criminal, one should not carry the keys to the kingdom loose in one's pocket.
(3) Cash would be safer than plastic, because your identity does not appear on it unless you are famous and dead.
(4) I'm not as smart as I thought I was. 
(5) I'm not as smart as I thought I was.

Sometimes, it takes awhile to catch on. I guess I'm not as smart as I thought I was. However, I did guess Canuckle today with only three tries. The answer was 'SMACK', which according to Canuckle is the name applied to a group of jellyfish. How smart is that! 

Better Together

Take a flower tour >> here <<.

Which flowers do you like, yellow rudbeckia and sunflowers or purple echinacea? I like yellow because my old eyes don't notice some of the other colours unless yellow gets me looking in the right direction. But if every flower in the garden were yellow, we would have to find something else to complete the picture. I like purple because it contrasts with yellow. Blue is nearly invisible at a distance but pretty nice up close. Pink is good at any distance.

These wild bergamot (monarda fistulosa) line the path where we walk in August.

And these crown-vetch (securigera veria) were there a few weeks ago.

Ah, but the yellow: these goldenrod (solidego) are just coming into season.

Come to think of it, I like all the colours, and they are better together, like this.

Finish the tour with another moment in the garden 
 >> here <<

Nothing New Here

In the lazy days of summer, looking back, I have been reading notes I wrote over the last four years. If you want to take a look, click open notes from the list in the current Blog Archive on this page. Or open previous blog archives using the links in the profile "About Me". 

Some ideas keep repeating. Like these...

Existence is a miracle.

God is an empty word into which we pour our best understanding of the miracle of existence.

If we imagine we have captured the Truth in words, we ignore what we don't know, which is almost everything; and that is the definition of ignorance. Intelligence is knowing that our words are inadequate and we are missing something.

Knowing that we don't know, we may pay attention to the way things are, imagine how they might be better, make a plan, try something, pay attention to the results, revise the plan, and repeat until it's over. This is how we participate in the miracle of existence.

We have some guidance participating in the miracle. The zeroth commandment is to eat and not be eaten. The first commandment directs us to the Mystery to keep us wondering and rethinking the miracle of existence. A bunch more commandments tell us how to manage better, living the miracle with a little help from our friends. The last commandment (John 13:34) is how to be a friend making the other commandments redundant.

Human activity with limited understanding, poorly restrained appetite, and little concern for others with whom we share the miracle of existence has unintended consequences. 

We have a choice:

try to do better,
or try not and take what's coming. 

*****************

I may have missed something.

Encouraging Encouragement

In conversation with friends yesterday morning, we got telling stories about times when we had been embarrassed in front of an audience. Everyone had something to add. My contribution was the day parents visited in my kindergarten classroom. The teacher had me lead the class doing the actions for that old song 'Here We Go Looby Loo'. As I remember, I managed putting my right hand in and shaking it all about; but I really didn't want to be the centre of attention while shaking the other bits. So instead of putting my left hand in, I wet my pants. As I recall, nobody followed my lead.

A few other things happened when I was five, but they have been forgotten because they weren't tagged with unforgettable angst and shame. We try to avoid the angst and shame. That's what they are for. Because of the angst and shame, I can report that I have never gone Looby Loo since I was five, although I have wet myself on occasion. 

Don't ask. I don't want to talk about it. 

Nobody made a fuss about the wet spot on my shorts back then. People are sometimes encouraging and that keeps one trying. Looby Loo is now just a fading memory, and I have been encouraged since to sing other songs. Here's A Very Special Day recalling some good times with friends.

Remember This

When wisdom comes in threes, it's unforgettable, or so I had hoped when I wrote this. Then I made the mistake of turning it into a poem, treating it as a puzzle inviting readers to find their own meaning. Quite forgettable. Anyway, it all wound up going to the curb with the garbage. Tomorrow is garbage day, you see. I must have inherited Dad's no-nonsense attitude to trash. Unfortunately, I took another look, and, like Mum, retrieved it hoping it might be of interest to someone. Waste not, want not.

This is for you to dispose of as you will.
*****************
I've already written on respect, restraint and reciprocity, the keys to community.

Then grace, gratitude and generosity, the curriculum for a master's degree in peace.

I have another trinity in mind: being, belonging and becoming, three words each of us must add as authors to the existential book.

Existential has to do with being, not being beautiful or ugly, good or bad, strong or weak, just existing. Bare, unmodified existence is a miracle whether God thought us up or mum forgot to take the pill or we are the end result of 13.8 billion years of cosmic accidents. Each being is a naked miracle. Why would I say that?

Why not? Knowing I am a miracle should make me humble-proud. I am a miracle among miracles: stars and planets, princes and paupers, bats and gnats, worms and germs, lightning and starry night, whales and whelks and winkles, storms and streams and seas and desert sands. I am one among many, not a thing apart. Being is belonging to the miracle. Why?

Why not? Being is a story with paragraphs already written and chapters yet to be, not a finished book. Being is becoming the story.


******************

Three triplex tropes provide the magic tools,
mnemonics of the existential rules,
reminders where we store the fluid thoughts
to quench the burning questions: why, why not.

Respect, restraint and reciprocity:
three steps from ego to community,
to punish or reward, to praise or blame,
to motivate with conscience, pride and shame.

Grace, gratitude and generosity:
three steps to care for all humanity.
Compassion, love, forgiveness to release
inclusive and expansive global peace.

To be, belong, become: consider these
three clues toward the nameless Mysteries
to find our whispered purpose in the breeze
and arbitrary quarks and galaxies.

Then out of memories and what we know,
we reinvent our being, wondering how.
Belonging and becoming is a thought
to make a better being. And why not?

For when we're done with being and we're gone,
the timeless miracle will carry on
becoming something more long past our ends,
belonging to the stories of our friends.

***************
If that didn't put you off and you haven't had enough poetry, watch and listen to God's Garden with a sound track of Amazing Grace, arranged by Mark Hayes and played by a younger version of me.