A quick note about the dating of events in the newsletter and other references to events in the evolution of life, the universe, and everything. For brevity, I did not include many important nuances or explain that some dates and events (like The Big Bang) are the subject of ongoing scientific debate and inquiry. And the universe may be teeming with life; we just haven't found it (yet). (But the Fermi Paradox must be considered.) The existence of RNA viruses suggest that that there may have been an RNA life form that lives on in DNA-based molecules. Etc. I am happy to have readers provide detail and nuance that I did not include because of my effort to be brief, but I would be disappointed if anyone felt I was being superficial or sloppy. I tried otherwise.
As noted below, many readers comment that "civilization" began earlier than 3,500 BCE, the emergence of the Mesopotamian cities. Drawing that line is difficult and definitional.
Thank you, Robert. I feel grounded again, refreshed, realizing I have, in fact won the lottery. Also a bit humbling to realize I did not help my cause in arriving. In my first moments of consciousness I want to thank your friend Sandy Lewis and his footprints in stone which led me here. Lastly I am going to ask permission of my wife to invade our finances and purchase you for the coming few milliseconds you will be around. Your infinitesimal rarity allures.
I return wishes of peace and blessing to you and your very dear “ Managing Editor” As so many have posted, my own early morning begins dreading the news, but knowing that I will read your letter and maybe....hate what I am reading, but have a sense of calm because I can trust what you write. You provide truth... Thank-you, Robert.
Thanks for the perspective - I've never seen it all laid out quite like that before. I'm sure there are many details that could be added, but for me this was a perfect beginning of a deeper perspective. Blessings to you and Jill and your family, with love and gratitude for all you do to make build this community and make this journey just a bit easier and even, on occasion, more fun!
This article in Nature, "Origin of life theory involving RNA–protein hybrid gets new support" https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01303-z explains more about the RNA hypothesis of the origin of life on Earth.
My writing touched on this stuff nearly 40 years ago. My first article on RNA was about Tom Cech's work on the self splicing intron, then of U. Colorado, who later got a Nobel for that work.
"We have long been aware that complex societies emerged in Llanos de Moxos in southwestern Amazonia , Bolivia, around 2,500 years ago, but our new evidence suggests that humans first settled in the region up to 10,000 years ago during the early Holocene period," said Jose Capriles, assistant professor of anthropology. "These groups of people were hunter gatherers ; however, our data shows that they were beginning to deplete their local resources and establish territorial behaviors, perhaps driving them to begin domesticating plants such as sweet potatoes, cassava, peanuts, and chili peppers as a way to acquire food."
A perfect piece to end 2022, Robert. Thank you. The photos from the James Webb Space Telescope also put things in perspective. One of the newer Webb photos shows a cartwheel galaxy, which the BBC says has a diameter of about 145,000 light years. 1 light year equals 5.88 trillion miles, so the diameter of this cartwheel galaxy is 85,260,000 trillion miles. We humans might not matter to the universe, but it's sobering to remember that we matter to each other. Dignity, courtesy, respect, kindness.
Beautifully said, Laurie: We matter to each other. If only everyone understood this simple basic profound truth. The universe may not care, but we can care.
Coincidentally, I ran across Bertrand Russell's A Free Man's Worship last evening and read the following :"United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love. ... One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy as ourselves. "
Oh, the Russell quote is wonderful, Stan! Thank you for posting it. I'd not seen this before, and there are layers of beauty in it. "Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in hours of despair." What a wonderful reminder that we don't need to fret about our place in a universe of trillions of miles because we can do so much here to make one other life better.
These fine thoughts I am reading after having just watched "My Name is Pauli Murray". We celebrate heroes in the moment, but we don't often see the heroines right in front of us. This documentary, much of which is her oral memoir, speaks out for our times.
My late first husband, Paul Beattie, was a humanist Unitarian-Universalist minister and frequently used that Russell quote in his memorial services. I think it's a beautiful statement of the quandry we humans face in life and the challenge it presents for us. Thank you so much, Stan for posting it.
Hi Lucinda - I'm happy I ran across it so I could share it. Russell was a hero in my younger years, both for his mathematics / philosophy and his pacifism. It's been 40 years since I'd read him until I serendipitously ran across him again a couple of weeks ago.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the technological marvel of our lifetimes. I'm so proud that our country, via NASA, produced this marvel that will discover and solve so many mysteries.
When one considers where most of us would have said we thought things were at 365 days ago, and where we think they are at tonight, I think that answers the question, does taking action have any consequence? A whole lot of people listened to "those who know these things" and their predictions of what was going to happen and what people were going to do as a result and said "Nope! Not even!" And went out and worked their assets off, and virtually nothing that "everyone" knew was going to happen and what it would mean went on to happen. Who ever thought Kansas - Kansas! - would vote to keep their constitution pro-choice? Who ever thought that Michigan would flip completely to Democratic control for the first time in 40+ years? The "red tsunami" turned out to not even be a rain puddle.
None of those things "just happened." They happened because a whole lot of us said "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
I really like the big picture that your timeline conveys. I am struggling to be proud to be an American. I’m incredibly grateful as a baby boomer to have grown up with leaders having just defeated Nazism and Imperialism and bestowing values of integrity for us. And women who were another level of independent because they had to do everything while the men were away.
A total fun aside here is in my own family, brothers of one family married sisters of another so those families were double cousins. While those dads were away at war, my aunts and the 2 kids each family moved in together. One went to work and the other took care of the 4 kids. They became a very resilient family unit and lucky that both dads eventually returned, albeit one with a serious arm injury.
Back to being proud to be an American. During my lifetime I saw civil rights much improved, the end of Jim Crow laws, women’s rights start to take off. This greatly impacted me by being the first generation with birth control and ability to achieve as we chose, subject to the social limits, which moved in the right direction. I, myself, broke several glass ceilings at work by being the first woman allowed in the computer room and then various leadership positions.
I’m ashamed to see our progress crash so badly. I’m sadder yet to see the impacts on people of color, Jews, and gays. I want to get back on track of progress of civil rights and truly find ways for all people to live up to their potential. Oh, and I want to live in a country that values its children more than its guns.
I prefer to see progress as uneven - not crashing. There have always been fascists and haters. There will always be bigots. Recent events seem to suggest we are sliding backwards. I disagree. This year we responded with outrage and voted accordingly.
Now that the Nazis and would be KKK have revealed themselves, we are pushing them back down into the hole they crawled out of. It will be whackamole. But every year, there are more of us and less of them.
And we should remember that every year the majority of newly registered voters are on the side of inclusion, diversity and scientific progress.
Demographics and disgust with bigotry are on our side.
Great comment, Bill. 90% of the time this is my perspective.
I grew up in the '50s and '60s in an all-white suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, and know deep in my bones that this nation has made a helluva lot of changes for the better in my lifetime. The magnitude of that change is why the Trumpistas are so furious and destructive. Time is on our side. 3 steps forward and 1 step back.
A black woman (and ex-Marine) I know said this when Trump had been recently elected: "Usually a big and painful zit must come to a head before there can be healing. That is what is happening now to white supremacy." That perfectly reasonable analogy has helped me immensely in getting through the last 6 yrs. (As have RH and HCR!)
I do fervently hope that a phase to come soon is some form of reconciliation. I'd love to see at least half of white, rural, and conservative America (where I lived for over 20 yrs.) brought into the mainstream. IMO, they let themselves get brainwashed by FOX (for profits) and the GOP (for votes/power). At some point being fooled and dejected may start getting old. Isn't that how social progress often goes?
My other big question: How can I help with that reconciliation?
Thanks. And Thank you for your perspective. There may be a small chance of reconciliation - maybe 15 to 20% - probably not half. Most of them will die with hate in their hearts.
What can we do to help? Vote, help to vote and stay engaged. There are going to be alienated white folks who just might see that this administration has done more for them in two years than the Republicans have done in 20 ... or 40 years.
Maybe someone in their family will get a great new job in the infrastructure or green energy sectors. Maybe someone in their family will suffer because of anti-women legislation. Maybe a friend will have trouble voting because of some silly restriction or inability to get to the voting booth. Maybe the new GQP US House will make such fools of themselves, their craven and crude selves will be revealed.
You can bring a horse to water, but... for example. Look at the map at the following link.
The Federal Government has offered to pay for healthcare for the poor and yet quite a few states have refused to HELP their OWN CITIZENS because the program was passed by a Democratic majority. If you live in one of those states, perhaps you could chat with some white Trumpers about why their GQP leaders hate poor people (poor or disadvantaged - no fault of their own). That is one that boggles my mind. Of course, many of those denied assistance are white. But what percentage are people of color? You see where I am going.
For now, I choose to encourage the next generation and outvote the old haters. They will fade away. Young people will marginalize them.
"From the moment that the first cell twitched to life 3.7 billion years ago, every one of your ancestors over the course of billions of years had to survive and reproduce in order for you to be here today."
So true, and yet so difficult to swallow. I remember first thinking about that when I was 7, realizing it was incredible that I actually existed--that ***I*** was conscious, despite the odds against it--odds which I lacked the perspective to come close to fully comprehending. Yet I sometimes wonder if this is really true, or if any philosophers have theories that all of our consciousnesses were inevitable, because the odds against survival of every ancestor seem so overwhelming.
And on the other hand, my brother in law, and his and my sister's two sons had a very close encounter with non-existence in late October or early November of 1621, when their ancestor tumbled off of the Mayflower during a gale. Here's the story:
"In the fall of 1620, the Mayflower's ability to steady herself in a gale produced a most deceptive tranquillity for a young indentured servant named John Howland. As the Mayflower lay ahull, Howland apparently grew restless down below. He saw no reason why he could not venture out of the fetid depths of 'tween decks for just a moment...
"The Mayflower lurched suddenly to leeward. Howland staggered to the ship's rail and tumbled into the sea.
That should have been the end of him. But dangling over the side, and trailing behind the ship was the topsail halyard, the rope used to raise and lower the upper sail. Howland was in his midtwenties and strong, and when his hand found the halyard, he gripped the rope with such feral desperation that even though he was pulled down more than ten feet below the ocean's surface, he never let go. Several sailors took up the halyard and hauled Howland back in, finally snagging him with a boat hook and dragging him up onto the deck."
--Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower, a story of courage, community, and war
So much less dramatically, and yet, with its own drama of a different sort, had my father gone for graduate school to the University of Chicago instead of to Harvard, he would not have been present to flip over my mother the moment he saw her enter the statistics class on his first day of graduate school, and I would never have marveled, at age 7, at the beauty of the hill on which we lived in Seattle, and how amazing it was that I existed to perceive it.
Happy New Year to Rob, your Managing Editor, and to the whole TE Community. I'm an eternal optimist, who's also a realist. I believe good things will happen because I have faith that the majority of people in this country, and indeed, in the world, want the same thing... to have a positive influence on their neighbors, and to leave the world a better place than they found it. All good intentions, which, to date, we have failed at. But the future is yet to be written, and I believe humanity will step up and do the right thing.
That paragraph near the end about what it has taken for me, for any of us, to survive and be living at this moment in history, resonated with me. I have often wondered why, after three bouts with cancer, I'm still here. I'm not sure that I have what it takes to have a tremendous effect on the future of the country or the world. But I do know, that even though by all rights, I should have died four years ago, I've been granted the opportunity to care for my aging parents - my mother passed away two weeks ago, and my father lives with us. My prayer has been to outlive them, so I can always care for them. I've been blessed to have that opportunity so far, despite all probability to the contrary. I hope I can have many more years to see my non-binary kid continue into productive adulthood.
I also believe what has been told in so many time travel movies, that one small change in the past, can have gargantuan (and usually) catastrophic consequences. If that's true, then the tiniest things we do today, like a butterfly's wings, can surely change the future for the better. I'm resting my New Year's hopes on that.
2022 has been another miraculous year. I could never have imagined that I would teach an Afghan refugee how to parallel park. Can whatever lies ahead beat that? Thank you all and Robert and Jill for all you bring to my life.
“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon” sang CSN of Joni Mitchell’s lyrics. Or “May the Force be with you”…. There are many amazing species (all!) on this earth, some, like Homo sapiens have curiosity and imagination (almost more important than intelligence IMHO) and that is a wondrous thing…..a thing that will not save human-kind with its hubris in most matters. Maybe, just maybe, there are other worlds of curious, intelligent, imaginative beings as well….I, for one, would like to know that, but probably never will. Important, tho’, that I can IMAGINE it…. Edit: Oh, and I should add my oft said statement: The only reason I want to live forever is to find out how it all turns out!
At first, not having given birth to children of my own, I was feeling sad, left out. And then I remembered the chance I have many times a day, maybe right here, right now, to jiggle another person’s DNA (please take this loosely) to an act of kindness. Recognition. Appreciation. Perhaps simply hearing what another person has to say. And I will have made my mark through them in the days and who-knows-how-long to come. I remembered that tomorrow morning I will be leading a class in an embodied meditation practice called Sensory Awareness where people may discover that their feet are in relationship with gravity, and thus Earth, and at the same time in a Greater Knowing. a Spaciousness, our head in the Stars. Robert, I will bring your beautifully expressed sense of perspective with me into our class nine hours from now.
I found your remarks about the evolution of our planet and life on it uncanny because I was just thinking about the same thing in the book I am writing on the future of cultural memory in the era of climate emergency. Instead of the cultural evolution model than runs from primitive to civilized - totally debunked but it still underlies so much thinking - we might think of how amazing that the early life forms passed themselves on into us - we are continuous with them - you put it much better than I - and how wondrous to contemplate that early hominids developed and passed on so much knowledge to get us to where we are today. By which I mean, where we would like to go to keep the earth habitable and to thrive. Happy new year to all, and thank you again Robert for your amazing and inspiring wisdom.
I love your perspective! Thank you! Truly, we are each a miracle. Let us acknowledge that in ourselves, and every other creature, even those with whom we disagree.
Bless you and your Managing Editor for your beautiful, encouraging work. I look forward to reading you every day, and have found many ways to work on behalf of democracy thanks to you and the community you gave created.
A quick greeting to you and yours and sincerest wishes for a healthy and happy new year. Thank you for getting me, and countless others, through another crazy year!
May next year bring us the satisfaction I know most of us are waiting for 😁
A quick note about the dating of events in the newsletter and other references to events in the evolution of life, the universe, and everything. For brevity, I did not include many important nuances or explain that some dates and events (like The Big Bang) are the subject of ongoing scientific debate and inquiry. And the universe may be teeming with life; we just haven't found it (yet). (But the Fermi Paradox must be considered.) The existence of RNA viruses suggest that that there may have been an RNA life form that lives on in DNA-based molecules. Etc. I am happy to have readers provide detail and nuance that I did not include because of my effort to be brief, but I would be disappointed if anyone felt I was being superficial or sloppy. I tried otherwise.
As noted below, many readers comment that "civilization" began earlier than 3,500 BCE, the emergence of the Mesopotamian cities. Drawing that line is difficult and definitional.
Thank you, Robert. I feel grounded again, refreshed, realizing I have, in fact won the lottery. Also a bit humbling to realize I did not help my cause in arriving. In my first moments of consciousness I want to thank your friend Sandy Lewis and his footprints in stone which led me here. Lastly I am going to ask permission of my wife to invade our finances and purchase you for the coming few milliseconds you will be around. Your infinitesimal rarity allures.
Thanks, Pat, for a lovely laugh in these waning hours of 2022!!!
I return wishes of peace and blessing to you and your very dear “ Managing Editor” As so many have posted, my own early morning begins dreading the news, but knowing that I will read your letter and maybe....hate what I am reading, but have a sense of calm because I can trust what you write. You provide truth... Thank-you, Robert.
Thanks for the perspective - I've never seen it all laid out quite like that before. I'm sure there are many details that could be added, but for me this was a perfect beginning of a deeper perspective. Blessings to you and Jill and your family, with love and gratitude for all you do to make build this community and make this journey just a bit easier and even, on occasion, more fun!
Robert,
This article in Nature, "Origin of life theory involving RNA–protein hybrid gets new support" https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01303-z explains more about the RNA hypothesis of the origin of life on Earth.
My writing touched on this stuff nearly 40 years ago. My first article on RNA was about Tom Cech's work on the self splicing intron, then of U. Colorado, who later got a Nobel for that work.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ji0HhItOLIMC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=Tom+Cech,+Mosaic,+self+splicing+introns&source=bl&ots=rvH3IZf5lk&sig=ACfU3U2ubYkq2hAJVfBG_1SzOWQrfjM65w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiah7_NtNH8AhV3j4kEHX9aAj44HhDoAXoECAkQAw#v=onepage&q=Tom%20Cech%2C%20Mosaic%2C%20self%20splicing%20introns&f=false
"We have long been aware that complex societies emerged in Llanos de Moxos in southwestern Amazonia , Bolivia, around 2,500 years ago, but our new evidence suggests that humans first settled in the region up to 10,000 years ago during the early Holocene period," said Jose Capriles, assistant professor of anthropology. "These groups of people were hunter gatherers ; however, our data shows that they were beginning to deplete their local resources and establish territorial behaviors, perhaps driving them to begin domesticating plants such as sweet potatoes, cassava, peanuts, and chili peppers as a way to acquire food."
A perfect piece to end 2022, Robert. Thank you. The photos from the James Webb Space Telescope also put things in perspective. One of the newer Webb photos shows a cartwheel galaxy, which the BBC says has a diameter of about 145,000 light years. 1 light year equals 5.88 trillion miles, so the diameter of this cartwheel galaxy is 85,260,000 trillion miles. We humans might not matter to the universe, but it's sobering to remember that we matter to each other. Dignity, courtesy, respect, kindness.
Beautifully said, Laurie: We matter to each other. If only everyone understood this simple basic profound truth. The universe may not care, but we can care.
Coincidentally, I ran across Bertrand Russell's A Free Man's Worship last evening and read the following :"United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love. ... One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy as ourselves. "
Oh, the Russell quote is wonderful, Stan! Thank you for posting it. I'd not seen this before, and there are layers of beauty in it. "Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in hours of despair." What a wonderful reminder that we don't need to fret about our place in a universe of trillions of miles because we can do so much here to make one other life better.
These fine thoughts I am reading after having just watched "My Name is Pauli Murray". We celebrate heroes in the moment, but we don't often see the heroines right in front of us. This documentary, much of which is her oral memoir, speaks out for our times.
I am so touched by that quote from Bertrand Russel. Thank you for sharing it!
My late first husband, Paul Beattie, was a humanist Unitarian-Universalist minister and frequently used that Russell quote in his memorial services. I think it's a beautiful statement of the quandry we humans face in life and the challenge it presents for us. Thank you so much, Stan for posting it.
Hi Lucinda - I'm happy I ran across it so I could share it. Russell was a hero in my younger years, both for his mathematics / philosophy and his pacifism. It's been 40 years since I'd read him until I serendipitously ran across him again a couple of weeks ago.
Oh my goodness. So beautiful. I read and reread.
Thank you for this Stan.
👏🏻For your audience I’ll share some beneficial insights. Let’s converse +15754590814 ❤️
Thank you for adding this perspective!
The James Webb Space Telescope is the technological marvel of our lifetimes. I'm so proud that our country, via NASA, produced this marvel that will discover and solve so many mysteries.
Laurie, thank you!
When one considers where most of us would have said we thought things were at 365 days ago, and where we think they are at tonight, I think that answers the question, does taking action have any consequence? A whole lot of people listened to "those who know these things" and their predictions of what was going to happen and what people were going to do as a result and said "Nope! Not even!" And went out and worked their assets off, and virtually nothing that "everyone" knew was going to happen and what it would mean went on to happen. Who ever thought Kansas - Kansas! - would vote to keep their constitution pro-choice? Who ever thought that Michigan would flip completely to Democratic control for the first time in 40+ years? The "red tsunami" turned out to not even be a rain puddle.
None of those things "just happened." They happened because a whole lot of us said "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Hurrah for us.
Thank you for this video link. I had not seen it before. It is wonderful
I really like the big picture that your timeline conveys. I am struggling to be proud to be an American. I’m incredibly grateful as a baby boomer to have grown up with leaders having just defeated Nazism and Imperialism and bestowing values of integrity for us. And women who were another level of independent because they had to do everything while the men were away.
A total fun aside here is in my own family, brothers of one family married sisters of another so those families were double cousins. While those dads were away at war, my aunts and the 2 kids each family moved in together. One went to work and the other took care of the 4 kids. They became a very resilient family unit and lucky that both dads eventually returned, albeit one with a serious arm injury.
Back to being proud to be an American. During my lifetime I saw civil rights much improved, the end of Jim Crow laws, women’s rights start to take off. This greatly impacted me by being the first generation with birth control and ability to achieve as we chose, subject to the social limits, which moved in the right direction. I, myself, broke several glass ceilings at work by being the first woman allowed in the computer room and then various leadership positions.
I’m ashamed to see our progress crash so badly. I’m sadder yet to see the impacts on people of color, Jews, and gays. I want to get back on track of progress of civil rights and truly find ways for all people to live up to their potential. Oh, and I want to live in a country that values its children more than its guns.
I prefer to see progress as uneven - not crashing. There have always been fascists and haters. There will always be bigots. Recent events seem to suggest we are sliding backwards. I disagree. This year we responded with outrage and voted accordingly.
Now that the Nazis and would be KKK have revealed themselves, we are pushing them back down into the hole they crawled out of. It will be whackamole. But every year, there are more of us and less of them.
And we should remember that every year the majority of newly registered voters are on the side of inclusion, diversity and scientific progress.
Demographics and disgust with bigotry are on our side.
Great comment, Bill. 90% of the time this is my perspective.
I grew up in the '50s and '60s in an all-white suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, and know deep in my bones that this nation has made a helluva lot of changes for the better in my lifetime. The magnitude of that change is why the Trumpistas are so furious and destructive. Time is on our side. 3 steps forward and 1 step back.
A black woman (and ex-Marine) I know said this when Trump had been recently elected: "Usually a big and painful zit must come to a head before there can be healing. That is what is happening now to white supremacy." That perfectly reasonable analogy has helped me immensely in getting through the last 6 yrs. (As have RH and HCR!)
I do fervently hope that a phase to come soon is some form of reconciliation. I'd love to see at least half of white, rural, and conservative America (where I lived for over 20 yrs.) brought into the mainstream. IMO, they let themselves get brainwashed by FOX (for profits) and the GOP (for votes/power). At some point being fooled and dejected may start getting old. Isn't that how social progress often goes?
My other big question: How can I help with that reconciliation?
Thanks. And Thank you for your perspective. There may be a small chance of reconciliation - maybe 15 to 20% - probably not half. Most of them will die with hate in their hearts.
What can we do to help? Vote, help to vote and stay engaged. There are going to be alienated white folks who just might see that this administration has done more for them in two years than the Republicans have done in 20 ... or 40 years.
Maybe someone in their family will get a great new job in the infrastructure or green energy sectors. Maybe someone in their family will suffer because of anti-women legislation. Maybe a friend will have trouble voting because of some silly restriction or inability to get to the voting booth. Maybe the new GQP US House will make such fools of themselves, their craven and crude selves will be revealed.
You can bring a horse to water, but... for example. Look at the map at the following link.
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/maps-and-interactives/2021/jul/status-medicaid-expansion-and-work-requirement-waivers
The Federal Government has offered to pay for healthcare for the poor and yet quite a few states have refused to HELP their OWN CITIZENS because the program was passed by a Democratic majority. If you live in one of those states, perhaps you could chat with some white Trumpers about why their GQP leaders hate poor people (poor or disadvantaged - no fault of their own). That is one that boggles my mind. Of course, many of those denied assistance are white. But what percentage are people of color? You see where I am going.
For now, I choose to encourage the next generation and outvote the old haters. They will fade away. Young people will marginalize them.
We will get there. We will move ahead together as we lift upwards those who travel with us!
--->>> "Oh, and I want to live in a country that values its children more than its guns." <<<---
What a grand and open profile depicting the lives of so many Americans. And yes what a kick it is to be double cousins. Our own personal DNA lab.
G-D bless you, Robert, and Jill and your entire family. You are a miracle, an inspiration, an adventure, an awakening spirit, an “old soul.”
I dedicate Joni Mitchell’s song, “Woodstock,” to you!
“...We are stardust We are golden And we’ve got to get ourselves Back to the garden.”
May the bombers turn into butterflies in 2023.
"From the moment that the first cell twitched to life 3.7 billion years ago, every one of your ancestors over the course of billions of years had to survive and reproduce in order for you to be here today."
So true, and yet so difficult to swallow. I remember first thinking about that when I was 7, realizing it was incredible that I actually existed--that ***I*** was conscious, despite the odds against it--odds which I lacked the perspective to come close to fully comprehending. Yet I sometimes wonder if this is really true, or if any philosophers have theories that all of our consciousnesses were inevitable, because the odds against survival of every ancestor seem so overwhelming.
And on the other hand, my brother in law, and his and my sister's two sons had a very close encounter with non-existence in late October or early November of 1621, when their ancestor tumbled off of the Mayflower during a gale. Here's the story:
"In the fall of 1620, the Mayflower's ability to steady herself in a gale produced a most deceptive tranquillity for a young indentured servant named John Howland. As the Mayflower lay ahull, Howland apparently grew restless down below. He saw no reason why he could not venture out of the fetid depths of 'tween decks for just a moment...
"The Mayflower lurched suddenly to leeward. Howland staggered to the ship's rail and tumbled into the sea.
That should have been the end of him. But dangling over the side, and trailing behind the ship was the topsail halyard, the rope used to raise and lower the upper sail. Howland was in his midtwenties and strong, and when his hand found the halyard, he gripped the rope with such feral desperation that even though he was pulled down more than ten feet below the ocean's surface, he never let go. Several sailors took up the halyard and hauled Howland back in, finally snagging him with a boat hook and dragging him up onto the deck."
--Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower, a story of courage, community, and war
So much less dramatically, and yet, with its own drama of a different sort, had my father gone for graduate school to the University of Chicago instead of to Harvard, he would not have been present to flip over my mother the moment he saw her enter the statistics class on his first day of graduate school, and I would never have marveled, at age 7, at the beauty of the hill on which we lived in Seattle, and how amazing it was that I existed to perceive it.
Oh this was wonderful! All the moments of coincidence and luck that bring us into being!
David, I too am one of Howland's ancestors. He has a huge family tree.
I know. By my own estimate there are between 4 and 40 million alive today. (But my level of certainty on those numbers is low.)
WoW! Great share.
Two fine accounts. I read them both over the breakfast table this morning. Yowza indeed!
Yowsa, David; my eyes widened as I read this!
Thank you for your remark! Always good catching up with you, Leave me a text I’ve got something beneficial to share with you
+15754590814
Happy New Year to Rob, your Managing Editor, and to the whole TE Community. I'm an eternal optimist, who's also a realist. I believe good things will happen because I have faith that the majority of people in this country, and indeed, in the world, want the same thing... to have a positive influence on their neighbors, and to leave the world a better place than they found it. All good intentions, which, to date, we have failed at. But the future is yet to be written, and I believe humanity will step up and do the right thing.
That paragraph near the end about what it has taken for me, for any of us, to survive and be living at this moment in history, resonated with me. I have often wondered why, after three bouts with cancer, I'm still here. I'm not sure that I have what it takes to have a tremendous effect on the future of the country or the world. But I do know, that even though by all rights, I should have died four years ago, I've been granted the opportunity to care for my aging parents - my mother passed away two weeks ago, and my father lives with us. My prayer has been to outlive them, so I can always care for them. I've been blessed to have that opportunity so far, despite all probability to the contrary. I hope I can have many more years to see my non-binary kid continue into productive adulthood.
I also believe what has been told in so many time travel movies, that one small change in the past, can have gargantuan (and usually) catastrophic consequences. If that's true, then the tiniest things we do today, like a butterfly's wings, can surely change the future for the better. I'm resting my New Year's hopes on that.
Blessings to you all.
Thank you. I am with you as so many are!
💖🌺
A beautiful tribute to your humanity...
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~ Mary Oliver.
2022 has been another miraculous year. I could never have imagined that I would teach an Afghan refugee how to parallel park. Can whatever lies ahead beat that? Thank you all and Robert and Jill for all you bring to my life.
"...I would teach an Afghan refugee how to parallel park." 🦋wings
“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon” sang CSN of Joni Mitchell’s lyrics. Or “May the Force be with you”…. There are many amazing species (all!) on this earth, some, like Homo sapiens have curiosity and imagination (almost more important than intelligence IMHO) and that is a wondrous thing…..a thing that will not save human-kind with its hubris in most matters. Maybe, just maybe, there are other worlds of curious, intelligent, imaginative beings as well….I, for one, would like to know that, but probably never will. Important, tho’, that I can IMAGINE it…. Edit: Oh, and I should add my oft said statement: The only reason I want to live forever is to find out how it all turns out!
I believe there are.
A wonderful thought to add to mine. Thanks much!
At first, not having given birth to children of my own, I was feeling sad, left out. And then I remembered the chance I have many times a day, maybe right here, right now, to jiggle another person’s DNA (please take this loosely) to an act of kindness. Recognition. Appreciation. Perhaps simply hearing what another person has to say. And I will have made my mark through them in the days and who-knows-how-long to come. I remembered that tomorrow morning I will be leading a class in an embodied meditation practice called Sensory Awareness where people may discover that their feet are in relationship with gravity, and thus Earth, and at the same time in a Greater Knowing. a Spaciousness, our head in the Stars. Robert, I will bring your beautifully expressed sense of perspective with me into our class nine hours from now.
"...jiggle another person’s DNA..." Taken seriously 🤗
Thank you for your insights throughout the year. I wish you and your loved ones health and love in 2023. Peace on earth would be good too!!!
I’ll second that!
I found your remarks about the evolution of our planet and life on it uncanny because I was just thinking about the same thing in the book I am writing on the future of cultural memory in the era of climate emergency. Instead of the cultural evolution model than runs from primitive to civilized - totally debunked but it still underlies so much thinking - we might think of how amazing that the early life forms passed themselves on into us - we are continuous with them - you put it much better than I - and how wondrous to contemplate that early hominids developed and passed on so much knowledge to get us to where we are today. By which I mean, where we would like to go to keep the earth habitable and to thrive. Happy new year to all, and thank you again Robert for your amazing and inspiring wisdom.
I look forward to reading your book to be! May all good wishes follow you, follow all of us as we proceed!
Happy New Year to you and your dear Managing Editor . . . all things told, it's been a very good year!
I love your perspective! Thank you! Truly, we are each a miracle. Let us acknowledge that in ourselves, and every other creature, even those with whom we disagree.
Bless you and your Managing Editor for your beautiful, encouraging work. I look forward to reading you every day, and have found many ways to work on behalf of democracy thanks to you and the community you gave created.
A quick greeting to you and yours and sincerest wishes for a healthy and happy new year. Thank you for getting me, and countless others, through another crazy year!
May next year bring us the satisfaction I know most of us are waiting for 😁