Snowdrops are small white flowers from bulbs that bloom in late winter. We have a patch at the end of our driveway. With a mild winter they were in full display at the end of January before being buried in a couple of snowfalls last week. 

Here in New York we have seasons to remind us of change. Perhaps the metaphor of “death and birth” is a bit too romantic _ it really is “dormancy and rejuvenation.” The thing is, unlike the similar metaphor of sleep and awakening, the environment really does undergo vast and rapid transformations. 

Everywhere on Earth is always changing. Some landscapes vanish quickly in volcanic eruption or flood. Some _ like drought or invasive species _ take a long time. The more drawn out, the less we notice, day-to-day all seems normal. Seasons merely compress that sensibility into a yearly cycle of surprises. 

And, I admit, a fair amount of suspense, especially these days. Will a given tree or shrub survive the winter and leaf out again? Will certain new insect pests live through the lesser chills and expand their malevolence? Will even more birds and butterflies be missing or gone forever? 

It only took a few years for all the once thriving lobsters to vanish from Long Island Sound _ following the more extended demise of most colonial wildlife around here. Planetary tipping points are much in our minds. Sure some ecology will survive almost anything, but will we like it?

All that wrapped into a meditation on a quiet, overcast, cold February morning, with certain spring, but uncertain details, right around the corner.

On the one hand, it is easy to think of our lives compared to that of a relatively affluent Roman of 2000 years ago. Same brain, same body, same thoughts and a fair amount of various comforts. 

On the other hand – no nothing at all like. No plumbing, electricity, medicine, books (only rare hand copied scrolls) and lousy food. No sane person would make the trade. High on the list of things I would miss would be my morning cup of coffee. 

It has been wonderful during my adult life to begin each morning sipping a cup of steaming coffee. Nothing fancy, often instant. Taking the half hour or so as caffeine kicks in and my mind regains focus. A personal ritual as sacred and meaningful to me as any Eastern tea ceremony. 

The fact that coffee has been plentifully global for centuries, and continues to be relatively inexpensive, always astounds me. I take it for granted. Sometimes, as I begin, I do try to imagine it as a metaphor for our very complex modern trade system, and how fragile all the things we accept as normal really are. 

Finally, for all of that, to be able to concentrate on this precious instant between sleep and wake _ the other side of what many usually worry about. Ignore the possible futures good or bad and simply celebrate who and where I am. 

A lot to ask from a simple cup of black liquid. Yet it always delivers.

The ancients thought that a human was essentially a special mud activated by some god-given magic. Even after cells were discovered, people believed we were made out of protoplasm that could be activated or reactivated by electricity or prayer. Death was a knife switch condition that could be reversed with the correct impetus. 

Mostly, there was corporate flesh, an amorphous collection of limbs and organs, and the spirit which inhabited and animated this conglomerate. I admit I still intuitively feel that way. My mind seems to float well beyond my aging body. 

Medicine, however, advances and examines and has now found we are each composed of some 37 trillion cells. I have trouble understanding beyond 10, certainly get lost over 100,000. 37 trillion busy little chemical factories just doesn’t seem right. And any of them at my age can go horribly wrong. My true mind still refuses to accept a direct connection to them.

That’s the real problem. With the astonishing knowledge of the modern truth, I still think as the old superstitions dictate. Beyond those 37 trillion, it still seems there should be something more. An astounding number, that, but just a number.

I’m certainly a numinous trillionaire. But I can’t quite grasp what that means. Perhaps it is better that way.

I once had a boss who proclaimed “take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.“ Absolute nonsense, of course. If we take care of the big expenses, the little things are unnoticed. A wealthy person never cares about trivial daily expenses. 

All my life I’ve tried to take care of the dollars _ overestimate expenses for example, always round up. Expect big ticket items to cost (a lot) more over time. And _ for sanity’s sake _ have a lower limit _ $1, $100, whatever depending on my financial circumstances _ below which I don’t worry nor care at all. 

I apply the same rules to my health and particularly to rampant ecology memes. No, my recycling food waste will not affect the future of the planet. Picking up bottles or plastic bags as I walk does not save wildlife. The gas mileage of my car is inconsequentially polluting compared to airline trips of millions of other people. 

It’s not cynical. Because big problems require big solutions, and mostly those must be achieved by organizations, including government. A ban on plastic bags does make some difference. But saving pennies never bought a house or (these days) even a slice of bread

Taking care of pennies is simply an obsessive waste of time letting one mistakenly feel virtuous.

It would be difficult to explain religion to a being from Mars. Most people would agree it is belief in something transcendent and beyond daily experience and rational knowledge. But many factions claim knowledge of the unknowable and fight over the differences.

Perhaps that being would be amused at the variety. Or maybe puzzled that religions can be personal, cultish, widespread, rigid, flexible, tolerant, vicious, monolithic, fragmented, personal, cultural and infinitely varied. 

Obviously religious belief has value. People find guidelines and meaning to their lives and situations. It comforts the individual and strengthens bonds of sharing. It engages a sense of wonder at existence. 

Yet, the Martian would also note, there are “civilized” religions and those which are not. For one thing, a “civilized” religion recognizes there can be others, whereas an “uncivilized” religion treats “unbelievers” as insects. Most  “civilized” religions eventually cannot tolerate those which are not.

Given their useful qualities, it is impossible to eliminate religions. Given their intuitively transcendent foundations it is impossible to rationalize them. And given their basic irrationality, impossible to even standardize and stabilize over time. 

Our only hope is that they get along ok.

Most familiar animal species can be easily _ and anthropomorphically _ categorized. The faithful dog, the sly fox, the timid rabbit, the plodding tortoise. Whole industries of adult fables and children’s picture books are built on this pleasant, and often at least partially true, observation. 

People? No, they are entirely different. We each contain multitudes, with any one of that internal crowd in ascendance at any moment. Moods can make us angry, happy, anxious, ambitious, lazy, and on and on when confronted with what externally appear to be the exact same circumstances.

And long-term ambitions _ fortunately _ vary an awful lot. Once we climb Maslow’s pyramid, we use our free time and energy to pursue various options at times almost incomprehensible to one another. Money, security, solitude, production, love, meaning _ and so many weird combinations of everything. 

Given all that, it’s amazing we get along as well as we do. Having different goals lets many of us achieve modest success, instead of just about everyone being a loser. There are _ for humans _ many equally useful paths in the forest. Some, indeed, “less traveled by.“ 

So a toast to our complexity. We should be eternally grateful that you and I _ and all of “them” _ do not want the exact same thing.

I’m 77 and in excellent health. But I’m not who I once was, and I’m not capable of what I once did. Those who say “80 is the new 40″ are liars. 80 is a different kind of 80 than it used to be, but it is an age of dimming

As expected, my senses are less sharp, although adequately functional. I know my mind skips sometimes, trips over lost words, wanders in a void until I snap back. I help by joking about it with myself and my equally afflicted companions. We may be on the back side of peak performance, but life is still infinitely valuable and miraculous. And immense, compared to any other species. 

I try to be graceful about it. There are those who fight fiercely, who resist the idea that they are getting old, who sometimes strive to destruction. I pity them, mostly. Most of the advice offered to such elders these days comes from younger writers who do not have a clue.

The main thing is to accept the inevitable. Our civilization can be the best playground that ever existed for healthy people over 70. Lots to do, experience, enjoy. Things to accomplish. Even while taking it more easily and calmly than when we were young. 

However, I do think it is proper for the seniors to step aside and become advisors and audience, rather than doddering or brittle bitter leaders. 

The world, rightfully, should be regifted to the young.

Most people enjoy any excuse to get out of things they don’t want to do. Some people turn it into a lifestyle. Lately it appears the whole consumer culture has decided there is no future anyway, so we should all just laugh, spend, and be merry while we can.

It’s a traditional and natural reaction to catastrophe. During the middle of the black plague, with unburied bodies heaped high and almost everyone you knew dead or dying, it was quite rational to not care too much about next year. All disasters make us aware of the fragility of the usual situations we take for granted. 

On the other hand, it takes a contradictory perversity to be cynically unconcerned for the future when one is in the middle of the best times that ever existed. Well fed, long-lived people who by all measures are the wealthiest humans who ever bestrode the planet decide to spend it all right now, do no planning for anything, and ignore all sacrifice because _ well _ things will work out on their own. Or they won’t. 

Perhaps it’s the constant drumbeats of imagined doom. Perhaps it is the realization that each of us has no power among the eight billion surrounding us. 

Or maybe _ most likely _ it is just a cynical excuse to let us party hearty as long as we want.

For Christmas I bought Joan a new bird feeder to put on our window with suction cups. It’s stayed empty of birds (lots of seeds in it for over a month), until we bought another, more traditional one to put nearby. Now we have flocks.

Birds, you soon find out, do not “eat like a bird.” They go through a lot of seeds pretty quickly, demanding refills every few days. But it is a tiny bit of nature almost near enough to touch, the little sparrows and their cousins make us feel the world is a little better than we may be told by the media. 

Around here there are lots of crows, gulls, pigeons, jays, robins, hawks. I think the variety is less than it was 50 years ago. But I haven’t ever counted carefully.

The worst knowledge, for me, is not those birds around our house, but the realization that there are no safe havens left on Earth for almost any birds or other wildlife. As a kid I knew there were teaming jungles, undeveloped seashores, expansive ice shelves. Now, none of that is true. The havens diminish every year, but they are already probably too far gone. 

So as in so many nostalgic, eroding daily wonders, we accept the miracle of little feathered lives, and try not to think too hard about what may come. 

And of course, buy more food once again.

Common sense gets a bad rap these days. “Contrary to common sense” is as frequent a phrase in some journalism as  “it was a dark and stormy night” is in bad novels. Science, logic, “just the facts, m’am.“ No need for your silly superstitions. 

But I have come to mistrust logic more than I do my own common sense. I find some “facts” dubious, many too many “facts” irrelevant. My own intuitions are composed of an almost infinite set of experiences, each tied with each other, forming a tough fabric of how my environment works. And that bundle of intuitions is what I use to judge anything using common sense. It works quite well. 

The problem is not only that facts can be wrong, but that they can take on more weight than they should. The fact that immense numbers of people are killed or injured in car accidents does not prevent me from driving. Contrarywise the “uncommon” side effects of a drug may give me pause before I take it. I tie all my actual experiences into evaluating these facts.

And logic _ the narrative produced by certain arrays of facts _ is also suspect. The clearest examples are the stories spun out by lawyers and conspiracy theorists. Logical analysis is often far removed from common sense truth. 

Of all the worries I have concerning artificial intelligence, the greatest is that it contains no common sense whatsoever. Dangerous. 

That is my common sense take this morning.