I have been fortunate to have paired with Joan over the last fifty-odd years in a traditional marital and family partnership. I’ve read a lot of history and anthropology and I’m not sure how truly “traditionally monogamous sexual mating” is for our species, but it has worked for us.

On observation, partnership of one kind or another does work for most people. It seems to often be two, but usually under five. It is formed by common vision _ children, a business, whatever _ and kept intact by outside pressures which are greater than internal tensions.

A true partnership is forged in honesty, loyalty, equality and mutual dependence, although the details may be invisible to an outside observer. Lots of novels have been devoted to the permutations of this theme.

In my case, I find our codependencies have aged well. We were lucky to have bonded when we were both fully mature independent people. That has kept us both relatively able to ride out problems without additional severe friction.

Anyway, I note this mostly to celebrate my good fortune. And just a cautionary note of why I distrust any demagogue with a strange singular vision of how humans should or must live.

We would seem to be well prepared for mortality by the simple need to sleep each night. And it is certain that death affects those who remain far more than it does the actual individual who exists no longer. Yet I admit that as an elder who sees the end nearer and more clearly day by day, there is in fact something strange and dreadful about “passing away.”

Life must fight to continue each moment, and the complex beings which we are have evolved to require ourselves to project into the future. That is why the ultimate emptiness of not being affects us most. How can we contemplate a future in which we have no place?

The task is much harder for those with plans and responsibilities. So a classic solution has been to detach from all caring or ambition. All that seems to do, unfortunately, is eliminate the wonder of being fully alive.

Most of us reach a more or less happy inbetween state, very committed to continuing and striving, but also aware of all that is beyond our control. Facing mortality in such a manner is not all that different from dealing with the infinite problems of conscious life itself.

Easy to say …

That swift Achilles can never overtake a tortoise in a race was proved by Zeno with impeccable logic. That the logic was wrong _ or rather that its fundamental assumptions were _ could be seen by any spectator. And so, I wonder about the currently accepted and clearly logical multiverse.

There are many things in the world that prove to be impossibly complex. Myself surely does not feel like 35 trillion cells, each one a busy little molecular factory. Yet I accept it is so. There is a validity and provable use to the concept that goes far beyond math and logic.

At a commonsense level, the multiverse is silly, as is the idea that I am not one entity. But in the quantum reality of math, my hunch is that common sense is more like the spectator of Zeno’s race. Just because math can be made to fit observations does not mean that math proves anything else.

Speculating about alternate reality is, in fact, like speculating about angels dancing on a pinhead. “Oh no!” shout the physicists, “we have provable predictions!”

But I suspect their own complex irrefutable logic bears, in the end, a striking resemblance to that of a certain ancient Greek.

“Seek and ye shall find” is obviously silly. Even our popular fables of searching for such things as the philosopher’s stone, the holy grail, el dorado, or the fountain of youth tell us so. Seeking, we realize, is best reserved for what can actually be found. Defining the quest is certainly more important than rushing into it. 

Those who seek truth have a more difficult task. Some truth is easy along the lines of “will I fall if I jump off this cliff?” Some truth is forever obscure, mostly anything having to do with the future. 

And, more to the point, anything relating to our internal states or social evaluations. I would contend that there is very little absolute truth concerning, for example, happiness or morality. And, for most of us, “relative truth” sounds suspiciously like an oxymoron.

The problem is that we have equated truth with fact. A fact is easily provable or disprovable. We can seek it and get a decent answer. We may need to be careful about definitions, but in general we can tell one way or the other.

Truth has taken on a wider connotation and, while that is useful in itself, it is also dangerous to equate it with fact. There is no simple truth to trying to determine something like “fire is good” or even “you are my friend.”

Seek truth and ye will find confusion.

Our civilization seethes with contradictions. For example, strong efforts are being made to erase racism, sexism, ageism and the thousand other isms the mind is heir to. On the other hand, rarely has real life and the newfangled internet been so uncivil. Sometimes, it seems that putting others into categories and making fun of them _ or worse _ is just part of human tribal behavior. The most corrosive remaining effects of isms tend to be internal. Society can attempt to combat the most overt issues with legal remedies, but none of us can ignore that what we are conditions how the world sees us, For better or worse. 

Facetiously, I mention heightism, simply because I am quite short. It took a while to learn I would not easily pick up girls in bars, for example. Most leadership positions also tend to drift toward the bigger types. 

So we learn offsetting traits to be more clever or more obnoxious or whatever to compensate for  whatever innate handicap we seem to endure. And we are always a little envious of those born with silver spoons.

I believe all isms should be resisted tooth and nail. On the other hand, for me or anyone else to pretend I am not a short person and refuse to mention that fact is pure madness.

One of the most fatuous things anyone can say when trying to comfort another is that “everything happens for a reason,” Implying, of course, a good reason. 

But I do not accept that the sufferings and calamities of the world are orchestrated in a good cause. If they are so directed, an evil cosmic entity is at fault. 

Now I can easily intuitively believe that I have a personal protective spirit, who knowingly shapes my ends, perhaps choosing the best path for my spirit among infinite alternatives. But the nasty correlation to such a reality would be that everything and everyone else are merely props to my own well-being. That is a morally dangerous solipsism which I intellectually reject. 

Language constructs narrative. Some people are able to fit just about everything into their own story, making it useful and interesting. And like any good novelist, our consciousness can weave every event and circumstance that we encounter into a fantastic worldview which is much of who we are.

So certainly in my own life much seems to have happened for at least the reason that it helped to make me who I am. On the other hand, I am open-minded enough to think alternatives would have worked (or not.) Mostly things just happened. And later with much clever imagination, I could attach a meaning.

Cynicism is a protection against caring. It is not exactly a rejection or criticism, but rather a way to muffle sharp edges. Very useful, and quite dangerous.

Normally I am not much of a cynic. I do smell roses and rejoice in the beauty of the sky. I smile about every small child I see. I even, on occasion, think well of my neighbors.

But it is easy to slip. The sky is polluted and a storm is coming. Roses will be eaten by bugs and killed by November frost. Small children, like all of us, will eventually die, possibly horribly. So what difference does it all make? Letting such an attitude overtake our consciousness is pure poison and with a strong enough dose one might as well be dead already.

But like many poisons, a small dose of cynicism can make us a little healthier and more sane. It is good, for example, to be cynical about claims that are too good to be true. Good to be cynical about the various prophecies of even experts _ for nobody can predict any future with complete certainty. Good to distrust to some degree almost any human motivations. 

Ah, but adjusting the dose? That’s tough. And for a few, cynicism becomes addictive. Often caused by failing to enthusiastically regard the sky, roses, and small children.

The basic “crie du coeur” of conservatives is that “they just want to be left alone.” All is well with their part of the world. Protect their rights and their property with their laws and all will be well forever. Why in the world would anyone want massive changes?

Well, almost. They want to be left alone as long as everyone else conforms. Obviously the courts must stop neighbors from immoral actions, even if they never touch us directly. Immoral, by the way, is anything I personally don’t approve of.

Perhaps this approach worked in the days of the open frontier. But in our current crowded and interconnected civilization, “no man is an island” is a quaint memory. We have become like cells in a body, dead together if we don’t get along.

“Left alone” to use electricity, go shopping, improve our yards at the expense of anyone nearby. “Left alone” to enjoy being free of robbery and crime. “Left alone” to consume whatever we do not directly produce. What an absolutely thoughtless statement.

The old political labels, like many things, are obsolete. All we have left are the shells of slogans, screamed by the power-mad, supported by those who are truly (by wealth and power) in enough control to be left alone.

These essays are written a month or so before being posted, so perhaps all the excitement about a true AI chatbot has died down. After all, who cares if it can do what students and a few professional writers can do? 

Ah, but it is yet another massive revolution. Born near 1950, I have lived through several _ communications, computers replacing clerks, automation of factories. Few realize how profoundly today is different from a century ago. AI is about to do the same and more.

To begin with, it will quickly wipe out office jobs. AI and the cloud can fill out forms, track activities, and do everything in an office better than people. Wait until that unemployment hits.

But I also think it may gradually take over all intellectual exercises. It can correlate patterns, more quickly than human geniuses. It is possible there will be little if any “mind work” left for anyone.

What we will have left will be simply being animals. Exercise, hedonism, and politics. An awful fate, some may say. But very much like the ideas of classic Greeks and aristocrats through the ages

I predict, a very different civilization.

Revered ancient philosophers and even modern ones were, surprisingly, what most Americans would consider drones. The ancient male Greek intellectuals and most societies since have believed that having to work at a trade disqualified you from rational meditation.

As far as I can tell, the “great thinkers” of antiquity walked around talking and drinking and complaining a lot. A few of them had their words written down by other people. The great minds of the Enlightenment were mostly hanging out in salons and estates supported with incomes from remote lands. A few, of course, sponged off the wealthy.

Today our most influential self-inflated professional prophets work in education or media, which may at times be tedious or stressful, but is certainly not laying bricks, flipping hamburgers, or standing on an assembly line.

The internet, however, has brought a new set of drones to the forefront. People living okay, with some free time, who can now write and opine incessantly. I’m not sure if that is good or bad, but it is certainly different. As a retired person _ a drone myself _ who admires some of the ancient wisdom I remain confused, often fearful, sometimes optimistic.