My wife, Gigi, and I have been living with her diagnosis of an incurable - but possibly arrest-able for a few years, cancer - since the first of this year. Given the recurring challenges that presents and the ever-looming specter of death, it isn’t surprising I find myself frequently thinking that through. My first realization was that, though I am 99% focused on helping her physically, emotionally and spiritually, there is no guarantee that I will survive her. I could die suddenly or fall ill, into a slow decline unto death myself. As I am extremely grateful for being able to be of help to her, the thought I might become unable to continue, is terrifying.
As I do these many daily tasks, I also peruse the daily “news” and, more importantly, posts on Scanalyst. The latter is, of course, a far more rational and superior means of keeping in touch with reality. Do today’s “news” organizations even attempt to encompass a picture of reality via synthesis of “the happening world”, “context”, “continuity”, or “tracking with closeups”? Of course not; instead they are about the business of pile-driving agendas and narratives into the heads of todays “educated” citizens. Scanalyst helps me see through that. Accordingly, as some thoughts become clear to me, I set them forth here (sorry they’re so long), in the hopes that sharing them, some of you of Scanalyst may find them useful.
In passing, I must mention a recent thread on Scanalyst - “Mearsheimer rustling everyone’s jimmies”. I see there clear understanding in what he says about Russia/Ukraine. Yet, when it comes to Israel, he studiously excludes the fundamental reasons for Israel’s actions. When he describes Israel’s attacks on Gaza, it’’s as though the Israelis, having nothing better to do, decided to make war on Gaza and kill only women and children. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they must have perfected highly-advanced female- and child-seeking missiles in their blood lust.
Literally smothered in the mountain of lies, historical revisionism and propaganda (no anti-semitism, of course), is the simple fact that Israel would be glad to live in peace with its neighbors. What has been said for more than 50 years is the simple truth: If the Arabs would lay down their weapons, there would be peace; If the Jews laid down their weapons, they would be exterminated”. This obvious, age-old injustice, heads the list of reasons for my pessimism - coming as it does, a mere 80 years after the Holocaust. Based in solipsism, the ‘west” is in total denial of the kind of hatred on display abroad and, most sadly, at home (only hatred of Trump and his supporters by the “peace-loving woke” comes anywhere close).
Looking back over my life from age 80, I can see how I adapted to the many changes throughout my life, by variations on a theme I learned in childhood. For instance, I was often able to wait out impending fears (like a bully at school) by telling myself something like, at its simplest “If I can just get through this day, the problem will decrease; after this grade, the problem won’t be there next year”; or next period, or next season or in the next school or after I graduate, etc. Most all my problems, I believed, would diminish with passage of time, as measured by certain regularly-occurring life events - often long term goals. I think most of us have had many similar experiences. In adulthood, similarly: after this campaign is finished at work, after I change jobs, after the holidays, etc. Mental mechanisms like these are common, mundane adaptations.
Until now, that is. It no longer fits for me. To borrow a law school word, it’s inapposite. That’s a judge’s word when declining to follow a prior case cited as a precedent. It means that the case put forth is not sufficiently similar to the case being heard as to be useful as precedent; either the facts or the law don’t line up. They just don’t fit, or it’s not pertinent or relevant anymore. In this instance, it seems my future has clawed itself backward in time so as to all but subsume the present moment. There isn’t much future left to shirk into because there are no landmarks left in that unknowably-abbreviated future. I’m talking here about stark awareness of my own impending death; born in 1944, I have already exceeded my life expectancy of 70.4 by about 13% and I have several medical problems.
Until recently, rather than unimaginatively whistling past the graveyard, I have been relying on humor as a defense - saying things like I was counting down my remaining life in increments of 90 day prescription refills. Or, I’d say I wonder which big box purchase at SamsClub would outlast me this time. I sometimes wonder who, among those I grew up with who survive me - from my young life - would know of my exit, even as I now know of those who died before me.
I find something very mysterious about that knowledge of their deaths - something, that I can’t really describe - something ineffable comes with knowing of the end of someone I knew in youth - with clear memory of all their vibrancy, intense aliveness, their hopes and dreams - and that their story is now irrevocably over. I and others who survive them know something of the beginning, the middle and the end of that individual’s life. Their story is now completely written, and I find a mystery in my knowing that fact which I can’t articulate. I haven’t succeeded in figuring it out, but I sense it is of great import. It partakes of the fact that I know their whole story; they didn’t get to know mine; that others will know mine, while I will be unable to reflect back over my entire life; does any of it matter?
In the past, I worried whether we would outlive our retirement savings, despite the fact that we always lived well below our means. That was, in part, temperamental (learned from parents who lived through the Great Depression), but also the result of our longstanding desire to leave resources for our children and grandchildren. That, in turn, grew out of our assessment of the trajectory of the erstwhile-united States (and the difficulty of leaving and taking our whole family with us) and the likelihood it would fall on long-term economic hard times and/or self-destruct. That worry over savings has evaporated, at least since my wife’s cancer diagnosis. It is now highly unlikely she will outlast the savings and I no longer care - in light of that fact - whether I outlast them or not (it is unlikely I will outlast them either).
I quickly adapted to Gigi’s diagnosis by willingly constricting myself to a single mission: my life mattered only to the extent I remain alive and capable of helping her physically, emotionally and spiritually - through this roller coaster ordeal. After that, I don’t know and I’m not sure I care. What I do know is that I literally rejoice that my spontaneous and overriding feeling during this ordeal - most surprisingly, given my prior critical assessment of myself - is gratitude that I am capable of doing it and that I WANT TO do it. I have long known that I am unable to cause my next feeling state through will power. This aspect of cognition has a life of its own. That is to say, I could not have willed myself to be grateful, so I rejoice because it feels like a gift which was given me through no effort of my own. At the same time I continue to take care of myself - mostly through 2 hours of aerobic exercise/day - in an effort to preserve my own health to the extent possible. I can’t say I eat a consistently healthy diet, though. Eating is the only physical pleasure which remains available to me. I alternate between “anything goes” and low carb, low calorie - in such a manner as to maintain my weight, thanks to John Walker’s “The Hackers Diet” chart function with 200 day moving average.
Nonetheless, out of my habit of of marking twain my worries for so many years, by life’s next anticipated way station, I still recur, reflexively, to that familiar kind of thought process. Whenever I find myself projecting any present problem into the future, I realize that such thinking is no longer apposite (there’s that legal word again, though reversed in polarity). It is just not pertinent anymore, not applicable, it doesn’t sit well with previous strategy - because for me the next way station is “the peace which passeth all understanding” - from which so far as I know, there is no looking back to mull over how things turned out; whether all that worry and planning had actually been necessary or helpful.
I am aware that an essential part of who I am is he who looks back and tries to find the context and meaning of all things of which I am aware. I’m a Scanalyzer (thought a most limited one)! I try to think of all this non-linearly, though I am most restricted in that attempt. This is but a limited, humble mortal’s tiny effort to catch a pixel in a single frame of what God sees streaming in 1028K through a 360 degree lens (if more dimensions exist, then some multiple of that panorama as well). In old age, I realize this constant companion - this longing for total understanding and context of everything - has been at the heart of my search for God. Having been made in His image, why wouldn’t I want to see all of Creation as He does (Even as I write this, with ever-increasing understanding that my intellect is woefully inadequate to the task, I also suspect how silly it is to assign God a sex, by using a male pronoun [don’t get me started on that!]).
The ancient phrase “created in the image of God” has recently caused me to ponder the nature of human curiosity. Isn’t it an ontological, central component of what it means to be human? My recurring focus is attempting to understand everything. I see that same focus in others who share their own inner workings, so that others may similarly gain understanding. Since I began this line of thinking, I sense it is all-encompassing as to everything I observe - animate and inanimate. What is it made of? How did it get there? When did it begin? When will it end? What will it do or how will it be used? What is the entire life story of that object, person animal, microbe? When, how and by whom was it named? What role does it play in the entire chain of causation both locally and the to universe at large? What I’m trying to assert here is my suspicion that human curiosity is rooted in a desire to become God-like in our knowledge and understanding of everything (I’m not reiterating Homo Deus here). Was it Jesus’ biography and knowledge which was resurrected, rather than - or in addition to - his body? If so, this is indeed hopeful in an era where our thoughts, words, images, and ideas can be preserved and widely shared (Google et. al. permitting) and preserved in time for all humankind. Is this what Biblical immortality is?
Yet, I still ponder mundane things like, how long will this prescription last, or when will we need more milk or eggs. On the generational scale, which I often mentally visit, I wonder: will my adult children be ok? Will they live happy, meaningful (to themselves, most importantly) lives or become pawns in some ideological war? Who will comfort them in their difficulties or when their time comes? How about our two Ragdoll cats? Will they be loved and cared for? They are bred to be pusillanimous house cats, so that even if merely let outside, they would perish. They are an epitome of dependency on human love as manifested by physical care (abortion is pertinent here, but I posted on that previously). I can hardly bear the thought of their suffering - as I can hardly bear the suffering of any living thing - whenever I focus on it. Too often for my own good, as well, I ponder the larger future, the BIG, BIG picture. I even look back and ask myself - what big events happened after each of my grandparents died (I marveled at their being born to horse and buggy and living to fly on jumbo jet aircraft); after my parents? What did each of them die never knowing? Again, a small part of that ineffable mystery.
What will I miss? What will become of the the world after I’m gone? Most pressingly to me, as my ancestors were Jews what will happen in the Middle East? Surely, that tribe of Jews who have been persecuted longer and harder than any other group throughout recorded history - whose well-documented historical ancestors created the only nation (The Kingdom of Israel) which ever existed on that land (before there was a Palestine and long before Mohammed founded Islam) - are as entitled as any nation to live together as a nation, according to their tolerant and decent beliefs and practices, in their ancient homeland. Surely, the surrounding tribal nations of Arabs can understand that same tribal desire - all 20+ separate, exclusively Muslim, Muslim- supremacist one of those (full fruition, judenrein, apartheid) nations. It’s not as though assimilation would be a problem for Palestinians - to live among their brothers/sisters whose Islamic cultures (where religion = state) - customs, foods, practices etc. - are identical. By any reasonable definition, following the League of Nations “Partition Plan”, isn’t Jordan already a “Palestinian” state? Did anyone notice or care that, beginning in 1948, nearly 1 million Jews were ethnically cleansed from their homes in every Arab country? The Jews’ fate in Europe speaks for itself, yet large number of self-proclaimed non*-* antisemites, deny anything much happened there in that regard.
Most every group of peoples in existence today, every present nation, has been conquered at some time in the past - occupied and either subjugated/blended genetically with conquerors or its former peoples exterminated. The legitimacy of the existence of every other nation on Earth is universally taken for granted. To do so is merely a question of arbitrarily ignoring some or all prior historical conquests at some convenient-to-the-narrative historical time. All such conquests are irrelevant as to every other country on Earth. Except Israel, which has itself been conquered and its tribe of Jews murdered and scattered, repeatedly over 3500 years. Yet, they have maintained a remarkable affinity for each other, based upon their beliefs, including the desire to reassemble in their ancient homeland. They have done so repeatedly. It is likely this would be considered an admirable trait in any other group of humans; we are, after all, a highly social species. As well, no other nation on Earth would be expected to not war on a belligerent neighbor, whose policy is to kill civilians - one whose very existence is explicitly rooted in genocide. This has been made clear in every medium, down to grammar school texts instilling in young children, the necessity to kill all the Jews! Gaza is founded upon exterminating its neighbor, not establishing a “two-state solution”. Why is there a different standard of self defense when it comes to only Israel? (The question answers itself for anyone with a shred of honesty).
What will become of the war between Russia and the west using Ukrainian pawns. Will it become WWIII with nuclear devastation? Western elites seem bent upon that course, employing their willful ignorance of the history showing the common origins of both “constructed” slavic groups of today. Haven’t they heard of the KIEVan Rus? When “social constructs” actually matter, western elites blithely ignore them when it suits their false narratives. I hope my children and grandchildren are not reduced to radioactive ash because of our arrogant leadership, who are incapable of understanding existential matters for any nation other than their (mis)perceptions as to their own. Have they forgotten the Cuban missile crisis? How missiles in Cuba were, with certainty, an existential threat to the US? Goose, gander anyone? A fair reading of Putin’s speeches, he makes clear why Ukraine’s NATO membership is incompatible with survival of Russia. As well, he makes it clear Russia is fighting to preserve its Christian and decidedly “UN-woke” cultural and social values. His statements in this regard are notably and explicitly tolerant. In addition to being coherent, his statements represent the kind of things we used to expect from our leaders.
US nukes in a NATO-member Ukraine, our leaders say, are no threat to Russia. Why was it, then, that NATO not only did not dissolve, but expanded east after the dissolution of the USSR and the dissolution of Warsaw Pact. Which side is signaling peaceful; intentions? It did so despite explicit and repeated assurances to Gorbachev and then Yeltsin that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward”. Russia has not expanded westward. This is another fundamental failure of our governance. These provocations are as reckless as, say, changing the name ‘Cuba’ to ‘Taiwan” and declaring itself a province of China. Under the Monroe Doctrine, this would automatically be an existential threat to the US. Might not Crimea come under a “Monroe Doctrine- like" prudent and necessary (for national survival) doctrine for Russia’ survival? Why not? Are there no general principles - applicable to all nations’ interests, by which the US will abide? What has become of US/NATO credibility when I trust what Vladimir Putin says, not what emerges from Joseph Marionette Biden?
Speaking of governance failures and their likely consequences: when will the financial house of cards based on fake money collapse? Again, I worry for my descendants. Will the present march of the new totalitarian neo- Marxist neo- fascism ever be successfully overturned? Does individual liberty have any future beyond the ersatz substitute of hedonic license? For that matter, does society - consisting of a voluntary association of individuals who have natural affinity for fellowship - have any future? Will a coronal mass ejection (or intentional nuclear EMPs) put an end to our information/industrial society in a few milliseconds? Will an asteroid impact cause mass extinction? Will strong artificial general intelligence escape and enslave or destroy humanity (or keep some of us as pets?). Will humankind willingly submit to becoming post-human entities of some kind? Cyborgs? A “hive mind”? Will it make any difference if, as Elon Must asserts, we establish a colony on Mars?
These and other literally Earth-shaking issues are coming to a head. It is not knowing whether these will be peacefully resolved which grieves me most about my impending end. To me, as ever a student of my times, I find it impossible to predict any of this. As best I can tell, we have arrived at novel inflection points on the curves describing human trajectories along numerous essential aspects of our existence. Given the pattern of wars of choice we have fought beginning with Korea and Viet Nam - none of them existential or even in our national interest (or successful), I can no longer think of us as the “good guys” we were in WWII.
A new religious fervor in the form of “scientism” and “revealed wisdom” have taken hold and actually taken charge at home in the form of so-called “woke” with DEI rubrics. It appears to me the deep state foreign policy establishment are also on board and believe they can coerce the entire planet as they now shove their new “woken” rubrics down the throats of the general public. Not content to bother with persuasion - either in foreign or domestic matters - this band of tyrants attempts to reach into and control the very thoughts and words of anyone, everywhere. The Russians and Chinese aren’t having any and we seem bent on provoking conflict with them. The history of such religious conflicts - and this will be a religious war - would instill great caution, had we prudent, rational leaders.
Those who don’t submit at home are de-platformed, silenced, or jailed on “Trumped - up” (what fortuitous nomenclature) charges. Can the guillotine be far behind? Abroad, being bombed or ‘droned’ is in the repertoire. The impending results of all this, unless soon reversed at home and abroad, appear to me to be disaster, but I will likely miss the ending. And I can’t just dismiss it as ‘not my problem’ just because I will no longer be alive to witness it, as I have children and grandchildren as well as hopes for our progeny and humankind, generally. It is important to me, whether or not my worry is of any historical significance, simply because I conceive of myself as single molecule in the river of life.
Indeed, if there remains something of my conscious self after death (this is possible, in that it is consistent with my late-in-life theism, but it is in no way assured), I suppose I would observe with deep interest and hopes for the best, for those who remain and those yet to be born - after I’m long gone. How, if it survives, will human civilization evolve? Though I expect no beatification after my death, I will if possible, pray for all those at the mercy of the great hidden worldly forces which have directed most human life since time immemorial and over which we ordinary folk have had little to no influence - except possibly through prayer.
I suppose my greatest hope for my posthumous self is to be given answers to the great questions - those which have been asked starting with our earliest ancestors - since they first looked up to the heavens in awe and wonderment. As well, new equally deep questions have been necessitated by our more recent predecessors, scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries - who first observed the similarly awesome universe within molecules and atoms, including the zero point vacuum. What is going on at that level of physical reality? Though that is a recently-emerging question, the more we learn, the more questions arise…
Stunning questions arise, as well, from the discovery of the digital coding in DNA and the molecular nano-machines which manufacture biological molecules, cells and organisms - life. Could these have possibly arisen through undirected, random natural forces? Can the tremendous amount of specified information contained in DNA possibly arise from anything other than mind? As of now, it is increasingly clear to me - purely as a matter of science and statistics, that random interactions of chemicals cannot possibly account for formation of even one single functional protein, much less the hundreds/thousands necessary for the simplest single living cell. Even if such random processes could succeed, statistically they could not possibly do so in a mere 13 billion years. That much is clear today.
Yes, we have acquired the ability to ask more and better questions, but our science has not found answers to the oldest and hardest questions. Why is there something rather than nothing? How did the universe begin? Could it possibly begin from nothing absent a creator? What is the nature of that creator - God? How did first life begin? Where did the tremendous amount of specified information necessary for even a single living cell come from? One would hope that the lack of these answers alone might instill a bit of humility in those with their hands on the pulleys and levers of power, who arrogantly and erroneously, cite “science” in making what are really value and moral judgments. Alas, their discovery of wisdom or humility seems unlikely. The fault is not in their stars, said the bard long ago. It is still in themselves. I hope it turns out well despite our present trajectories and I hope, somehow, whatever comes to pass, it may yet be within my ken.
President Donald Trump’s campaign says it raised $34.8 million in small-dollar donations since conviction.