Bits and Pieces
Notes from my journal -Early October Edition
One
The leaves are changing again. Chlorophyll has begun its annual retreat to protect the roots from the cold winter nights. This is a reliable process, a change you can count on as you move through life. Trees have predictable seasons like all of nature, including children. The seasons are more random, yet still knowable, like with children.
My daughter asked me yesterday to stop referring to the bathroom as the potty. She is seven years old and no longer has use for the word “potty.” She said, “It is a bathroom, Dad, and not a potty.” I thought about Bob Dylan’s famous words, “For the times, they are a changing,” as I wondered how I went from Daddy to Dad.
Everything changes, including the pace of change.
Two
I read something about our democracy this week that was so provocative I had to write about it here.
Did we get the Founding Fathers all wrong? Have we romanticized our history to the extent that everything we ever learned about our founding as a nation is merely a work of fiction based on truth? Did we correctly understand what our nation's founding fathers were genuinely trying to create? Was it an illusion of freedom they were going for? When you consider the Electoral College, it sure seems that way. Do we hero-wash them too much while ignoring personal legacies that included slavery, rape, and greed while ignoring the civil rights of people who were not wealthy, powerful, white men? If they did not live what they wrote about and went so far as to create constitutional loopholes that would enable future generations of powerful white men to continue saying one thing and living another reality maybe what we are living through really is the death spiral of a failed experiment? This is related to the ongoing Supreme Court jurisprudence arguments around the nature of originalism, textualism, and a living constitution. It seems the founding fathers set us up for a glorious conflict that is unfolding on a daily basis.
Three
What if humanity is an experiment created by an advanced civilization on planet Earth? What if we are all aliens?
Four
Can we conceive of an economic system that doesn’t lead to greed and a lust for power and control? If so, what is it?
Five
Should we update our education system so that kids are placed on skill-based career training or advanced academic tracks upon mastering basic primary education? What would that look like? How would it impact our economy?
Six
I saw an interview with the comedian Ricky Gervais, who I think is hilarious. He is an atheist, which I don’t mind, I am not, but he said something quite compelling, to paraphrase, “If all human history was wiped out and humans evolved again, we would no doubt have the same scientific discoveries, but likely, we would not have the same religions. Are all faiths purely human constructs and nothing more? And if that is the case, besides the wars, manipulation, control, abuse, and all the rest, does it matter and why?