Yesterday there was a technological program that I watched with some interest and, at the same time, a wistful knowledge that I won’t be around for the new shiny goodies of 20 years from now. Don’t misunderstand me. There is no sadness about that. It’s just the way it is.

Sunday afternoon I received a call from my long time secretary. Since retiring we have maintained contact from time to time but this time it was a contact I would just as soon not have had. She told me that she has just had surgery for brain cancer, a glioblastoma which is one of the worst forms of cancer with a five year survival of around 5%. Next week she begins radiation and chemo therapy.

When you work with someone for as many years, and as closely as we did, you develop a close relationship. She is like a sister to me and this news is like a punch in the stomach.

Today, the Fourth of July, marks the birth of the most unusual country that has ever existed. Never in the history of the Earth has there been a country so free, so successful and so generous as the United States. I’m proud to be a citizen of this country.

There are certain givens involved with aging… declining physical condition (very subtle in my case) is one, but there is also a mystery. Although the body is changing the “me” within the body is not. “I” feel and perceive in the same way that I did twenty, thirty and more years ago. I believe I know things that I didn’t then but the “me” within has not changed. This is so true that it is one of the biggest indicators to me that we are more than our bodies.

Passive acceptance of [a] teacher’s wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.

Bertrand Russell

I came across an interesting little discussion of Einstein’s religious beliefs. It drew a lot of comments, mostly heated, with one side holding him up as a standard of proof of God and the other as a standard of proof that God doesn’t exist. With my usual sideways approach to such discussions, it occurred to me that the real lesson from that discussion was not whether or not God exists but rather why it is that we need to turn to others whether they be physicists, priests or prophets, to tell us what to believe or to justify our beliefs. Why can we not decide such things for ourselves and why are we so determined to convince others of the correctness of our views and the fallacy of theirs?

I sometimes wonder if we ever really know another person or if we overlay that person with an expectation that is strictly ours. An extreme example of this would be the neighbor that the police arrest one day and charge with the murder of 15 people over a period of five years. Inevitably the people in the neighborhood describe him as “that nice Mr. Jones. So polite and friendly. I just can’t believe it. A quiet man but a good neighbor.”

At the other end of the spectrum, take a look at your spouse, if you’re married, or another important person in your life. Can you honestly say you have never been bewildered by their reaction to a chance remark? Could it be that you only know the person you want them to be and that your perception of them is mostly an overlay of that person?

I suspect that this is the case with all our relationships. We only see what we have a need to see.

People do strange things and, for the most part, simply accept them as “what we do”. Take clapping as an example. Why in the world do we bang our hands together as a sign of approval? Bizarre.

If you reflect for a moment you will realize that nothing is permanent…not me, not you, not the Earth we live on, no human relationship. Cars wear out, houses fall down, nations and cultures disappear. Indeed one day even the Sun which energizes all life on Earth will be no more and in its’ passing it will take the Earth with it.

This is neither a bad thing nor a good thing. It’s just the way that things are.

Who knows what will arise from our passing? Could you predict an apple tree from the death of an apple seed? Look at the seed and see the fruit inside? Note the faces of the people who will benefit from the death of the seed when it becomes a tree?

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

- Jonathan Swift