Conrad Memories from the Future

Padmini has brought us a topic oh-so-Indian today and I sit at the disadvantage of being surrounded by Indians as I write upon it.  Surrounded by Indians?  Where have I heard that before?  But, I digress ... I am neither Indian nor Hindu (in this life), but I rather like many of their concepts of the universe.  It is simply a statement that not being born to that tradition and teaching, I can only approach the ideas from a Western perspective, being American.  So, rather than being helpless, I approach it from the perspective I am born and bred to, the study of Physics, using its understandings to approach one of the core concerns for all beings, the question of what does all that happens to me come from and what is its meaning. Padmini picks the dilemma well, for it is argument between the accidental universe with randomly created physical laws and results and the argument of meaning in greater depth in the affairs of man.  In the first case, events just happen in sequence and so it w

  A true global pandemic in modern times is a rarity, especially one claiming so many lives, although the HIV/AIDS pandemic has claimed 30 million lives.  Each brings humanity itself into a glaringly sharp focus hidden during calmer times. AIDS is a nasty example of how we cheaply and cruelly protect our psyches.  We compartmentalized and made it a gay man's disease and thus, those of us straight could conveniently set aside emotional trauma.  It affects THEM, not us! That cheap compartmentalization comes with a price, a price of bigotry and cruelty, a price of the loss of part of our human compassion.  It is easier for those who have already compromised those qualities, but it is common to many.  It is especially easier to cast evil and stress onto someone we already have decided was evil anyway, such as the judgment of evil on the gay man. Covid-19 had an evil straw man in America, the entire Chinese population.  Every time it is referred to by a leader as the China Virus, it is

  Many sit in awe of our universe, me included, and others think it is ... well, it just is!  It colors our view of space exploration, an expensive proposition from either view.  After all, don't we have enough problems right here on Earth to deal with without some pie in the sky (or beyond) expenditure with no guarantee of either success or tangible benefit? Personally, I have learned to understand and even appreciate the priorities of those questioning such expenditures.  It has taken me a while to get past my childhood dreams of someday watching our trips to outer space and learning what we find there.  And when I'm talking about childhood, I'm talking about pretty early childhood coming from my primary grades.  When I learned to read, I read my Golden Books on the Solar System and my Willey Ley books on our first trip to the moon.  College years honed my appreciation of the actual science behind that exploration - I was a Physics major - and simultaneously sensitized me

  Above you see the look of the times.  It has taken its toll on all of us.  The picture is of individuals, individuals working to be brave - although a bit foolish, for they are too close together - and this is what we see continuously and have for over a year.  Individuals under stress, coping. But, individuals together form families, form businesses, form communities, form nations, form a world.  Individuals compete for life meaning and sustenance and space with other individuals, with other families, with other ... and on and on.  They also cooperate all up the line in a constant give and take that composes the activity of life. Saints are born from the giving of life to others, despots from its theft.  Every level of organization continuously participates in the dance.  A pandemic puts all this in perspective, for all the human striving, something so simple as a mindless virus exposes vulnerabilities organic, social and international.  It does not care about vanities, for its mind