Musings of a Middle Aged Man

According to Star Trek, space is the final frontier. I disagree. Yes, space is vast beyond comprehension. We will never completely know what lies amongst the stars, let alone understand a mere 0.0001% of the billions of galaxies comprising the solar system. The final frontier, in more ways than one, is death, the mysterious realm where all men and women have or will go when the life force decides to exit and find new vessels to inhabit. Death is a state of nonliving that has fascinated or terrified, possibly both, every person who has lived long enough to be consciously aware that they are an ephemeral being. Near the end, some do crave death as a release from debilitating physical pain, emotional agony, or are simply too exhausted to function another day. Some grow to accept, possibly welcome, release from their mortal coil. Others, such as the literary Dorian Gray, are willing...

When it comes to free speech, I am pretty much an anarchist, viewing speech as a an individual freedom, a universal right that must be free from state-sanctioned coercion or regulation. No central authority should have the right to censor or inhibit expression by an individual or a group. If there are going to be consequences for speaking, they should be social, such as boycotting or exclusion from the social collective. It must never be criminalized by a government authority or be subject to the state's legal system. About the only time the government...

The challenge with any cross-cultural dialogue resides in the reality that what we say generally has roots deep in our cultural context. It is a context in which we move seamlessly, unknowingly, not realizing the context is unknown to others, meaning any attempted dialogue is obscured by clouds blotting out foundational understandings. A couple examples should help clarify. It is common in Vietnam to point using the middle finger, an action frequently viewed as vulgar in the USA because it is seen as flipping a person off, a flagrant insult. Seeing that finger will blind an American to any message being conveyed simply because neither understands the other's cultural context. During my first ever international trip to merry old England, I found myself in Cambridge, England. It is joked...

I find it helpful to answer this type of question by first defining the terms, in this case, the proposed dichotomy between believing and knowing, to help ensure a common foundation from which to draw a meaningful conclusion. Knowledge is defined as facts and information acquired by experience or education, with facts further refining it to be something verifiable and, just as importantly, can be disproved, meaning it is also falsifiable. Unfalsifiable claims cannot, by definition, be tested, meaning they simultaneously explain everything and nothing. That which cannot be proven also cannot be disproven, rendering the statement or claim to mere speculation, neither true nor false. Belief is the acceptance of a statement as true, a firmly held opinion or conviction.

Daedalus and Icarus could very well be the first recorded instance of humans, the two men, and machines, attached wings representing a simple machine, were combined to form a man-machine hybrid in literature. Yes, it is a bit of a stretch considering the wings were not permanently attached. Edgar Allen Poe, in 1943, wrote a short story about a war hero who, it is gradually revealed, is almost entirely mechanical with an extensive series of artificial limbs, organs, and other integrated components. In 1982, an artificial heart transplant was successfully completed, replacing what is arguably the 2nd most important organ in a human after the brain, a distinction with...

The idea of "self" is multifaceted and complex. Self refers to an individual's unique identity and being, understood as a combination of one's beliefs, memories, thoughts, physical and mental attributes, and the subjective experience of consciousness. It encompasses both the "I," source of agency, and the "Me," the object of reflection, creating a continuous story over time. Key aspects include the narrative we construct to understand our experiences. The self is shaped by both genetic heritage and life experience, where the brain synapses change with the encoding of new information. It involves subjective experiences and consciousness illuminating the world, allowing for perception, thought, and feelings. Theories attempting to explain the nature of the "Self" have been proposed by great minds, including but not limited to Freud, Jung, and Maslow, across philosophy, psychology, sociology, and neurobiology. All include debates...

The idea that animals should have the same rights as humans extends back to the 9th century BCE, along with the principle in Eastern religions of ahimsā, non-violence toward all living beings, advocating for kindness and non-cruelty expressed daily by a vegetarian diet. I guess they did not believe growing, breathing plants were living. An odd prejudice, one arising because humans are unable to hear plants screaming in agony when being cut, plucked, or extracted from nourishing soil. I wonder how much the trees wail when the fruit, a parallel with chicken eggs, they lovingly bear are removed from their mother plant, and the seeds are consumed...

When thinking about the lasting impact of decisions or responsible planning, the impact on the future must be taken into account. Businesses typically have monthly, quarterly, and annual targets guided by a five-year plan and longer-term ambitions. A couple looking to start a family will, when buying a home, seek out a location that will suit their future needs. They look as far out as the schooling needs for the youngest of their brood, maybe beyond, and the potential for turning a profit when selling their empty nest to downsize and travel. The cowardly fools in government look at impacts only to the next election cycle, driving short-term, supposed benefit, while ignoring long-term impacts to people, environment, or budget, such as Cheetolini's bill...

As humans with only our singular, first-person experience as a reference, we assume everyone experiences the world the exact same way we do. My red is your red, despite the color triggering emotional responses based on unique genetics and divergent experiences. My sadness feels like your sadness, irrespective of the truism that each person grieves in their own way. My conscious experience is identical to your experience with consciousness, even though there is no empirical way to test that assumption and prove either convergence or divergence.

For as far back as I can recollect, I have been fascinated by religion, by man's attempt to connect what they view as the ultimate power and the many masks those deities wielding that power wear. I had already set aside the religion of my birth due to conflicting texts and hypocrisy of both the hierarchy and followers when I became captivated by the enthralling PBS series, "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth." It was the first time I was exposed in a systematic way to the role of religious mythologies used in societies, including the many commonalities and underlying themes in supposedly disparate religious traditions. The motif of a virgin birth, a central tenet of Christianity, has roots in the future birth of the savior Saoshyant in Zoroastrianism, the original monotheistic faith, Hinduism with Krishna, Hinduism with Ganesha and Durga, ancient Egypt with Horus, Perseus in Greek mythology, Mars in the Roman pantheon, and many other cultures and religions.

If I were forced to choose between being intelligent or exuding wisdom, I would opt for the latter. Make no mistake, I prize intelligence, love when I learn things, I can add to my knowledge database, I've been cultivating for some 64 odd years. I define it as the ability to grasp abstract concepts quickly, recall information readily, and solve problems. The problem, though, intelligence can result in poor decisions when reasoning is disconnected from deeper understanding, giving rise to the caricature of the brilliant scientist with a total lack of common sense. We see this in federal politicians who tend to be lawyers, a profession requiring enough intelligence to earn a law degree, but who routinely make horrendous decisions when proposing or passing bills into law because they cannot connect short-term decisions with longer-term consequences. A great example...

One of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV involved a neo-Nazi, white supremacist seeking to create an all white enclave in North Dakota. To be clear, I do not condone in any way, shape, or form white supremacist ideology or any other reason one can conjure to prejudge another human being. He was ranting about nonwhites being inferior and raging against what he termed the ethnic impurity when races interbreed...vile shit in general. On this show, he agreed to a DNA test to prove his own racial purity, only to discover before a live audience that he carried 14% sub-Saharan African ancestry. In the span of a few minutes, he rolled through the first three stages of grief, shock, then denial, claiming the numbers were the result of noise in the system, therefore inaccurate, soon followed by storming off the stage in anger. All the while, the laughing audience jeered loudly.

The intrepid crew members of the Star Trek Enterprise bravely signed up for a five-year mission to explore life, seek out new planets, and survive. Unbeknownst to them, it was unlikely the red shirts would explore beyond one episode, a fact that may have altered their choice to join the crew, were they informed when they enlisted. I wonder if that would have altered their choice? In the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov, the explorers had a 1,000-year plan, meaning the original colonists would never again return to their home planet and reunite with those left behind. I took a two year contract to work and live halfway around the world in a culture virtually unknown to me...

I have dabbled with being disciplined frequently over the course of my 60-plus years and counting. By discipline, I do not refer to hiring a prostitute to dress up as a nun who paddles my pasty ass to get aroused before having my body ravaged by wild intercourse. Nope. I mean self-discipline, training myself to do something in a controlled and habitual way to achieve a goal, such as when I attended university and set aside significant swatches of time for exercise, studying, and working, ensuring I could keep pace with my chosen curriculum. I was a commuter student traveling to and fro for a few hours every day. Any available time had to be sliced and diced...

The concept of permanence with respect to humans can be interpreted in at least two different ways. One permanence implies the person in soul form, a soul which God has foreknowledge prior to existence, enters the physical realm at birth in the form of a body, exists at death to persist in an afterlife divided into a pleasant place and a not so pleasant place. The final destination is dependent upon the karma of a lived life. Good karma means...

Independence is the ability to function autonomously and make decisions for oneself, while interdependence is the state of relying on and being relied on by others, often in mutually beneficial relationships. Symbiosis is an extreme form of interdependence wherein one species cannot exist independently of another, such as with the Pronuba moth and the Yucca plant. The female Pronuba moth pollinates the Yucca flowers, which is crucial because the morphology of Yucca flowers makes self-pollination nearly impossible. In return, the moth...

The beauty of the human mind, a characteristic arrogant fools claim is exclusive to humanity, is the conjuring of imaginary realms to mentally explore while the physical being, relaxing in a comfy chair, remains in a state of stasis. I don't believe imagination is a human only capability. I am not alone in this supposition. Science has shown behaviors in dolphins, chimps, rats, gray parrots, and, my personal favorite, corvids, especially the stately raven. There is a peculiar raven named Mortimer with whom I have had deep conversations on those rare occasions that he is not distracted by shiny objects or a freshly opened bag of spicy beef jerky. However, our interactions...

For a significant part of my life, perhaps from birth, I was a contrarian, typically taking an antagonistic stance against the prevailing winds of the day. I don't know if I am genetically predisposed, though I strongly suspect I am, to go against the flow or something in my environment trained me to embrace the struggle upstream rather than float downstream with the flotsams and jetsams. I suspect it was a combination of both genetics and environmental influences. I was born with a strong "I won't" that found me regularly refusing to do the simplest tasks without fussing. As a child of the 60s, my anti-establishment perspective was exacerbated as I, by osmosis, absorbed...

Truth is generally defined as something in agreement with fact or reality. Correspondence theory states that truth occurs when a statement or belief corresponds to the reality it describes. A critical nuance missing, though, is one of perspective, of context. Perspective can render one man's number six, another woman's number nine and vice versa. These two distinct realities mean there are differing true truths. In each case, one truth makes no sense to the other truth holder. The subjective nature of reality carries the baggage that truth is...

I imagine a question of this sort first arose when one would be ancient philosopher peered out of the window of the brick home from one of the first human settlements, looked past the central temple complex dedicated to Enki, the god of wisdom and water, past the settlement's boundaries, where a hunting party was returning carrying gazelles lashed to long sticks with their mouths open and tongues lolling, then looked beyond into the wilds and wondered why she felt the tug to abandon the city and disappear back into the steppe. Wondering why...

A fundamental flaw in the question, despite being uttered by the renowned astrophysicist Carl Sagan, is the presupposition that there is only one universe. Modern astrophysicists theorize that the number of universes is in the realm of 10 raised to the 10th power raised to the 16th power. A number so big, it is essentially infinity. I have difficulty wrapping my head around one observing infinity or with infinity collapsing into one. So, the answer I posit, will be under the caveat...

I have been enthralled with the visual arts for as long as I can remember, paintings and photography primarily. I am also intrigued by ceramics and sculpting, but not enough to try my hand at either. I would like to try turning spalted wood into a stunning bowl or vase. I lack the space for even a halfway decent lathe and the myriad tools necessary to perform turning magic. Primarily, though, my joy (and envy) come from people who can capture or arrange color in a perfectly framed photo or in an appealing aesthetic in a painting, such as the oil painting...

One of the life challenges humans must navigate throughout our lives is the effective management of our egos. The ego drives multiple life decisions, particularly when it is in some way challenged or offended by a second party not privy to our inner machinations. Without conscious thought, the ego, triggered unconsciously, reacts irrespective of the odds of coming out the better in a confrontation. A bruised ego will bite

If I had to venture a guess, I would say the meaning of life question has been around since the dawn of consciousness. Following fast on the heels of the statement, "I am!" came the question, "Why am I?" and has been an overarching concern ever since it spilled off a hominid's tongue. There is evidence the Neanderthals buried their dead ritualistically, so it may have occurred to them long before Homo Sapiens had the same thoughts. It is plausible Homo Sapiens learned...

I have heard a few possible answers to this question. The are two primary positions. Theists claim the mind, euphemism for soul, is primary, with the body little more than a temporary vessel in which the soul is forged by God's holy fire. The discarded body is destined for the pyre or an eternity trapped in a coffin after the soul departs and returns to its true home in Heaven. From a biological perspective, by existing, the body is animated by a life force, with the conscious mind a natural offshoot of the body's anima. The first position is called Dualism...

As infants and into toddlerhood, our brain embarks on a developmental course with an extraordinary burst of synapse production, a process known as synaptogenesis. Our minds rapidly absorb knowledge and experiences at an age when we are not mature enough to differentiate between the keep because it is helpful, discard because it is detrimental. The subconscious takes in all and stores all for future application when the frontal lobes are more fully developed. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for higher reasoning, reaches full maturity around the age of 25. That is...

Humanity is so prone to making mistakes that there exists a quip that goes, "To err is human. To forgive is divine." Even the quip contains errors where it presupposes a divinity exists and that the divine deity cares two rat turds about humanity enough to embrace the concept of forgiveness for we petulant apes. This thinking is foundational to one of the two greatest errors humanity has made and continues making, although there are growing legions learning from this horrendous mistake, allowing them to escape mostly unscathed. Thankfully, they are creating a wee bit of hope f

Literature is littered with parable type stories about people who employed underhanded methods to wrest immortality from the gods and make it their own. Because who wouldn't want to live forever? In all such stories I have read or seen on the tube, the outcome undermines the wannabe immortal and a crucial lesson is imparted to the audience. All, that is, except the Highlander Movie series, where the prize for winning the immortal's game that is bestowed upon the immortal is the gift of mortality.

I was raised in a faith system that viewed humans as inherently wicked, starting with the purest infant whose soul was steeped in original sin, a blemish passed down through Adam and Eve, afflicting every person ever born, save the Christ, who was purported to always exist without the stain of sin, either original or committed while alive. Other traditions in the same faith line extend the inherent evil and see depravity not only in all humans but also extended to the natural world to include the animals and plants that live by their own moral standards, where nothing is codified in law, dividing should from should not, good from bad. There are still other traditions in conflict with my natal faith that purport the drive to indoctrinate children into their way of being is an evil action because it denies the essence of the individual. The question boils down to, by whose standards do we draw the capricious line separating actions judged good from evil actions?

I was indoctrinated into the Catholic religion long before I had the maturity to make an informed decision, a conscious, rational decision as to whether or not Catholicism aligned with the unique rendering of my soul. It started when I was a few weeks old, placing me permanently on the double secret catholic rolls never to be expunged. The overt persuasion continued through my vulnerable years with parochial schooling and being frog-marched to weekly mass well into my teens before I found a way to sneak off to the arcade in lieu of my weekly obligation. Ironically, the faith is predicated on the concept of free will, but my malleable mind was not given a choice to opt out of the lengthy brainwashing. Thankfully, I developed a fortitude to fight the good fight and think freely...despite the mother voice nagging at the base of my skull.

American Pie is an epic song, the classicest of classic rock, an iconic tune from my generation, a defining ditty dominating the 1970s airwaves despite being considered too lengthy for radio. It was populated with enough imagery to fill multiple poems, none of which would be as impactful as the same lyrics set to engaging music. It encapsulates both the spirit and anxiety rippling through the American Youth following the tumultuous 1960s. It is still one of my all-time favorites, earning it a rare place on my End of Days playlist, to be played in full at any memorial service held to mark my passing. Before that, it will be the soundtrack on repeat wafting o'er my speakers while the space between my breaths lengthens and I exhale my immortal soul where it will disperse for reuse into the universe or to float disconnected for eternity.

I have recently become enthralled by the BBC Human 2025 mini-series. The five episodes, narrated by Ella Al-Shamahi, examine the history of six human species that were in existence over the past 300,000 years. The series progresses chronologically from origins in sub-Saharan Africa through their wandering across the globe into virtually every ecosystem before eventually choosing to abandon the nomadic life and settle into villages that grew into dense population centers.

Man's closest ancestors and parallel human species are the Denisovans and the Neanderthals, both with whom we share a common ancestor. The split occurred some 550,000 years ago. We were genetically close enough to both species to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, as evidenced by the 1-2% Neanderthal DNA found in Homo Sapiens, modern humans, except for the sub-Saharan Africans who contain virtually none to no Neanderthal DNA. Similarly, modern-day Melanesians have 4-6% DNA in their genetic code. There is no evidence that the Denisovans worshipped any gods, whereas the Neanderthals had burial rituals that included placing tools and ornaments with the deceased in their graves. This shows in the fossil record from 70,000 to 100,000 years ago. Homo Sapiens have had and have worshipped copious gods to the tune of an estimated tens of thousands of gods.

Sometimes, when the weather is too miserable to be outside and my daily meditation writing has been converted to bits and bytes, I scroll through YouTube videos picking up bits and tids of interesting information. Most videos are relatively short, making it extremely easy to fall into a video vortex, losing hours that can never be recovered for future investment. One of the YouTube rabbit holes I lose myself in, centers on the increasingly common debates between theists with atheists. I find the debates between the intellectually brilliant minds of atheist Christopher Hitchens and his ilk with the equally brilliant minds of theists who are hobbled by dogmas requiring a certain amount of cognitive dissonance to shoehorn into their otherwise cogent arguments.

The Bible is rather cryptic when it comes to identifying the antichrist. End time prophecies predict there will be a single AntiChrist appearing after the rapture, the bodily ascension of believers who were spirited away to spend an eternity with the Christ. The same verse, 1 John 2:18, also claims there are many antichrists amongst the target audience long before the rapture event. I guess there could be legions of small a antichrists with an ultimate capital A Antichrist appearing coincidental with the end times. Otherwise, the Bible is contradicting itself, a problem believers must find a way to rationalize away, as I did with the composite sketch. If not, the claimed infallibility of the BIble would be undermined, a shift in plate tectonics rightfully collapsing the faith upon itself.

Growing up in my era, it was not uncommon to hear the phrase, "Just who do you think you are?" This was not a query begging a metaphysical answer from our psyches. It was an admonishment to stay in our lane, to not get involved in certain things, not because we did not hold crucial information, but rather because our status was beneath the lofty realm in which we inserted ourselves. The question was obviously rhetorical, not one genuinely seeking an answer. It was a socially acceptable method to shame another into submission. Empathy was not a mainstream emotion back in the day, still isn't in some degenerate swaths of the population who view caring for another to be indicative of liberal wokeism. Putting that silliness aside, how would, should, could I answer...assuming, that is, the query was sincere?

There is an inordinate amount of inane chatter in the US claiming that the people of the country, the entire world, need healing from their fallen ways. By that, they mean that God needs to be inserted into everyday life via laws based on biblical standards so people can live moral and prosperous lives. It includes posting the 10 Commandments in school classrooms to indoctrinate the students into Christianity. They act as if words posted on a wall can make up for the bad example routinely set by Christian adults and Christian parents, most who claim allegiance to the Bible but have scant biblical knowledge outside talking head rhetoric.

It is natural for children to be afraid of the dark. The physical darkness, absent ambient light, forces them to navigate by tentative touches to get an incomplete feeling for the immediate surroundings they cannot see. Is the elephant a wall, a snake, a spear, a tree, a fan, a rope? The visual can say none of the above. The blind hold steadfast to their misaligned interpretations. It is, after all, what the hands saw and categorized for storage in their imperfect memory banks for later retrieval. It becomes their 'truth' despite being very wrong.

Our nearest evolutionary ancestors, the Neanderthals, existed for 400,000 years, during which time they successfully inhabited less than 10% of Earth's landmass. They lived primarily in Europe, Western and Central Asia, extending into southern Siberia. Their highest densities were in France, Spain, and Italy. Homo Sapiens, our species, has existed for 300,000 years. In that time, we have managed to inhabit 90-95% of Earth's land surface. The only areas safe from us are Antarctica and other harsh, high-elevation regions. Antarctica is kept pristine with the help of international treaties. The highest elevations are by practicality. It is hard to survive in brutal cold, especially when ensuring access to food and water.

I have recently stumbled upon a BBC television series highlighting the scientific facts along with the cultural and emotional threads tying modern humans with the evolutionary past and the six other human species, born by Earth mother, that have existed over the past 300,000 years. Ritualistic behaviors were moderate in our closest ancestors, the Neanderthals with whom we interbred, as identified via intentional burials and body ornamentation with decorative pigments and feathers from specific bird species. Home Sapiens, modern humanity's only surviving species, engaged and engages in rituals extensively, so much so that it has become fundamental to who we are and dominates significant aspects of our lives, both in personal and communal routines.

The security in which an artist should never seek refuge is either personal or financial, which drives them to avoid provocative or innovative works, fearing backlash, censorship, or persecution with the corresponding loss of income. This can weaken the arts' impact on society because the art is safe. Safe art is not doing the job of art. Worse than that...

There are several adventures that have been on my bucket list for what seems like forever, but it is closer to forty years. Two were planted in my psyche by author Colin Fletcher when he wrote books about his 1958 walk from the bottom to the top of California and his book about hiking the length of the Grand Canyon in 1963. Those books placed both the Pacific Coast Trail and a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon as life goals. Other treks I want to experience are the 800-mile Hayduke Trail through the Colorado Plateau and the granddaddy hike in the US, the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail. Other adventure dreams are cycling the US coast to coast, summiting Mount Everest, though pictures of the crowded peak make it less and less appealing, and the four-day Inca Trail hike at elevation ending with entry to Machu Picchu.

Growing up, I remember being indoctrinated into the colloquialism that 'practice makes perfect' as a way to encourage the repeated rehearsal of actions or behaviours to perfect our ability to execute them as flawlessly as possible, with the ultimate goal of perfect execution. The fundamental flaw in the expression is that practicing anything imperfectly achieves excellence in imperfection, meaning the trend is towards becoming perfectly imperfect.

For a significant portion of my life, beginning from when I was eleven years old, my parental units owned a cottage in central Wisconsin lake country. Not blessed with generational wealth, we spent the majority of our vacations from the early days of tent camping, through a camper, eventually replaced by a prefab cottage, lovingly termed the summer estate, making visits easier and more frequent. Even with the cottage, I tended to erect a tent in the yard to avoid the noise of the crowded house. I knew when we were getting close, even with my eyes closed, due to the smell of water, intermixed...

I have posted over 4,500 blogs on the interweb and have written two unpublished books with a third underway, and have numerous other writings either collecting dust in journals scattered throughout my home or long lost in the scrap heaps of time. Estimating an hour per blog entry, the investment is more than 180 consecutive days of writing 24 hours a day, nonstop. Realistically, the two books written required several hundred hours each, equating to 60ish 24-hour days. Then there are the countless unposted musings. In all likelihood, I've spent an entire year of 24-hour days writing and editing. I am probably about 1,200 hours shy of the 10,000 necessary to master a discipline, any discipline. However, that is a byproduct, not the goal of my writing investment.

It is not uncommon to view birth and death as extreme opposites on a linear life continuum. But are they? This is a concept fitting the thought patterns of a Western mind indoctrinated in linear time thinking, not so much for a person inculcated into the Eastern mind viewing time as circular. Birth and Death could be envisioned as the same swinging door...

t is a long-standing and well-established fact that the majority of humans will experience Presbyopia beginning sometime in their 40s to 60s that will see them requiring reading glasses or some other form of near vision correction to see clearly in close quarters. By the early to mid-60s, the degeneration plateaus negating the need for stronger and stronger corrective lenses. My near vision does seem to have stabilized at a +2.75 correction. Strangely...

My first reaction upon walking through the Chaco Canyon ruins was to be struck by awe, awe and wonder, then marvel at the masonry still partially standing more than one thousand years after the bricks were carefully laid to exacting standards using earthen mortar between the carefully shaped sandstone blocks by ancient hands. Those craftsmen are long lost to the mysteries hidden by long time. The ruins were long ago relieved of artifacts by grave robbers, both amateur (petty thieves) and professional (archaeologists), leaving the crumbling buildings.

I have oft wondered at my visceral attraction to deserts despite growing up on the Midwest plains, frequently experiencing more rainfall than can be absorbed by the increasingly cement-burdened environs. I am not referring to the sand dunes comprising 20% of desert surfaces, although they do have their undulating charm despite hosting virtually no vegetation. I am referring to the other 80%, also barely hospitable, consisting of gravel plains, rocky plateaus, etc, in which dispersed vegetation armed with daggers, hooks, and barbs grasp tenuously to life. Along with a host of venomous animals, eking out a living. Even the rocks on the ground are known to bite and slice open the soles of feet or any exposed flesh by any unfortunate tripping and falling.

t is a well-established fact that the human animal seeks out patterns with which to evaluate our environment. In our prehominid days, pattern recognition was crucial to surviving life on the savannah, helping our ancestors avoid predators and recognize where reliable sources of water and food could be found. As we evolved, pattern discernment enabled them to interpret social cues, including facial expressions and gestures, crucial to group cooperation and knowledge sharing. In the modern era, patterns are used to solve problems efficiently by applying solutions from past situations to current problems. It helps us make informed decisions instead of reacting randomly to stimuli. At the neural level, the skill compares new input with stored memories, enabling the rapid processing of complex information.

I feel compelled to practice my art daily, be it planting seed quotes at the top of a blank page that will grow into handwritten essays with the pruning relegated to those later hours when my peak creativity has subsided from those morning devotions, or I am carefully laying acrylic paint on canvas when it is too cold to create outside, or composing the images that will be captured in my camera, or editing the photos to more accurately reflect my vision for their aesthetic beauty. I invest more time working on my art than any other activity, with reading a not too distant second.