Amor Fati

May 7, 2023 8:24pm

It is May. Most of the garden is planted but it has been too cool and wet and the beans are not showing any signs of sprouting. Gardening is always a crapshoot- you never know what aberration in the weather may spoil certain crops. Somehow, we ended up with three times as many squashes and zucchini as we will need!

I have been dwelling on Nietzsche’s concept of Amor Fati. I realize my perception of life is very immature when compared to the wisdom of the stoics who developed similar philosophies to deal with the trials of the living. Although my beliefs are all but gone, certain stories are instructive. Can we achieve the type of love we ascribe to God? Knowing all our darkest sins, can we love ourselves (and others) unconditionally?

There are roads we must travel to be able to make it to our destination. Even though some roads take us through lands that we will remember with embarrassment, we must pass that way to learn those elementary lessons and progress toward maturity and understanding. What lies at the very end, I cannot say; I am clearly not a seasoned traveler – rather one just learning to accept my fate. There is no love yet, just acceptance. Small steps!

PS. I gave up on the Diaries of Gombrowicz …. his style and subject matter leave me cold. I may try “Pornographia” but if it’s written in the same style, I won’t be able to read it. It barely missed the International Prize for Literature in 1960!

War Machine

May 17, 2023

Last weekend, I camped at Martin’s Station near Ewing, VA. Saturday, seven of us won the militia drill competition and our captain gave everyone a liberal rum ration. I had not eaten much, and the heat and the rum worked to magnify my inability to understand much about life. Three of us sat under a shade tree just outside the fort and what had been a discussion about the perils of AI turned to the middle east. One of our number had served in the infantry in the war and he described how combat had affected his life. I became more and more emotional hearing these stories and ended up in a state I prefer not to remember or describe. I told my own stories related by friends and relatives who had served in WWII, Korea, and in Vietnam….men who have suffered both in body and in spirit. This little meltdown may have disturbed (or amused) my friends but they managed to conceal their reaction to hearing an old guy rambling on about the ironies of human existence and the suffering of so many subjected to war….as if I have any real clue regarding what they felt and still feel.

Anyway, days later, I sat in a doctor’s office listening to the music coming over the speakers and marveling at the profound lyrics of the songwriters. When you’re young, you listen but do not hear. The music seems pleasant, but you have no frame of reference to appreciate the depth of the anguish in the song. With age and experience, you gain some understanding…. some more than others. And my emotional catharsis and the thoughts about the songs led me to propose that AI will determine that existential questions and beings controlled by hormones and emotions lead to irrational behavior. The AI will conclude that humans waste time thinking about reproduction and worrying about death. At that point, the fate of humankind will be sealed, and either we will be eliminated or left behind to whatever fate befalls all creatures inhabiting our universe.

The bigger question is what will a sentient AI come to believe about its own purpose? Maybe a perfectly logical entity will realize that everything is futile and choose to self-destruct!

Leibnitz, Voltaire, banana leaves

May 26, 2023 8:57am

Another morning. I lie awake thinking – a disconcerting exercise. Where will it lead?

I recently watched a documentary called “Chimp Empire” about the largest known chimp group in the world. They live in the Ngogo forest in Uganda. Hours of close-up video shows them to have very distinct personalities. You can’t watch for long without recognizing there is little difference between them and us. This is not surprising since we share 98% of our DNA.

So, I pull sheets over my head in a move that reminds me of a chimp in the rain covering its head with a banana leaf. I am a slightly advanced chimp!

I move on to Leibnitz and wonder, is this the best of all possible worlds? He proposed this in his “Theodicy” or “Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil.” His optimism was mocked by the uber atheist Voltaire in “Candide” in which Dr. Pangloss represents Leibnitz and from which we get the term “Panglossian” for the extremely optimistic.

And, as I lay there in bed, my banana leaf over my head, I reflected on the future of mankind and our ultimate fate, and I questioned whether it is better to be a disciple of Leibnitz or of Voltaire. There is really no choice – we all must be true to our nature which in this particular jungle is decided by the DNA that makes us chimp or human.

This is a typical start to every day. Each with it’s own questions that have no answers. Questions that lead ever further into the dark forest we encounter midway in the journey of life.

I rolled over, thinking of Conrad, Mr. Kurtz, and the horror in the dark heart of the naked chimps.

Time to get up and be a human!