Good Morning Sam (1)

 

Good morning Sam

 

It was great to hear from you, thanks for keeping in touch after all these years, what has it been now, 35?

 

Yes, I agree, there is a lot of chaos and uncertainly around us. As to what we should do, how we should respond; it seems to me that unless there is a transcendent ideal that is above and beyond what we may think and feel as individuals that we have no benchmark by which to measure our actions, words, and thinking, nor do we have a goal to which can aspire.

 

If I am the measure of what is right and good for me and you are the measure for yourself, how can we say that a third person, with his own measure, is wrong if he promotes genocide? We may protest that the policy is harmful to humans, but sadly we know that there is a hideous counterargument that it is necessary.

 

Then there is the logical argument that if there is nothing transcendent, that we are reduced to nihilism and if nihilism is true, then at the end of the day does anything really matter? That is, when we are dead we are dead and eventually everything around us will die and that will be it – the universe will be like a pub just before 2:00 A.M. with a last call for drinks; then we’ll turn off the lights, shut the doors, but instead of going home we’ll just vanish.

 

I have long admired your sense of beauty, equity, and order. Your appreciation for nature, your love for flowers and plants, the way you treat your cats, your logical mind – and I should also add your patience for me and my practical jokes when we worked together! But where did you get this?

 

I have friends on the “right” and on the “left,” and while they may vehemently disagree about many things, they all appear to love the beauty of a sunrise or a sunset – where does this come from? Has anyone ever seen Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon and said, “This is nothing”? “No big deal”? “Not worth seeing”? Where does this sense of beauty and awe come from?

 

Well Sam, just some thoughts.

 

Bob