Thursday, November 22, 2018

Two Months In ...

It has now been a little over 2 months since my daughter passed away. Over my lifetime I've lost friends, cousins, aunts, uncles, and both parents. Losing a child is qualitatively different. It's difficult to  describe how this is affecting me. I find that allegories help me to explain things. So I'll make one up…

Imagine you have suddenly and immediately lost one of your arms. Infection, or accident, it doesn't matter. It is simply gone. At first, everyday activities seem impossible; tying your shoes, putting on socks, tightening your belt, cutting food on your plate, driving, typing, even walking - everything seems almost impossible. Eventually, however, you learn how to adapt and adjust.

But every time you  perform one of those ordinary activities in a new way, you recognize that you are just adapting to dealing with a loss from which you will never recover. Tying your shoes - you can do it, but the very act of doing it differently than before reminds you of your loss. The same for every activity in your life. Almost every act, every day, reminds you of how things used to be, and how they are irrevocably different today and every day in the future.

And so it is for me every day. Every day when I wake, I know my child is gone. Every day I go to bed, I know my child is gone. Stories, and even commercials, with families or newborns tug at my heart more strongly, because my child is gone. News stories about children lost through accident, catastrophe, or crime are seen differently, with more intensity of sympathy for those suffering the loss, because my child is gone. Going to work, being at work, holidays, being home with my family are all now different because my child is gone.

Personally, I'd rather have lost the arm …

Sunday, November 11, 2018

On September 17 2018, the life of my daughter, Sydney Paige Archant, nee Archibald, ended. My beautiful, bold little girl found pleasure in so many things in her life - her horses, her profession, her friends and family, her pets, food & drink (especially in San Francisco).

But she also had many problems & traumas. First was my separation from the family. In my hubris, I believed I could still maintain a "normal" relationship with Sydney. I failed to anticipate the severe degree that departure would affect her. Her acting out during her middle teens that lead her mother & I to decide she needed a more controlled boarding school existence in order to guarantee her safety from her own actions. And finally, all her maladies & afflictions these past years. A broken back, a broken coccyx, her foot being run over by a car, and a long list of illness that seemed to defy analysis regarding their cause, but most of which seemed to be auto-immune in nature. Despite all this, she remained hopeful & strong.

Despite the broken back, she ended her first year of law school first in her class in almost everything. Despite her broken coccyx, she graduated from Boalt School of Law in Berkeley while also being an editor of their International Law Review. And she married Geoff Cant. Despite her injuries, she continued to work in her chosen profession in her chosen field of expertise. It was all a magical success for her.

The cause of her death has not yet been determined. We are awaiting the final Coroner's report. In the end, it doesn't matter the cause - she is simply gone.

It's difficult to explain how much this has affected me. I always had faith that Sydney was smart enough and strong enough to ultimately overcome any challenge she faced. I've had that faith since she was a small child. This is a pain that will never go away, and never lessen. It can be hidden, encapsulated the way the body will form a cyst around a foreign object - but periodically that cyst explodes and all the horrible feelings come rushing out again. While I still can find pleasures in life, they are now diminished - colors are greyer, laughter is less loud, food is blander, each day begins with less enthusiasm. There are some tragedies in life, from which recovery is not possible. Time will not be a friend to me.

Ever since her troubles began, I've had these dual images of my lovely, vivacious daughter in my mind. One has her laughing, with her boldly colored hair, and a rainbow-colored outfit. The other is a small bird, on the ground in a large meadow. One wing is broken, and with the other, the little bird is trying valiantly to return to the freedom of the sky, and the safety of its home in the forest.

My poor little bird - I feel so sad for you...

Sunday, September 2, 2012

An Alternative Word to God?

As a committed Agnostic I've always been uncomfortable with the word "God". Unlike Atheists, I don't believe God doesn't exist. Unlike most monotheistic religions, I don't believe in God. For me, there's no way to tell one way or the other - so it makes no sense to believe either of those ways.

Nevertheless, we exist. Here on a planet, that exists in a solar system, that exists in a Galaxy, that exists in our Universe, which may be one of many. And where does our one, or the many Universes, exist? No one knows. Atheists simply claim the Universe is all there is. Believers claim it all exists in God and thus proves God exists.

Neither argument satisfies me. Yet it is true we, and everything else around us, exists. So what's a poor Agnostic to do? What term to use? "Universe" is too cold - and seems to imply a belief in Atheism. "God" is too charged. Too many people have so many different definitions and meanings associated with the word.

I choose "providence". It's an older term. People understand it, but use it to a much lesser degree. And it's ambiguous about beliefs. It doesn't imply belief in Atheism, nor does it imply belief in God. It simply implies that somehow things mysteriously work out. Here's a very nice quote from John Adams, 2nd President of the US.
"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
 Now, John Adams was a smart man - and a devout Unitarian. He was familiar with the concept of God. So why did he choose the word "providence"?

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Is It a Miracle We're Still Here?

This morning, while preparing for my round of sprints, I looked up at the dark early morning sky.  I do this each morning I do my sprints, because it is still dark, and the stars in the firmament are quite visible. As I looked up, I was fortunate enough to see a shooting star (meteor) streak across the sky.  Which got me thinking…

According to geologists and cosmologists, the Earth has been in existence for about 4.5 billion years. During that time the Earth and Moon have been occasionally bombarded by meteorites of various sizes. It is believed that about 100 million years ago, Earth was struck by an object from space large enough that the explosion and debris cast off, wiped out almost all life on Earth. Fortunately for we humans, some population of then existent mammals survived, ultimately thrived, and humans evolved from that humble new beginning.

Now we have large telescopes, mathematics, and massive computational capabilities. We've begun to realize how common it is for the Earth to be pummeled by these astral objects – and how often we’ve missed being struck by other objects that can cause similar damage and destruction.

Just this year there was a large bus-sized object that passed the Earth inside the orbit of the Moon. From a cosmological stand point, that’s liking having a bullet miss your head by about a millimeter – a very close call.

It's enough to make you pause and wonder about how fortunate it is that after 100 million years, we're still here ...

Friday, September 11, 2009

Why are there so darn many religions?

(Originally posted on 2007.10.25)

There sure are a lot of them ...

A simple categorization can be done by separating them according to the number of dieties in which they profess to believe. In my "regular" profession as an IT professional, the important "count" mechanism is zero, one, or many. Most computer systems that deal with data relationships have to deal with these three different cardinalities. Oddly enough, that seems to me like a good categorization element for religions.

In the "none" category, we have religions such as Buddhism (Buddha is an "enlightened" being, but is not the progenitor of the universe), Taoism, etc. Some people argue that these are not religions, but philosphies. But there are Buddhist and Taoist temples, and, more importantly, they are granted the tax-free status here in the US with which other religions are favored. I'll accept them as religions for the sake of this entry.

In the "one" category, we have religions such as Christianity (in many different flavors), Judaism, Islam, etc.

In the "many" category, we have the ancient Greek and Roman religions, Voodoo, Santaria, many of the American Indian religions, Wiccan, etc.

So, back to the essence of the question: Why are there so many?
The answer to this is deceptively simple. But it can only be recognized by answering another question: "Which one is right?"

That is the subject of another post...

Evolution vs. Creationism

(Originally posted on 2007.09.24)

It seems to me that "Creationists" are missing an intellectual opportunity.
First, let me state that I don't believe in what is currently cast as "Creationism". Having been raised with zero religious training, no organized/formal religion appeals to me, nor does any of them make much sense to me. And since many religions don't believe in any diety, and some believe in multiple dieties, "Creationism" as it is cast these days, appears to be confined to primarily Judeo/Christian religions.

Nevertheless, let's posit for the moment that there is one omnipotent, all-knowing God. God didn't need to "create" everything just as we see it around us today (or as we saw it 6,000 years ago, or whatever). Perhaps evolution is actually how God intended to create what is around us now. That is, if God knows all, then he could predict that if he created a Universe with certain physical laws, then planets and stars would "evolve". And by providing the appropriate elements (most notably carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen) that life would eventually arise and evolve according to the nature of the elements that were provided.

This seems to me like a reasonable "blend" of the two sides of the argument.

What is God?

(Originally posted 2007.09.24)

The answer to this question is deceptively simple -- God is what you believe God is.
What? What could that possibly mean?

Simple -- we can divide our "knowldege" into two broad categories; things we "know" from personal experience or education, and those we "believe".

By the time we are 2-3 years old, we all pretty much "know" about gravity. Not the laws of gravity, or the name "gravity"; but we know that if we step off something too high, we will fall. Humans seem to need to "learn" this, whereas other animals, such as cats, appear to have an instinctual knowledge of this.

Similarly, after being burned by hot items several times, we "know" what the effects of hot items are. In a more abstract fashion, we "know" that electricity can kill. Very few of us have actually experienced this capability of electricity. But through schooling, demonstrations of other powers of electricity, etc. we come to "know" what electricity can do. In most cases, we can predict certain things by calculation with mathematics, run experiments to determine whether our predictions are correct, and conduct experiments repeatedly to demonstrate our "knowledge". We can also describe the experiements and expected results in such a fashion that other can run the same experiments and obtain the same results. Once something has been repeated many times reliably, we add it to our body of things that are "known".

However, the things we "believe" are unprovable, untestable, and therefore unknowable. I have yet to hear of a reliable, repeatable experiment that predicts the weight of someone's soul. No one has been able to "prove" the existence of God through experiment. Nevertheless, we use our beliefs as well as our knowledge to help guide our behavior. So our beliefs seem to be as important to us as our knowledge.

Our beliefs and knowledge determine how we deal with other people in society and our families, what we judge to be good or evil (if we "believe" in good and evil), and our relationship with the (dare I say it?) the Universe in which we live.

For me, the Universe is "known". I exist. The people I know and love exist. The planet on which I live exists. All these things exist in something tangible, and for me that is the Universe. God, for me and everyone else, in unknowable. I KNOW of no one who has died and been reborn in any form. I KNOW of no one who has gone to Heaven or Hell. I KNOW of no one who can predict the weight of my or anyone's soul -- or at what time it "ascends" from my body at my death.

Simply put, there is no demonstrable experiment or provable calculation to demonstrate the existence of God. The question of whether God exists or not is UNKNOWABLE. All anyone can do is BELIEVE. And that is the cause of many problems. Many people cannot distinguish between knowledge that is in the belief category from the knowable category. And the subject for another post.