I am a collector of thoughts cast in forms of poetic language, sometimes even in humorous bent. I am sometimes relieved in some of my disappointments with government bodies made up of intelligent persons who can’t solve man-made problems – when I remember Winston Churchill’s remark about Americans and problems. Churchill said: The Americans will do the right thing after they have tried everything else. My opinion is less humorous: They could if they would. Why do we not find ways to get around barriers to human problem-solving, especially related to those problems of our own making?
This date in my several years of Pages has much to say about time, partly as mystery. I could not let go the reflective statement of Arthur C. Clarke, late British Author, Scientist and Futurist of the 20th Century who observed: Man is the only animal to be troubled by time, and from that concern comes much of his finest art, a great deal of his religion, and almost all of his science. He affirms time to be a troubling factor (as many thoughtful persons have affirmed, sometimes in great detail); that human art is wound up in it (Rembrandt had to paint himself from a young animated man, well formed, through several decades to an elderly like man with sepulchral features.); that religion has considerable preoccupation with it in the contrasts of mortality (time ordered) and immortality (beyond time dimensions); and, science is entirely committed to that which can be measured in time, affected by time and limited by time, perhaps entirely limited by time. (Einstein was intellectually taken by time, theorized about it meaningfully, and was troubled by it.)
One of the first modern gadgets, the sundial, was formed to measure days. Not enough, the clock and watch followed. The mechanical age was advanced from the wheel accent to time management. Growth is found in the understanding/application of time, with that dimensional offering and limitation became a major matter for mankind – and continues so. The oddity was accented that the great gift of time, was also a great threat in that it ran out for each living specie, so is also seen as something of an exotic enemy. It lasts for a day or two for some insects, three for the mayfly; perhaps up to a hundred years for one of every 60,000 American persons in 2013; and, several students agree, that a strong but feeble (limited) Galapagos turtle has died at 200 years of age. He was there, they believe, when Darwin walked by.
Often mysteries drop on us out of the blue. They become a part of our daily lives, like the zero (0). Mankind tried to work out some things for centuries, but did not hold the concept of a zero so ran into all kinds of barriers to the human way of doing things and projecting theories. Finally discovered it became a clarifying point from which to work in fields of mathematics. Presently alert students in first grade move along with some ease in education because they have a zero. In the long ago past, geniuses sometimes missed their yearning for direction, not knowing there was a zero. Starting at zero we move up or down, with pluses and minuses. In analysis we can find what works and what does not. Our tendency is to cast anything amenable to the process in statistics. In mortal life our statistics tend to apply along a horizontal line with the most desirable numbers (indicating some truth) on one side of the center (0) and the negative (also indicating some truth) on the other side. It appears to be a good system, but is hampered by our imperfections in collecting data, but most hampered by our uncertainty about what to do and lack of determination to apply what we learn to our policies and conduct. Time that demands attention presses everything forward. The aging process permits unaddressed problems to grow and they become so large that whole societies have to start over again. Some look for frontiers to which they may escape. With the end of natural world frontiers, we look for something in space. At this writing that appears to be a forlorn search, but we do not know the future in space travel. Time is running out in the resources of earth and clocks are being set for the end. Even space research is monitoring the heavens for some rock form that will end earth life. Christians are called upon to follow truth, not in terms of mortality (time controlled), but in immortality (time ended). In this faith context the solutions are found and projected ultimately. The basic problem for us is that some of us can’t incorporate faith that relates to problem-solving. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020