The soul is healed by being with children. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Three Questions, March 30, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
Today on my walk, as spring is in full bloom I passed by a pack of fennel. Fennel is actually an invasive species here that grows everywhere. Pulling some leaves into my hand and rolling it around, taking a deep breath and smelling the anise scent of those leaves was the most beautiful thing I encountered today.
What did I learn today?
I read a cool article about the new ecosystem found in Antarctica after an ice shelf broke off and floated away. Very cool.
What made me happy today?
On my walk I decided to do a couple loops around the park and playground. So the cutest little toddler doing the oddest thing and it made me laugh. He had the most curious way of running. Whenever he would run, he would put his hands up behind his head and bolt. Seems like a great way to fall on your face but he seemed fine with it.
Life is full of challenges, but I always have the Three Ps: Passion, patience and persistence. And the fourth one is pizza. ~ Butch Hartman
Three Questions, March 29, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
My first slice of pizza in a month, a lovely pepperoni slice from Gioia in San Francisco.
What did I learn today?
I read a piece on Ishi the last member of the Yahi Indian tribe, in 1911 he emerged near Oroville, CA and is regarded as the last wild man of the west.
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
It was lunch, due to a medical procedure I hadn’t eaten in 14 hours.
What did I learn today?
There is a classic science experiment, Miller-Urey, that demonstrated how electricity (lightening specifically) could have kicked off the creation of organic molecules. A new study just showed that in fact it could happen with just micro-lightening.
What made me happy today? Getting good news from my heart procedure today and topping it off with my first visit to Tommy’s Joint
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Three Questions, March 26, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
Found some really pretty flowers on my walk today even though it was grey, cloudy day.
What did I learn today?
That there is new technology to give holograms the illusion of being able to be felt by touch. They use various technologies including air jets or ultrasound waves to provide the illusion.
What made me happy today?
A day with no scheduled meetings, now I ended up having several meetings but rarely does my calendar at work have a day with no meetings on it.
It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. ~ Frederick Douglas
Three Questions, March 25, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
The most beautiful thing I encountered were my little friends, the kids from the Child Development Center stopped by on their walk to say hi. They even got to see an excavator today!
What did I learn today?
An incredibly sad thing, there’s a sperm whale that is completely alone. Her vocal calls are at a frequency that other whales can’t hear. So while she calls, no one ever responds. Given how intelligent whales are, this poor animal must be damn near insane
What made me happy today?
Oh lots to be happy about, another really nice day, another good blood sugar number and chatting with my little friends.
We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of millionaires, but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of the public schools, and the number of people who can [and] do read worthwhile books. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois
Three Questions, March 24, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
The most beautiful thing I encountered today was a hummingbird buzzing around a bush of pretty flowers.
What did I learn today?
I learned that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland after a boat trip in which he entertained his friend’s children, including Alice, and then she asked him to write it down.
What made me happy today?
More good blood sugar numbers today, a new low, not sure it will be enough to keep from getting my surgery delayed a month, but it’s the best my numbers have ever been, really happy to have a great and supportive doctor, Dr. Jones rocks.
Life is like the river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere. ~ Emma Smith
Navigating the River of Life
One of the ways I visualize our one way trip in life is to think of it like a river. You start in the headwaters in a tiny little stream, and bit by bit you move down stream. Pretty soon little streams flow into other little streams and then bigger ones until finally you end up in the main channel of a huge river until the end of your journey.
What I want to talk about tonight though, is how we float down that river. You see there are a couple of ways you can navigate the current of the river. The simplest option is to just hang onto something and let the river take you where it may. Of course, this method also means you give up all control and the river just takes you where it takes you. Which means you could end up in sweet, calm waters or you could end up in rapids or even over a waterfall.
You also can choose to paddle against the current, try and paddle upstream, fight it all the way. The problem with this approach of course is that the river will always win. If you fight against the current all the time, you still end up downstream anyway but you’re tired and frustrated all of the time.
So I’ve always thought to approach the river (and life) by not fighting the overall current, but trying to paddle with the current in the direction it goes but steering towards where I want to end up. The river is going to move you along, but you can control whether you head to the calm sections or run the rapids. And let’s face it, at different times in life sometimes you need peace and quiet, a slow easy float and other times we want adrenaline and excitement.
To bring this out of the philosophical and down to earth, what I’m saying is that while there are plenty of things in life you can’t control, aging, other people’s actions and the randomness of the universe, there is some control you do possess. You can decide to eat well, exercise, and not smoke which won’t eliminate, but will make illness less likely. You can decide who you surround yourself with, if you choose supportive, helpful folks, you’ll likely be happier than if you don’t. One of the largest things is that you can choose how to view any situation, no matter how bleak. And as a reminder I link you to my favorite ever Ministry of Happiness post, Remember the Sweet Things. A true reminder of how powerful that perception can be, it includes an audio link and it will be the best five minutes you spend this week, I promise.
Finally, to bring this full circle to my life, I’m closing in on open heart surgery. It’s of course absolutely fucking terrifying, the thought of being split open like a lobster with my heart stopped while someone cuts up parts of my heart and arteries for several hours should be terrifying. However, I choose to look at it this way, if I want to live, I have to have the surgery and I have no control over what happens during those several hours. I have chosen to look at the whole thing this way, I can’t control the surgery so there’s no point in worrying about it. So I’m looking at it as the best way to be able to do all of the things I still want to do in life. A successful surgery and recovery allows me to retire, to travel and even return to long-distance hiking. It’s all in the way you decide to view things. So to steal a cliche that really does work, try and look on the bright side of things and you’ll have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. ~ Albert Einstein
Three Questions, March 23, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
Today it was all about smells, out walking today on the warmest day of the year so far the air was alive. There were the smells of grills cooking, but most of all the flowers, some really fragrant rose bushes and some bushes full of blue flowers that I pass regularly were just incredibly fragrant today.
What did I learn today?
Another really wild connection between nature and prime numbers. When swimming through water, snakes leave traces in the form of wavy circles that precisely correspond to the dynamics of prime numbers. So cool, you really want to crawl down a rabbit hole, Google Fibonacci Sequence and nature.
What made me happy today?
Another really good day, the Bay Area on a clear sunny day is really gorgeous. Continued good blood sugar numbers and the Lady Vols are going to the Sweet 16.
The poetry of the Earth is never dead. ~ John Keats
Three Questions, March 22, 2025
You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!
What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?
There is a flower in Asia, that when it’s petals get wet they become translucent, they are called the skeleton or glass flower.
What did I learn today?
The glass flower that I just described was the most interesting thing I learned today.
What made me happy today?
Watching the University of Tennessee Men’s team make it to the sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament.
The Ministry of Happiness 