Further thoughts on the Dire Wolf

I went to Youtube to see what else was being said about the Dire Wolf.  The consensus seemed to be to take what the scientists said about how they made up the Dire Wolf, i.e., using as much actual Dire Wolf genetic material as they had, and then using a similar species, the wolf to make up what was missing.

I suppose I made some mental jumps.  I went past such quibbles without pausing.  But, now, moving back and looking at them, I ask, why would we want to bring back into existence a species that precisely uses a habitat that we destroyed ages ago?  Look out!  The way to the La Brea Tar Pits is thoroughly clogged with people nowadays.  

We don’t, but if we had the capability, we should modify the genetics of any species which was once solely dependent upon a habitat that no longer exists.  I’m not arguing that the scientists who created the animal that they are terming the Dire Wolf should have done that.  From what they described they don’t have the capability.  They don’t have the genetic material to accurately create the Dire Wolf.  As an acceptable alternative, they used as much Dire Wolf genetic material as they had and supplemented it with the genetic material of the closest species genetically available.

So, rather than celebrate the great achievement of Colossal, some are choosing to quibble about terms, criticizing the logic of calling something by the task designation: Dire Wolf, when they didn’t achieve it 100%.  The scientists were undoubtedly proud of their achievement.  Not us though, we’d rather quibble about what to call it.

I read someplace else that we are attempting to modify the genetics of some individuals so that they can endure the radiation they would be exposed to in travel to other planets.  Wonderful! Now let the scientists alone who want to enable the species they are calling Dire Wolf to have genetics sufficient to permit them to live on this one.

Some thoughts on the Dire Wolf

 

There will be an article in the 4-17-25 issue of the New Yorker on the Dire Wolf.  I am a subscriber and they also send me their news letter which also has this article.  

Much of the information contained in the article I had already encountered elsewhere, but I was shocked to learn at the end that the scientists do not intend to let their Dire Wolves, two males and one female, breed.   So I sat still for a long time thinking about it.

The Dire Wolf, they tell us some place doesn’t derive from the wolf but from the dog, Canis Familiaris.  Perhaps this breed of Canis Familiaris was never domesticated, but it could have been, as all dogs after them, that we know about have been. 

The article is full of how much the science costs, but there is also mention of application, which when it happens is a way to get paid for their work.  I suspect more than a few wealthy dog lovers would pay for a breeding pair of Dire Wolves.  The idea of the Dire Wolf as a pet was in this article dismissed, but the wealthy dog-lovers I imagine could spend a lot of time with them and verify that they are as safe, for example, as safe as any of the ferocious dogs you can see on Youtube being described as the best protection you can own.  The Dire Wolf, never trained to be a ferocious guard dog might very well be less dangerous than some of our ferocious breeds, some of which are larger than the Dire Wolf.

The tenor of the article prepares us to understand that an important impetus in the science is in getting the presently extinct breed back into nature in order to bring nature back into balance.  The Woolly Mammoth is described in that regard.  If they get this animal de-extincted, they can get herds of them shipped to Siberia where they can stomp and poop about and reestablish a balance of nature – make Siberia habitable once again – perhaps double the population of Russia, create more soldiers.  Putin should be delighted.

There doesn’t appear to be an equivalent niche for the Dire Wolf.   Some areas have been rehabilitated by the ordinary wolf, the wolf which had been part of nature before we killed them off.  They have been reestablished to good effect.  No one is likely, I wouldn’t think, to suggest that the Dire Wolf could replace them and do a better job.

But just being looked at by this dog-lover in the midst of his outrage, consider all the jobs we’ve given to the ordinary dog.  There is a very strong argument to the effect that we humans did not evolve all by ourselves.  We evolved in symbiosis with the dog.  For example, we could never have raised sheep that need the dog to herd and guard them.  We could never have established villages which needed dogs to guard and warn us of danger.  The list is long.  Everyone knows it. 

But, the scientist might object, just because the Dire Wolf is genetically a dog doesn’t mean it could ever be pet quality.  Look at the African Hunting Dog.  Can anyone imagine trying to make a pet out of one of those?  Well, maybe not.  And perhaps the Dire Wolf may turn out to be no more safe to cohabit with people than the African Wild Dog, but note that the scientists, without even raising the question has determined to let this revivification of the Dire Wolf die out.

The Dire Wolf went extinct just after humans during the last ice age came across the Bering Straits and south into the North American continent.  Many other species went extinct at the same time.  Maybe there were other reasons for the cataclysmic North American loss of species.  Never lost, were smaller canids that were less harmful and more useful and agreeable to humans.  

There is no evidence that the Dire Wolf was ever domesticated, and I’m not suggesting that they ever were, but what boots that?  Any day on Youtube you can watch videos of species such as the cheetah and panther that have been domesticated and are living uncaged in someone’s home.  Surely a form of Canis Familiaris wiped out during the taking of the Americas by prehistoric man should not be excluded because it once hunted violently in order to make its living.  We are all part of the species that once did the same thing.

Before posting this note, I read some other articles.  There are some who argue that too little has been changed from the present-day wolf for the now-being-touted Dire Wolf to legitimately be entitled to that designation.  Ah me, anyone exposed to the sort of breeding that exists in dog-show circuits might with the same justification deny that any breed is truly entitled to its name.  Whatever it is that is lying near me on the floor as I type, I have great affection for it, her in this case, Jessica, and whomever they are that are on 200 acres somewhere hidden and intended to live their lives as a scientific experiment, but prohibited from breeding and intended to die once again as a species, despite the vaunted term they bandy about, “de-extincted”

On the seeking of literary immortality

 David Pryce Jones in an article on Evelyn Waugh wrote, "About the best that most writers can expect from posterity is cultural embalming, probably in the form of a monograph written by some academic paid to read books nobody else is reading."  The prospective writer might take note of this as he evaluates, as much as he can, his future.  We learn from history that the term "immortal" was applied to a number of writers and poets, but if we examine those writers and poets we in almost all cases observe that their immortality has expired. 

Is the work of any modern writer or poet likely to be less transient than the tunes the modern teen-ager listens to?  I was once enamored of Chinese poetry before China transitioned into Maoist Communism.   I read poems about old men boating down to picturesque meeting places where they would drink wine and read recently written poetry to each other, poetry that they had written. They pretty much all seemed to write poetry.  It was enough for them if their friends liked it.  There was no thought of achieving immortality as poets.  They wrote for the joy of it and listened to each other read it in the same fashion. 

I wonder if in modern day China the poets I read (in translation) are still being read today -- perhaps only by "academics paid to read books nobody else is reading."

So if today a young person discovers he or she has writing ability, there is a great market in fiction of various genres, but perhaps, the the number of people who make a financial success of this approach isn't high.  There are several other fields that seek good writers.  In my own case, I was hired by the Chief Engineer of the Skybolt program back in 1959.  The Air Force complained that Douglas engineers couldn't write well enough to be readily understood by Air Force personnel.  I had a wife by this time who regularly spent more than I made, and since the realm of workers (not managers) at Douglas Aircraft was a meritocracy, I learned a variety of other skills and thus managed to work there as Douglas merged with McDonnell Douglas which was eventually bought out by Boeing. 

Now at age 90 I can sit in my second-story study and look out my window through the trees at mountains that were within walking distance when I retired here 25 years ago.  Now because of a damaged knee I wouldn't try to walk that far.  In any case I don't wish to.  I do still write a lot.  I keep journals, write a lot of letters, and a few articles and poems I might post on a simple blog that was set up for me by a nephew many years ago.  The stats tell me that 1,783,486 have looked at various of the articles and poetry since it was first set up. It's been convenient.  For example, I had always planned to study the American Civil War and so several years ago, did that.  I ordered probably most of the authoritative literature on that war from eBay and Amazon and joined forums discussing various matters, strategies, battles, theories about the merits of various generals, etc.  Tempers can run high on these subjects.   For many, I found, these Civil War discussions were overriding.  I was invited to stick with it and make everlasting friends with those I agreed with, but after I had enough, had written enough articles, I stopped, gave most of my Civil War books to my brother-in-law and went on to other subjects.

Another reason it does not seem wise to seek literary immortality is that our language is rapidly changing, and has been for a great many years.  No one will understand what we write in a thousand years.  Anthropologists and geneticists estimate that our species has existed for about 200,000 years.  We have had written languages of any sophistication for less than 12,000 years. 

One of our "immortal" authors, Geoffrey Chaucer lived from 1342 to 1400.  His famous work is the Canterbury Tales.  I've read them several times and took an upper division (elective) course in Chaucer where we were given to read him in the original to get the rhythm of his poetry correctly, but we weren't required to read him in the original for understanding.  And, unless one becomes a scholar and specializes in Chaucer and Middle English literature, one isn't going to be able to read this literature in the original with any degree of confidence.  Was Chaucer concerned about his "immortality?"  It has been only 625 years since Chaucer died and no one today is reading him in the original except for academics paid to read authors no one else is reading.  Even if we count translations, I wonder how many read Chaucer in translation today.  

Rousseau and Lord of the Flies

 

In my reading I try to keep up with the anthropological discoveries that pertain to our species evolutionary history.  And in doing so I can’t help cringing at the political positions that maintain theories that our anthropology doesn’t support.  For example, the political influence of Jean Jacques Rousseau which can hardly be overestimated.  He threw out the idea that men were born evil and needed the church and forgiveness to lead legitimate and wholesome lives.  He proposed instead that men were born good and subsequently became evil because of faulty education.  Such teachings as “spare the rod and spoil the child” were subsequently considered barbaric.  

Evolutionary anthropology gives no support to the idea that men were born good.  They were born animals that became more and more potent until in the last 300,000 years ago they became the apex predator here on earth.  In very recent times, the last 15,000 years or so, men have adhered by force and teaching to religious and common legal practices.  When other species (aside from viruses and harmful bacteria) were no longer a serious threat to our existence, we had to learn to get along with each other, at least within towns and later in cities and nations.  We have not yet extended that practice to the world.

But that we are in keeping with Rousseau’s teachings all born good and only become evil through poor teaching there is no support that I can see.  Think of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.  We as a species are capable of entertaining the anthropology of Golding’s novels while at the same time supporting modern educational practices consistent with Rousseau’s teachings.  And regardless of evolutionary discoveries, in practice any parent or teacher will today be on thin ice if he or she attempts to use harsh discipline to curb the bad behavior of a recalcitrant child.  We retain in stead, the Romantic views of Rousseau.  

Vikings and Anglo-Saxons

 I’m 39/324 through Cat Jansen’s River Kings and enjoying it.   References to the “Great Army” of the Vikings who after wintering in and around Repton, and then decided to stay, were hitherto described by traditional researchers as exaggerations.  Excavations didn’t give evidence of a very large number.  But more recently, better DNA analyses have shown that the Viking DNA could not be distinguished from that of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes the preceded the Vikings settling in Britain. 

“Both the terms ‘Viking’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ can arguably be seen as purely modern inventions: they are unlikely to have made sense to someone living in the ninth century. Here, the term ‘Viking’ is used to describe in a very broad sense the people and cultural traits that emerged and spread from Scandinavia during the Viking Age. The term ‘Anglo-Saxon’, while subject to a long history of misuse by racists and extremists, remains a widely understood frame of reference for the communities and kingdoms of England between the fifth and early eleventh centuries. Neither this nor Viking is used to imply ethnicity; they are, simply, the most useful, if inaccurate, terms we have available today.”

Viking-raid expressions

  In Cat Jarman’s River Kings, A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads, page 4, is the following sentence.

Repton was no different – the accepted interpretation of the bones that I’d been working on seemed to fit neatly into the traditional Viking Age narrative: that of the Norsemen and Danes who travelled west in the late eighth century, launching a savage attack on unsuspecting monks at Lindisfarne in 793 and kick-starting the Viking Age in the process; and that of the hit-and-run raids of the succeeding decades that eventually, in the ninth century, led to ambitions of political conquest and settlement.

Comment: A couple of expressions caught my attention The first is “kick-starting the Viking Age . . .”  I had two motorcycles that required “kick-starting” as opposed to electrical push-button starting.   In order to start a motorcycle with a kick-starter, one pulled out the pedal of the kick-starter, put one’s boot on it, jump in the air a short distance and put one’s right-legged boot on it; then one raised up and then kicked down with one’s boot one or two times until the motorcycle started.  If one’s motorcycle is in good running order, the motor will then start.

Is there another meaning of “kick-starting”?  Perhaps it is also applied to certain older automobiles or farm equipment, I don’t know.  But in the above passage, in what sense did Jarman mean it?  Perhaps Jarman never gave a thought to motorcycles.  Perhaps it is such a common expression today that she didn’t need to associate it with motorcycles or farm equipment:  The Viking attack upon Lindisfarne in 793 “kick-started” the Viking age.  

But I got the impression that she meant something a little different from the motorcycle original.  She seems to imply a violent as opposed to a peaceful beginning which is appropriate to a Viking as opposed to a motorcycle start.  

The second expression is “hit and run” raids.  “Hit and run” is a baseball expression, and nothing else as far as I know.  It applies especially in the case of moving a runner from second to third base.  The batter hits the ball into the outfield.  The runner waits until the outfielder catches it and then runs to third and gets there, hopefully, before the ball does.  One can appreciate how well “hit and run” fits what the Vikings did: violently raid Lindisfarne and then sail away before an opposition force could be raised to attack them.  

But what expressions were used to fit Jarman’s narrative before motorcycles and baseball, I wonder.  And perhaps the above such expressions are accepted, today, in scholarly writings without comment, except perhaps by the occasional octogenarian with little else to do and therefore without merit.

Meanwhile, here in the West

 I've been following the war on YouTube.  The Ukrainians have mounted a stirring defense and are being applauded by Western nations.  They claim to only need regular replenishment of their weapons and ammunition in order to drive Russia completely out of most of territorial Ukraine.  Much of the Eastern part is inhabited by Russians and Russian speaking Ukrainians.  Samuel P. Huntington years ago in his Clash of Civilizations wrote about this.  He thought that Ukraine would be split up with the Eastern part becoming part of Russia and the Western part becoming forever independent, but he thought it would happen peacefully and logically.  Since his day, however, the view is growing among anthropologists that our species is much more warlike than was previously thought.  The idea of peaceful little scavengers has given way (to a significant degree) to a blood-thirsty ancestry not above eating our fallen enemies.  At one point around 40,000 years ago, during the Cro Magnon period, we went on a rampage and wiped out all competing species.  Huntington missed out on our current view of our species.

Francis Fukuyama in his overly optimistic The End of History and the Last Man thought that Western economic and political systems being so much more efficient than anything else out there would soon pervade the entire world and history, the sort of history involving war, would end.  However, the second part of his thesis involved the risk of autocrats, dictators, leaders whose egos would drive them to start wars for their own ego-centric reasons, and Putin seems to fit that pattern.  And the last men with weak chests and weak wills "may" let them get away with it.  In Putin's case the "may" may have turned to "will."

The historians who have studied Russia describe Russia’s well-deserved paranoia.  Danger historically, even before Napoleon came from the West.  Russians would be driven further and further to the east until the invader’s supply lines became exhausted and then they would retaliate and drive the enemy from their land.  But if their close-by buffer states side with the potential enemy, then the Russians when they are invaded might not have the necessary territory to retreat to. 

We hear mostly about Russian dissidents and soldiers unwilling to fight, but Putin has a lot of support among Russians, and they are as paranoid as he is.  We in the West insist that we have no interest invading Russia, but each year the Russians celebrate the time when the last invasion (Hitler's) was defeated.  There is no longer a Hitler anyplace in the West as far as we know and so we think Putin's paranoia unjustified, but the Russians who lived through the last invasion and their children find the steady encroachment of the West, albeit peaceful from our point of view, threatening. 

On the positive side, the Russian paranoia won't risk nuclear war.  They love their land and have always depended upon their armies -- traditionally not very competent at the beginning of their wars, but as they are winnowed while being driven further and further to the east, the soldiers who remain become super-soldiers well capable of defeating the enemy.  Why should they resort to weapons which could destroy large parts of their homeland?  They don't need to. Their land armies will take care of them. 

Once again, the Russians have begun poorly, but if they don't succeed in reacquiring their Communist era buffer states, they'll settle for what they have -- for now -- and then work on correcting the flaws in their soldiery, tactics and weapons.  They are not interested in World War Three, but later on, if the future gives them some other opportunities, they'll attempt to inch their borders westward once again.

As to what we in the West ought to do.  I think we're doing it.  The Russians may have their paranoia, but it isn't ours and our democratically based economies aren't comfortable with nations which have psychological problems, however historically deserved.  We in the West see no need for Putin's Russia to attack its neighbors.  Why don't they become as peaceful as we are -- as we prepare for war?  We know we have peaceful intentions, but at the same time we will not tolerate nations who start wars and are well prepared and positioned to crush them in warfare -- which we are extremely good at, by the way. :-)

Jorie Graham, Samuel Huntington, Victor Davis Hanson and Danny Vendramini

 

In the current issue of the London Review of Books I read the poem Time Frame by Jorie Graham.  Never having heard of Graham I took the first line, “The American experiment will end in 2030 . . .”  After reading the poem I looked her up in Wikipedia: “Jorie Graham (nee Pepper, born May 9, 1940) is an American poet.  The Poetry foundation called Graham ‘one of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation’ . . . She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1996) for The Dream of the Unified Field; Selected Poems 1974-1994 . . .”  Thus, she inadvertently qualifies as part of my desultory interest in (major) award winning writers.  

If Graham’s “Time Frame” is a current poem, I can imagine its pessimism deriving from fear of China’s surpassing the U.S. economically, of Covid’s refusal to be extinguished, and of Putin’s seeming maniacal interest in defeating and incorporating the Ukraine.  

The other day I watch the UK Youtube Telegraph channel interview of Victor Davis Hanson who is “guardedly optimistic about America’s future”: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+victor+davis+hanson+most+current&docid=608027108675027864&mid=2689B6EC5ACB91BE40D62689B6EC5ACB91BE40D6&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

The elements about which Hanson is pessimistic are associated with American movements which strive to overturn traditional governmental elements.  He didn’t sound fearful of China, Covid, or Putin.  I am merely guessing here, perhaps Graham is fearful of something else in our environment, but I took her poem to be about the major current elements alarming a major number of Americans.  

As to China, while they won’t match the U.S. militarily by 2030, they do have an interest in “reacquiring” Taiwan.  I have that in quotes because the Communist government never held Taiwan.  The nationalist government which opposed Mao Tse tung was driven from the mainland and established itself on Taiwan.  The U.S. has since that time supported Taiwan’s independence.  And since that time the Communist mainland has denied that it is independent.  However, the mainland has not so far mustered the boldness to attempt an invasion of Taiwan.  Will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine inspire Communist China to become equally bold?  If I were a Chinese Communist, I wouldn’t find Putin’s boldness inspirational.  His Ukrainian goals have in the very least dwindled.  Also, it isn’t just the U.S. that Communist China needs to worry about.  Japan is rapidly arming itself “just in case,” as is South Korea but perhaps South Korea will only act if North Korea supports China in an invasion of Taiwan.  Other nations in the region such as the Philippines might be a threat to China if the war against Taiwan was drawn out and dwindled as the Russian war against Ukraine seems to have.  Perhaps Russia will ultimately claim victory over some part of the Russian-speaking eastern segment.  But it seems unlikely that something like that could be carved out of Taiwan to satisfy Communist China.  So, Graham, worry about China if you like (if that is one of your worries), a lot of people are, but some of us are not.

As to Covid, I have been hiding out like a lot of people.  It is all the congestion out there that annoys me personally.  I would hate to be hospitalized in the midst of it.  I don’t feel especially vulnerable despite the warnings that mostly old people and those with compromised immune system are most at risk.  If one looks into their definition of “old people” one finds the assumption that most old people have underlying symptoms that make them especially vulnerable.   But here I noticed (from the Wikipedia article) that Graham “addressed human frailty and family challenges in her 2017 book Fast.  Aging, sickness, the decline of her parents, as well as her own cancer diagnosis pockmarked this slim volume.”  

I looked up the ages of Graham’s parents.  Her mother, Beverly Pepper was a famous sculptor who received several awards and died at the age of 97.  Her father Curtis Bill Pepper was an American journalist and author who served during WWII in army intelligence in both the British and American armies.  He died at age 96.  Here I am, at age 87, fancying that I have already done my duty as an example of longevity to my children but inasmuch as I am not feeling in any immediate risk of demise, 96 or 97 seems quite a satisfactory time to shuffle off my mortal coil.  Furthermore I would think it rude if any of my children were sad over my “aging, sickness and decline” if I made it all the way to 96 or 97.  However, after giving the above summary of Graham’s Fast some more thought, it was probably the case that her parents didn’t have easy deaths, and if that were true then indeed she would have been challenged.  [All this after not having read Fast, or any of her other poetry, but I just now order her most recent collection, Runaway: New Poems as a form of apology.]

In regard to Putin’s adventure after about 55 days, I recalled Samuel P. Huntington’s comments in his The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, copyrighted in 1996.  He considered the relationship of Russia and Ukraine.  He thought it likely that Ukraine might be split with the eastern segment sticking with Russia and the Western becoming independent. “If civilization is what counts . . . violence between Ukrainians and Russians is unlikely.  These are two Slavic, primarily Orthodox peoples who have had close relationships for centuries and between whom intermarriage is common.  Despite highly contentious issues and the pressure of extreme nationalists on both sides, the leaders of both countries worked hard and largely successfully to moderate these disputes.  The election of an explicitly Russian-oriented president in Ukraine in mid-1994 further reduced the probability of exacerbated conflict between the two countries.  While serious fighting occurred between Muslims and Christians elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and much tension and some fighting between Russians and Baltic peoples, as of 1995 virtually no violence had occurred between Russians and Ukrainians.

“A second and somewhat more likely possibility is that Ukraine could split along its fault line and two separate entities, the eastern which would merge with Russia. . .”

Huntington saw the conditions correctly, but he failed to anticipate the war which would occur 26 years after he published his book.  He envisioned a peaceful resolution of the Russian/Ukrainian conflict.  I’m reminded here of the thesis of Danny Vendramini’s Them and Us: How Neanderthal predation created modern humans (published 2011).  There is scant evidence, but traditional anthropologists assumed Neanderthals were peaceful hunter-gatherers and were eventually overcome by bad luck, bad weather and the more aggressive homo sapiens who had the help of dogs.  Those theories aren’t contradicted by any of the evidence.

Vendramini, using the same evidence assumes that Neanderthals, eaters of more meat than their omnivore cousins found it convenient to raid homo sapiens for food.   Neanderthals were initially the apex predators and not like the more peaceful homo-sapiens.  Neanderthals were so successful in eating and/or raping homo sapiens that the later was almost wiped out.  The survivors composed of homo sapiens/ Neanderthal hybrids managed through important changes in their evolution to survive.  Vendramini argues that Neanderthals were hairy, more like chimpanzees.  Something remarkable had to happen for homo sapiens to become relatively hairless.  The disguised estrus of humans, the fake breasts (always seeming to be full of milk) of our women to make them seem to be always nursing, confused the apex predator Neanderthals.  Also we became fastidious about our scent, being relatively hairless helped with that so that the always-hungry Neanderthals couldn’t smell us,  hunt us down and eat us.  Our history with the Neanderthals was such that when we became the apex species, roving bands of cro magnons hunted Neanderthals to extinction.  Whether one accepts Vergamini's arguments or embraces the idea that war-like homo sapiens killed off peaceful Neanderthals, it is inescapable that we homo sapiens like to fight.  Years ago the thesis that we were scavengers and not hunters was popular, but that idea has been largely discredited.  Few scholars, if any, believe that at the present time, but perhaps when Huntington wrote he held that view.  He was as we see wrong.  Russia and Ukraine are solving their conflict in the traditional homo sapiens fashion.  We in these modern times, as a species, don’t seem to be able to accomplish wars of conquest (despite our modern weapons) as successfully as our ancestors did in the past.  

To return to Graham’s poem, there is a political sense in which the “American Project” could end in 2030, if Hanson’s fears our realized and the American constitution and form of government are modified such that they conform to the ideals of those on the “revolutionary” (to use Hanson’s term) left.

A Hunter-Gatherer's guide and Post-Traumatic Growth

 

On 8-25-21 I was trimming branches out front, sawed most of the way through an especially large one which kept hold of my saw as it fell to the ground.  Unfortunately for me I held onto the saw.  The fingers on my right hand were bent back.  I thought they might be broken, but when I got up found that they weren’t.  However, something in my hand hasn’t completely healed.  When I write with pen and paper, as I do in my journal, pain increases with each line.  Fortunately my hand seems fine when I type.    

I’ve begun A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life by Heather Heyling and Bret Weinstein.   Quite a bit on this subject appears in science magazines, and I wondered if I would find anything new.  Perhaps I have:

From page 7: “Conscious thoughts are those that can be communicated to others.  We define consciousness, therefore, as ‘that fraction of cognition that is packaged for exchange.’  This is no trick.  We have not chosen a definition to make an intractable question simple.  We have chosen the definition at the epicenter of what people mean when describing a thought as ‘conscious.’”

I have gone on a bit in the book but keep coming back to this idea.  I recall Susan, in our early days of getting to know each other, telling me that I wasn’t in touch with my emotions.  She urged me to write her some poetry so I could find out what I felt emotionally, and that worked.  No doubt it worked before Susan urged me to do it.  I was writing poetry long before I met her, but I never thought of it in the terms she used.  

In one of the reviews I read recently, a poet (whose name I can’t recall) was asked the purpose of poetry and he said something along the lines of “a poet writes in order to find out what he thinks.”   That seems right as well.  I do not seem able to sit down and think my way to answers.  That probably wasn’t always true, but it seems to be true now.

In the 9-11-21 issue of ScienceNews is the article “Roads to the Good Life, Happiness and meaning are not the only ways to get there” by Sujata Gupta.  She begins “In December, my husband, our 5-year old daughter and I tested positive for COVID-19.  Life, already off-kilter, lurched.  Smell, taste, breath – were they normal?  The air smelled only of cold; everything tasted vaguely of cardboard. . . Prior to the sickness, I’d been researching pandemic fatigue, a term used to describe the boredom that can arise during a protracted crisis like the one we’re in now . . . research [of Shigerhiro Oishi and his team] suggests that the ingredients of a rich life come not from stability in life circumstances or in temperament.  Rather . . . it arises from novelty seeking, curiosity and moments that shift one’s view of the world. . .

Gupta goes on in a rather stream of consciousness fashion. One needn’t assume that we are all at risk for PTSD.  “A large body of literature shows . . . that natural disasters and other traumatic events can trigger a phenomenon known as post-traumatic growth: a transformation that gives people a newfound appreciation for life and a desire to help others.” [Gupta here quotes SN Online: 4/3/19]

“Growth” sounds unrealistic when applied to someone 86 years old, but perhaps I’m wrong.  I’ll have to give that some more thought, and I should probably give up sawing large branches from trees for fear of losing my ability to think.