Month: April 2013

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Goldilocks Planets and People

Habitable Zone Finder

Habitable Zone Finder (Photo credit: pennstatenews)

Life is a lot all about balance, the sense of which it’s always so easy to lose. Last night on the radio they were talking of the discovery of two new planets right in that “Goldilocks zone” of moderate size and distance from their middlingly massive stars where life might just be possible. I guess even planets have to keep their sense of equilibrium if they hope to reach their goals of raising a happy families.

On the micro-level, Algorithm has been pushing out all the Analgorithmia in my life lately. By day I sell fences for kids, dogs, and bad neighbors. It’s a lot of detail, so in my spare time, of late, Excel, one great glob of wonderful algorithms, has been devouring all my spare time and energy with a quest to organize my project management once and for all. Plays right into my geek personality as well. So have I strayed from the song of the spirit and writing and such.

But I take some comfort that “planet,” the name of those big guys means “wanderer.”

English: Created with Microsoft Excel.

English: Created with Microsoft Excel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Red in Tooth and Claw

Tiger teeth

Tennyson, wrestling with a friend’s death, drew a contrast between concepts like having a caring God above or love being creation’s ultimate principle on the one hand versus on the other the stark apparent reality of “nature red in tooth and claw.” The dilemma seems somehow just as relevant today as in the nineteenth century, even though some might cringe at the religious couching of the thought.
Rising above tooth and claw heroically expresses quintessential humanity. Paradoxically, when we sacrifice our own personal drive to self-preservation and self-advancement to the greater good, to culture, to community, that is the time we become most adaptable. And following Darwin’s insight–for some, the greatest tooth-and-claw man of all–that adaptability would make us best fitted to survive and thrive.
The sad thing is when humans in their prodigality slip back toward tooth and claw. Whether taking the form of street violence, financial incentives for athletes to injure their opponents, or unrestrained predacious capitalism (and the communist and fascist totalitarianisms of the last century were even worse examples), we become less human and less alive when go down that road.