Wonders of Nature

Vulcano Island My wife and I asked ourselves that question when we left the beach and began to climb the thousand foot mountain directly behind us.  Many years ago, on one of the Aeolian Islands in the Mediterranean, wearing nothing but sandals and bathing suits, we made our way up the volcanic cone.   It was a particularly tempting climb because this island named by the Romans now defines the very term for mountains of fire. We easily made it to the rim of the crater and began to walk around it.  Soon we were coughing and choking from the sulfurous gases.  We ran into a group of scientists in heavy gear and oxygen, looked at each other, and decided that perhaps we should head back down.  Despite several washings we had to throw away our bathing suits as they still smelled distinctly like rotten eggs. Sulphur Vent I was born in Messina, Sicily, and as a child remember the distant glow of the nighttime lava flows of Mount Etna, one of the gre...

Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, detail We humans tend to see ourselves as the center of all things.  It’s understandable, as we haven’t encountered anyone else in this vast universe, not even a lowly extraterrestrial bacteria as of yet. What happens when we do find life elsewhere?  We will lose our special status as the bearers of a unique haven of life in the cosmos, but what will we gain? It means something that we are trying hard to find out.  As I write this blog, Curiosity is digging in the Martian landscape hoping to discover signs of living matter.  We are searching the heavens for extra solar planets in that tantalizing Goldilocks zone, the place where the temperature is just right and liquid water may exist and so life. If we do find we are not alone, history suggests we will get used to it eventually, but it won’t be easy to adjust.  It may cause strife and unease.  In Western civilization, I can think of three great happenings that shoo...

As someone interested in human nature, I wonder if anyone is truly "normal." No matter how you look at it, being normal is a very strange thing, and I can't think of anyone that I know reasonably well to be a truly "normal" person. Everyone is quirky in one way or another. I mean this as a compliment and that's what curious about it. In our society, being called normal can be a downer, as it implies being boring. It's considered better to be unique, a trend-setter, an outside-the-box person. So why is our civilization so hung up on normality?  The concept of "normal" is expressed across our cultural institutions as an ideal state.  It helps define the standards of what is a healthy person, for example.  Being normal is a part of manners, positive behavior in general, and even found in principles of law.  Considering just how much emphasis and energy we put into being normal, it seems contradictory that we aspire to and even revere individu...

I run.   Well, technically I’m probably jogging but every other day, I travel about four miles or so faster than walking.  What’s the difference?  If you’re not touching the ground at any given point during your stride then you’re running.   According to anthropologists, we were all born to run.  In fact, according to  William Cromie  we humans are (or were) particularly good at it.  Our bodies have evolved that way, but after some quick research on the web I discovered that only about 1 or 2 percent of Americans run.  Only one out of a thousand Americans have run (or jogged) a marathon.   The rates for compulsive shoppers (clinically addicted, meaning it’s a serious problem for them) is much higher, somewhere between 2 and 8 percent.  True, we all need to buy things, but personally, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t shop frivolously at least sometimes.  I think shopping wins.  We are a culture of consu...