If I were asked to describe myself, I would have to say things like rational humanist; hedonistic; a scientific generalist with pagan tendencies. All in all, I think this is a sensible attitude. I suspect some old Chinese philosopher once said ‘The way of excess leads to the palace of wisdom’. If not, he should have. That which I survived made me stronger. I wish I could say that it has made me wiser, but alas, all I got was a grimy coat of experience, and not much seems to shine through. Wisdom though, is a moving target, and every time you think at last you’ve found some, and can relax, that’s when you get clobbered.
And so, the palace of wisdom eludes me. But I have learned to ask a vital question: How much is enough? What does it mean to be satiated? We are all pretty good at recognizing when we’ve had too much, even when it sneaks up on us like a silent express train. I guess I’d have to say that you should leave yourself in a state where you would like to go through the experience again, just one more time. As Mick Jagger once sang ‘You can’t always get what you want.’ and that, it seems, is as it should be.
Of course, we all have limits, and some are more limited than others. I recently discovered a book that I suspect is from a part of the publishing underground. The authors are Alexander and Ann Shulgin, and it is entitled ‘Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story’ The authors are biochemists that have spent the large part of their lives synthesizing psychoactive compounds, hundreds of them, and ‘getting it on’, carefully noting the compound’s effect and the means of synthesis. What impressed me the most about the book, is not the results that they published, but the unfettered spirits that they had to develop to undertake the process. A magnificent accomplishment, far beyond the dreams of Timothy Leary. In it, the authors learned one of the fundamental truths in life: Love is giving what you need to get.
If that same exploratory spirit can be nurtured in the other ‘Humanities’ with a view to defining what is human and appropriate for humans in a post-modern society, we can easily reign in and skillfully apply those new and emerging technologies that we now view as so dangerous, like recombinant DNA engineering, nanotechnology, protein synthesis, Quantum physics, and so forth. We have to develop the wisdom to use these tools to our best advantage, and do it quickly. Otherwise, we will get sucked into Kurzweil’s ‘Singularity’, forecast to occur in about forty years, and it may have an unpleasant ‘Event Horizon’.
Recognizing our limits might be a good place to start; we’ve certainly been testing them. Learning and refining the art of the possible. Overcoming the myopic world-view of the specialists, we must follow the music in our souls. Epicurians of life, we learn when to say ‘enough’, otherwise, we take what we want. Well, I’ve become satiated with this blog for today. It has become enough. I’ve exercised my mental muscle a little and need to get on with the writing of my next book, a most serious effort.
Adapting to the technology, my cat focuses on what is important.
