In his 1907 book Creative Evolution, philosopher-scientist Henri Bergson describes an impulse of becoming, a universal force that underlies the existence of matter and animates life. When applied to living systems, this force propels life forward, providing elements of purpose without delineating purpose itself. The... Continue

My father was dying in 2010. In the hospital after a systemic collapse, his condition had been stabilized, and he was awake and conversational. At ninety-one years of age, my Brooklyn boy of a dad had already beaten the odds and was still scrappy. “Why... Continue

I miss my late wife. I miss talking to her, holding her, feeling her warmth and enjoying her affection. I still think about all the things I could have done differently over the fifty years we were together, ways in which perhaps I could have... Continue

It feels good to feel happy, and happiness is widely promoted. From the Declaration of Independence to the Dalai Lama, the pursuit of happiness seems to be offered as a worthy goal in life. It raises the question: why are so many people unhappy? The... Continue

Life appears to be very rare, at least in our solar system. There are trillions of planets scattered throughout the universe, of course, and among them many may harbor life of some sort. If we survive long enough as a species, we might actually verify... Continue

We were warned. No less than James Baldwin, the brilliant black writer, observed the heinous conduct of white America towards people of color, was horrified, and said as much: “moral monsters.” This was in 1979, and if anything, things have gotten worse. Yes, America elected... Continue

Everything changes; it’s the one thing that never does. I remember when America celebrated its 200th birthday fifty years ago. It seemed like such a big deal, and yet here we are half a century later once again making a big deal about the Declaration... Continue

During Europe’s medieval period guilds dominated the working environment; apprentices learned their trade at the feet of a master craftsman. From shoemakers to bakers to blacksmiths, a trade was not simply a livelihood, but provided a valuable, stable and reliable place within society. The rise... Continue

What is life? Erwin Schrodinger, of cat-in-a-box-simultaneously-living and-dead fame, wrote an entire book of that title on the subject, arguing that life emerges from the physics of “Negentropy” or negative entropy, i.e., extracting order from the environment. However, in some way as yet not understood,... Continue