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Showing posts from March, 2023

Fire and life

                      Fire and life The universe in which we live is 13.8 billion years in the making post big bang plasma coalescing into hydrogen and helium supernovea during the first hundred million years presaging more chemically complex  stars and galaxies present by about ten billion years ago and the planets and moons  asteroids and comets  forming from the interstellar dust When the earth was young four billion years ago it was a place devoid of life methane and carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere promoting a hotter planet but a place devoid of fire A billion years passed before life began  before the evolution  of metabolic processes capable of capturing energy and structural molecules from the harsh environment cyanobacteria transforming the planet into the fledgling world These unicellular organisms captured carbon dioxide incorporating it into their carboxylic acid cycles releasing fre...

Ambition

                        Ambition A gradual reduction  of the intensity of the emotion  we call ambition leads to a state  we call failure when we are young and retirement  when we are old While biological age is undoubtedly related to  the withering of ambition the relationship is not linear In Spanish  the word for retirement is jubilado a reference to the joy associated with moderation of the drive necessary to become a master to be an expert perhaps a leader in a selected field The gateway  to this form of freedom is the shedding of narrower obligations replacing them with a broader range of interests unbound by the pursuit  of success or fame or fortune Although freedom is vital at any and every age to be physically comfortable healthy enough and wealthy enough is to be free to arrive at a state of jubilation something to cherish  when attained something to work toward before you...