[This post was one of those written before Dad died—but just barely before. I’m choosing to send it outside of the now normal “end of the month Dad posts” that I had drafted and stockpiled. I wrote it before dawn on February 26, 2023–yep, BEFORE dawn. Because I was up, serving my “second shift” in our vigil that started four days earlier when he went suddenly into a semi-comatose state. Earlier on the 25th, Dad “woke” and rallied—but as we found out, that rally didn’t last. This post was a “stream of consciousness” production that was written rather quickly and needed very little editing as I was writing—I’m still not sure where all the words and thoughts came from but it is obvious my mind was in a “metaphysically reflective” mood. It is unedited to reflect the emotional tone, and my mental state, at the time.]
On Christmas day in 2021, at 4:20 a.m. local Club Med: Lenseigne Campus, “Dad Standard Time,” NASA successfully launched the remarkable James Webb telescope. Unlike it’s much older brother, the Hubble telescope, JWT orbits around the sun as opposed to the earth. This orbital pattern allows for deeper images to be taken of the universe to capitalize fully on the other remarkable capability of the telescope—its unique infra-red lens. The James Webb telescope has the ability to “see” objects that our evolved eyes were not designed to see; which is to say the structures in our eyes, combined with the neural structures of the brain, allow us to see only a certain narrow band of spectral wavelengths. Philosophically, and more apropos, poetically (just setting aside the amazing scientific implications for a sec), this means we are not able to see most of what actually exists in the universe. And if we can’t see them, these objects of the universe, how could we ever know they exist as REAL things?
Answer: we can’t.
Which has been the story of us humans since our species first looked up and gazed at our galaxy’s stars. We can’t, that is, unless we make our own “eyes” to see more of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum.
Radio waves, of both the AM and FM frequency bands, are a part of the EM Spectrum. We can’t see those either. So it wasn’t until humans built a kind of “eyes” sensitive to those narrow bands of the spectrum from which we could then see. But, we call THOSE particular “eyes” radio transmitters and receivers; and the way we “see” those bands is with our ears! We know those “radio frequencies” exist because we can hear them with our radios! When we don’t have the radio on, those vibrational waves are still there traveling out into space waiting for something to “grab hold” of them in order for them to be perceived. But the question can still remain: if nothing is there to perceive them, are radio waves real? What does it take for sound to be real? For taste to be real? For color to be real?
For me to be real?
This leads to dizzying and highly interesting philosophical questions about the nature of reality, the nature of existence, the nature of consciousness, and the remarkable capacity of the human brain to create and learn. For a fun example, this little paragraph above, about reality not being real until there is something to perceive it, gives you a clue to the age-old conundrum that has baffled every scientist and kindergartener since the dawn of humankind (or since humans created science and kindergarten anyway!):
“If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Now YOU can answer this question for yourself! [have a go of it, it’s fun!]
And when you do, take the next few moments after and really ponder, in order to fully appreciate them, some even deeper questions: “What, actually, is reality? How do we know what’s real? Is my reality different from someone else’s? Different from, say, an insect’s? Or a tree’s? What else is real, what else is “out there” that exists beyond even our wildest imaginations, or for us even being so arrogant as to think we COULD imagine them?”
Oh my gosh, that is SO much fun to think on!
But, this has all been a prelude to my Dad.
Let’s put the JWT to bed first in order to more firmly establish why the JWT has any connection to an 84 year old retired farmer with a brain afflicted with Lewy body dementia. What’s remarkable about the image above is that they were seen by the infrared lenses of the Webb telescope—each white ‘dot” is NOT a star, they are entire galaxies each consisting of countless (multi-billions of) stars (so, c’mon, try to tell me there are no other planets somewhere out there in all that vastness that also nurtures the miracle we call life!). Prior to that machine being turned on, humans were not able to see what was there (excluding, of course, other telescopes’ that could capture different parts of the spectrum emitted by those same intergalactic objects (btw, LOVE that word “intergalactic!”).
But the even more astounding thing, which made HUGE news recently among astronomers in the scientific community, is that the JWT discovered galaxies that were “born” just a few million years (“just a few million years,” yeah, just saying that is thrilling) after what scientist conceptualize as the birth of the entire universe: ie “The Big Bang.” (No, not the TV series you silly!) Light emitted from those objects left them 13.8 BILLION years ago! Thereby marking those galaxies at a distance from earth of 13.8 billion light years away! (Better pack more than a couple sack lunches and packets of Tang—see what I did there?—if you are going to go visit THOSE next week!). Or you could just wait until someone creates warp engines. “Make it so.”
Just to end this fun intergalactic excursion before we finally get to Dad: most people believe time travel, and time machines, are solely within the imaginations of science fiction authors. But, this isn’t true. The James Webb telescope, and any telescope actually (okay, in hard actuality, ANY lens, including YOUR eyes and even ears) are, no joke, time machines. This is why scientist don’t mark objects in just miles from earth, they mark distances between intergalactic objects with both miles and time joined: hence the practicality of “light years.” The amount of time it takes their light to get to us is how far they are away from us. So, the next time you step outside on a clear and hopefully not too cold night, so that your eyes “dark adjust,” and you can stay out to nurture your child-like-wonder muscles, realize that when you look up, everything you see is an illusion of time. Every object you see no longer exists—the light entering your eye, your time travel lens, isn’t of an object that exists right now; it is of an object that existed somewhere back in time. When you look at the moon, you’re seeing an object as it looked a little over a second ago; when you look at the sun (okay, with the proper eye protection), you aren’t looking at it as it is now, you are seeing a sun that existed 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago (when the sun finally explodes, we won’t know about it until 8 minutes 20 seconds later—for the record, I’m not planning to be around for that). And some of those REALLY distant objects, the kind the James Webb telescope just “saw,” likely burned out of existence LONG ago! We’re only just now able to see them, but the light we see now was emitted from them 13.8 billion years ago!
Fun Fact: the second closest star to planet earth (c’mon now, what’s the first or nearest star? C’mon now!) is the “red dwarf” named Proxima Centauri, just over there in the next neighborhood a mere 4.5 light years away! For relevance and comparison, if you went out and spotted Proxima’s light TONIGHT or any time this past year, know that that light, that JUST arrived here, left its source over four and half years ago, or around the time that the Eagles won the Super Bowl, the movie Black Panther was released in theaters, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain commited suicide and Sen. John McCain died from cancer, Bret Kavanaugh’s contentious Supreme Court hearing got underway, George H.W. Bush died from Parkinson’s disease, and the Red Sox win the world series. And Proxima’s light left over a year before Covid 19 closed down THIS world.
The Proxima Centauri that exists simultaneous to this moment in time, as I type these words and you read them, we won’t see until roughly January 2028.
Light IS time!
UNDER IDEAL CONDITIONS say in the flattest part of North Dakota on a starless moonless night no breath of wind a man could light a candle then walk away every now and then he could turn and see the candle burning seventeen miles later provided conditions remained ideal he could still see the flame somewhere between the seventeenth and eighteenth mile he would lose the light if he were walking backwards he would know the exact moment when he lost the flame he could step forward and find it again back and forth dark to light light to dark what's the place where the light disappears? where the light reappears? don't tell me about photons and eyeballs reflection and refraction don't tell me about one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second and the theory of relativity all I know is that place where the light appears and disappears that's the place where we live ~ Al Zolynas
So…this is really about my Dad???
[An aside and for the moment back to present day mid-August 2023: The above rambling is where my own brain went as I wrote at 3 a.m. sitting next to my Dad as he was struggling to find restful sleep following that remarkable rally that Saturday back in late February when he stepped back from an abyss we thought he was never returning from (yeah, my brain tends to go to those places—especially my 3 a.m. sleep-deprived brain…as I’ve been discovering of late). As I was reflecting on that remarkable and completely astounding and mysterious day, I realized something else. That something else sent me to ponder all of the above as well as this next fact in regards to science, human exploration, and the essential nature of reality…and Dad. So, back to the February 2023 stream of conssiousness:
Given everything humans are learning about our universe, and our place in it, it is still thought and believed by every scientist that the TRUE “Final Frontier,” is not to be found in the heavens. Nope, the actual Final Frontier is not going to be discovered by looking up and out. The actual Final Frontier is going to be discovered by looking IN. The territory of that frontier is the three pound lump of grey matter housed securely within the skulls of every human being. Of course, we call that Final Frontier “The Human Brain.”
BTW: The fact we have two separate “brains” will be discussed in a later post somewhere down the line. This second, more recently designated brain in the human body may actually be the more important of our two, especially when it comes to our long-term survival. More later.
But here’s the thing—unlike the vast and distant galaxies, we really will not be able to understand fully the vast extent of our remarkable brain.
When it comes to our human brain, humans can only look at the structures that exist. And although it is certainly true that humans are creating wonderful machines and tools that are giving scientists better pictures of those structures, we will never be able to observe the true “things” that actually make us human. Scientists can see the what’s of the world and the brain, and can answer some of the how’s; but it will never answer, with certainty, any of the why’s. And it is in those “why’s” that we find ourselves. Our “why’s” make us human.
all I know is that place where the light appears and disappears that’s the place where we live
So when it comes to the why’s, we are only left…to wonder.
But that is still a pretty cool place to be.
Answers of mysteries like that, and mysteries that involve the “waking up” of an 84 year old retired farmer from a 65 hour semi-comatose state, takes a different kind of language. No scientist need apply because they typically don’t speak that language.
In both the remarkable book by Carl Sagan, and the truly great movie “Contact,” the scientist/heroine and main character of the story, Ellie Arroway, is taken on a journey into the deep cosmos because SHE was the one who discovered a radio signal that was “extraterrestrial.” So, a machine was built that she hopped into in order to “have a visit” to this mysterious place. When she finally arrived, she broke down and cried, out of sheer awe, at the indescribable magnificence of what she saw. She captured that feeling (well, the late Carl Sagan captured that feeling) in the most beautiful way.
And it was THAT way that had me look at Dad with new eyes, and a renewed heart (mine), as I sat in humble and awe-struck wonder, at 3 a.m. Sunday morning, shaking my head in disbelief, before his beautiful brain, and after living through with him an even more remarkable rally from a 65 hour, semi-comatose, near-death experience.
The amazing Jodie Foster captured this sublime moment from Sagan’s pen in a remarkable and poetically beautiful way:
“No…no words. No words…to describe it. Poetry! They should have sent a poet. So beautiful! Beautiful. So beautiful. I had no idea.
“I had no…idea.”
I cannot explain or describe, nor could anyone for that matter, what happened with Dad over the span of those five remarkable days. There are no words. None. We have been captivated by awe and it is both humbling and inspiring. Humbling because we really don’t even know all the things we don’t know when it comes to the human brain. Inspiring because there appears to be an endless capacity for surprise, mystery, beauty, and even love found there. The best we were able to do in all those moments last week, was unbuckle from the emotional bumpiness, float free from the confusion and sadness, and simply BE in each moment as fully as we could to appreciate what we had, what we thought we were losing, but now still have in our remarkable 84 year old father.
We don’t know yet what these new moments we didn’t expect we’d have with him, given how low and close we thought we were to his death (which, yes, is still inevitable), will have in store for us and for Dad. Nor can we know if what was happening in the unreachable and unknowable depths of Dad’s brain during that time will have any adverse consequences for his remaining life. All we now believe is that we’re now in a place of poetry in order to best find words to articulate the totality of that experience. We don’t have words. No words. We had no idea. We HAVE no idea!
We are only left to wonder. And that is, still, a pretty cool place to be.
Because Dad is there. Dad is here—in this place of wonder.
And it’s beautiful.
T plus ___
“Each day each one of us is visited by beauty. When you actually listen to people, it is surprising how often beauty is mentioned. A world without beauty would be unbearable. Indeed the subtle touches of beauty are what enable most people to survive. Yet beauty is so quietly woven through our ordinary days that we hardly notice it. Everywhere there is tenderness, care and kindness, there is beauty.” ~ John O’Donohue
Postscript circa mid-Aug. 2023: 17 days after these words were written, Dad died.
Post-postscript: In a remarkable and even poetic and metaphorical image “capture,” the James Webb Telescope, itself, recently captured an image from deep space that serves as a poetic wrap to this post. Yes, sometimes, even the Universe itself is left…
…to wonder.
“Our ‘why’s’ make us human.”
❓