Upon retiring I asked wife-type, Margaret , WHERE? Answer–BEACH! We both liked the shore and she grew up on Lake Huron. She reasoned “…yes, but mainly I know the kids will visit us there. And eventually bring my grandchildren to me. “

The Raleigh family and the Boulder family were here last week. Somehow we have retained the tradition of family meals together. And , for a while, the young ones remain for after dinner conversations. The oldest grandchild had just graduated from Boulder High School, and while I was unable to attend, I watched via ZOOM.

I commented that the speaker made a fine talk. Then someone asked who spoke at my college graduation? I do remember the speaker’s name and title. Yet I had to admit being among the “overserved RWL ” –participants common to college students the night before graduation. Or, I was hungover from RUN. WALK. LAY DOWN booze.

Sitting on the aisle seat I began to drift. Proximity classmates later laughed about the snoring

The tassle on the “mortar board “was put into motion as my own snoring whiplashed me semi conscious. I thought the tassle was someone trying to enter our aisle and knocked the “funny hat” into the next row.

That was it. My classmates who witnessed this scene and sounds could hold on no longer. Raucus laughter erupted from our area —and the unnamed speaker stopped, wondering what was funny about what he had just said?

Margaret is self effacing but I guess she felt the need to offset my confession. Asked about her rememberances- she told of being the class speaker at her graduation from nurses training . When some one asked what she talked about she said, “from MARKINGS by Dag Hammarskjold : Goodness is something so simple…Always to live for others, never to seek ones own advantage”.

Son Dan was next. After saying that no one in class could remember anything but the theme the speaker chose –CHAWSIS. “You are going to have to make some CHAWSIS ( Choices)” . Dan said “…thirty years later his class mates still remember.

On a very serious note—This speaker should have the stage now. SAPIENS by Yuval Harari got a lot of attention years back. Followed up by HOMO DEUS, I have followed him as best I could. Now NEXUS is out and I am trying to grasp his prescient admonitions. Two things jumped out at me: 1. This book is deeper and tougher to absorb. 2. He is less optimistic now and is telling us why.

Artificial Inteligence has a very dangerous potential. We must prioritize the choices we must make.

From a review of NEXUS:

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI–a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?

Time to vote!

Chawsis !

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can” (John Wesley )