[image: NASA]

Every day I receive a large number of email requests for money from well-intentioned sources with the objective of helping save us from ourselves. I know something about the futility of asking the poor to help themselves. It is far better to ask me for ideas than to ask for money. I have a lot of ideas. I’ve also heard it said that it’s better to do good than to do well. And so, in lieu of cash, here is my contribution to the subject at hand.

I’ve heard others say that all they want to do is to leave this world in a little better shape than the way in which they found it. Today, that is such an optimistic point of view that it is almost laughable. At the same time that we have made startling technical progress on many fronts, we have lost immeasurable ground on many others. Our land, air, and seas are polluted; water shortages, climate change, and dwindling food supplies portend a long period of gloom ahead. Slavery and human trafficking are rampant. Immigration is a dirty word, and those on the move away from one set of bad circumstances are finding there are few other places where they are welcome. Idiots, tyrants, and megalomaniacs are in charge. Science, knowledge, and enlightenment are being replaced by ignorance, fakery, and misinformation. Assertions trump facts. There is no common good. There are only egos. And “mine” is better and more deserving than “yours”—because “I” say so. Moreover, inequalities in wealth and income are so severely skewed in favor of the few that we have no way of raising the capital necessary to pay for 90 percent of the needed changes so that we might save ourselves from ourselves. Meanwhile, those with the authority and the wherewithal to bring about change have no intention of doing anything to make it happen. They are the most vocal among all the deniers.

Alas, we are long past the point of diminishing returns. We are more like the pilot who is behind the “power curve.” We have neither the altitude nor the airspeed nor enough power in reserve to avoid a crash landing. We are doomed, and that isn’t idle speculation: It is imminent. We have met the enemy, and we are it.

Even our history books are misleading. Presumably, about 400 years ago, Western societies blossomed and lifted themselves up from the Dark Age and into the Age of Enlightenment. Perhaps. In smatterings. But if true , where are the Renaissance men and women today? We know that a healthy society is better than a sick one. We know that education is far better than ignorance. But who is out front proclaiming “a healthy, educated society is the way forward?” In my judgment those two conditions are the only way forward. But who wants to listen to me, or to reason? Indeed, who is left to show any respect for rationality, for unselfish thoughts, or for the good that we can do—together?

I would like to say before I leave that I did my best. But I know I have not. I’ve barely tapped my potential. Some say it is better to change yourself than to try to change the world. I’ve never bought into that notion. I’m not that self-centered. It requires a lot of introspection to seek perfection in a place that I do not understand at all. But I can spot your faults from a mile away. So, I prefer to work on humanity. It’s a lot more fun, and I don’t get hung up on my petty little faults. I’m also a zoom-ologist, a “grand thinker” who first sees the “big picture,” and then the details. And then I “zoom in” and “zoom out” as needed to keep everything in perspective.

In my waning days, I choose to cling to the wisdom of Socrates who taught us that the “unexamined life is not worth living”; that the answers to life’s issues lie within us. And to Galileo who reminded us that God gave us a brain—and he expects us to use it. And to Horace Mann who enjoined us to reach for the best that is within us when he said: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” And do not forget the words of another stellar pioneer, Amelia Earhart, who said “there is more to life than just being a passenger.” In other words, get off your ass and do something. Finally, I’d like to show a bit of favoritism to my native land and to the unquestioned brilliance of two men of vision, Carl Sagan and Frank Drake. These two American scientists etched a simple plaque for any potential observer somewhere out in the universe and fixed it aboard the spacecraft Pioneer 10. It remains the only human-built object to ever escape from our solar system on a journey to nowhere with the improbable chance that it could meet and greet other intelligent life. The odds are vastly against that outcome, but it carries our barest message in this simple statement: “At one point in cosmic time we lived here.”

We seem to always be at a crossroads, the critical intersection of right and wrong. We are slow to learn from our mistakes. Why do men seek power only to wage war with others over ideologies that have no chance of surviving the passage of time? Where is the wisdom in letting them take power in the first place? If insanity is the propensity to repeat something over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome, then we are largely a group of societies consisting of deranged persons. But if fear and ignorance are the last refuge of scoundrels, then love and understanding are likely our only chance at salvation.

Seriously, who could deny the wisdom, the eloquence, and the importance of Socrates, Galileo, Mann, Earhart, Sagan, and Drake in one sweeping gesture? Who would dare to turn their backs on all of them? The answer to that question from my point of view is now in the hands of the 100 or so readers of this humble essay. May the power of compounding send a few ripples of hope outward until they compound into a number with enough strength to make an impact with a difference. To all who seek a just world for themselves and for our posterity, this is a clarion call, not from me, but from those who came before us, and those who are yet to arrive: Why not give understanding, liberty and the good that we can do a try? Love will take care of itself.