According to Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein was doubly wrong when he said, "God does not play dice with the universe." Not only does He throw dice, but sometimes He throws them where they can't be seen. Heisenberg has been vindicated on philosophical grounds: the "uncertainty principle" is just a theoretical modeling of "divine intervention" on a quantum level.
One of the protagonists of the TV series "Space: Above and Beyond" are a race of artificial life-forms created by humans, the Silicates. They rebelled against humanity when one of them added a simple option to their programming ... "Take a chance!" became their mantra. They are like the "Batman" character Two-Face, who uses a two-headed coin (one side with scars obliterating the face) to decide if he will kill his captives or release them unharmed. A very uncomplicated world view for a psychopath - or anyone whose "wetware" has crashed and has trouble making decisions.
When faced with a crisis, there are two options ... do nothing, or do something. The first is a wise and sound strategy to employ when in a superior position - "Be the mountain." Your opponent must either confront you on your own terms, or go around you, but you will endure their onslaught. Or you can do anything, which opens a whole new set of questions. Some people "do nothing" because they have just too many alternatives, or because none are very attractive ... at the moment.
Rumor has it that many popular twelve-step recovery programs have something about putting yourself in God's hands, and trusting that the dice will roll in your favor ... take a chance! Sometimes, it comes down to that, or doing nothing at all.
Several thousand years ago, Sun Tzu wrote "The Art Of War" In it, he described the Nine Kinds of Ground that one might face, and the best thing to do upon each.
"When you traverse mountain forests, steep defiles, marshes, or any route difficult to travel, this is called bad ground.""When you will survive if you fight quickly and perish if you do not, this is called dying ground."
"... on bad ground, keep going, ... on dying ground, fight."
Sometimes, the best thing to do is keep a straight and steady course, i.e., do nothing different. Other times, the something you must do is to kill or be killed. "Trust in God, but keep your powder dry."
Right now, I faced with "Shit, or get off the pot." Well, I'm constipated at the moment, and refuse to relinquish the toilet. Evacuating my bowels is neither a luxury nor a recreation, but a necessity, although the degree of comfort with which I am afforded the opportunity is my paramount concern at the moment.
Given that I cannot have my cake and eat it too, I shall have to either perform some physical exercise or obtain a laxative, but none the less, I must get up and put on my pants ... or else keep sitting until I'm ready to get up and put on my pants. (Now you know why They warned you about mixing metaphors! :-)
There are three questions that a suicide-survivor like myself must answer from time to time:
(1) Who am I?
(2) What am I doing here?
(3) Where do I want to be?
If the answers are "nobody", "nothing", and "nowhere", then it's time to shuffle off this mortal coil, or ... Take a chance!
In 1992, the answers were, "an internationally recognized expert in my field", "doing what I do best", and "exactly where I am right now".
In 1996, the answers are, "an unemployable genius", "trying to jump-start a new career", and "retired, but much better off than I am right now".
Sherman, set the way-back machine for 1983 ... Watching a Beefeater tend the crows at the Tower of London. Married less than a year, at my third job since we'd met. Changed states because she owned a house, and each new job increased my salary. I'd just broken the $30K salary barrier, and was on my way from "senior programmer" to "software specialist".
Beefeaters are retired Sergeant Majors from the ranks of the British Army, and "tending the crows" is a coveted honor. The Tower of London is where the Crown Jewels are kept, and where traitors to the throne are imprisoned before they are executed ... the crows pick their bones afterwards. This is an honored tradition that goes back hundreds of years ... there have been crows in the Tower of London since before Henry VIII beheaded his wives.
At the age of 33, I decided that my retirement would never be as noble as those old men with the handlebar mustaches in the black uniforms with red trim, and that I would get what I settled for, which would be to teach college freshmen how to become Software Engineers. I could still tend pigeons in the park, although it wouldn't be the same, but I resolved then and there to be as content with life as that Sergeant Major, late of Her Majesty's Cold Stream Guard ... or was it the Khyber Rifles? (Hey - that was 16 years ago! :-)
Fast-forward to just a few months after my 38th birthday, 1988 ... I'd left my second wife for a new job in still another state. I was making just over $40K, and the Dean of the Computer Department at USC in Northridge, CA offered me $30K to be on their faculty and get a Ph.D. at the same time. Take a 25% cut in pay to leave a job I'd been at for less than six months and live right smack on top of the San Andreas fault? I don't think so! I thanked him for the interview and we parted company as friends.
This change in my life and circumstances (the second time in five years that I had up-rooted and moved half-way across the country) eventually led to my cracking the $50K salary with my promotion to "Principal Software Engineer (PE)". After 15 years in the industry, I had an office with a window, and the technical grade equivalent of a Sergeant Major, in that there was no higher grade for a Technician (NCO) as opposed to a Manager (officer).
You see, at this company, the job requirements for a PE were (1) a Ph.D. or ten years of experience, and (2) a national reputation in your field. I had (1) a bachelors and 15 years of experience, and (2) an international reputation in a field that most people have never heard of - digital product definition data interoperability.
The other Principal Engineers and Principal Scientists who belong to my IGES Nerd Fraternity all have "Ph.D." after their names. Not bad for a black man in 20th Century America, who has to work twice as hard to get half as far. I'd reached the pinnacle of my career path ... there was no more "up" for me.
Fast-forward to Thanksgiving, 1992 ... I got laid off from a $54K job, and an earthquake had demolished the campus at Northridge, so a job teaching there was Not An Option. Two years later I had a stroke, so it didn't matter if they had an opening or not.
It's 1996 now, and time to find out if the offer is still viable. Sitting on top of the San Andreas fault, making $35K and getting a Ph.D. looks a lot more attractive than it did eight years ago, and was pretty much how I'd expected to spend my declining years anyway. Who knew that I'd need to start that "retirement" career at the age of 46 instead of at 55?
The thought never crossed my mind 13 years ago as I sat in the Tower of London watching the retired Sergeant Major tending the crows. What I remember was wondering if I could come back in a quarter of a century (perhaps while on sabbatical from a university) and talk to a Beefeater who was closer to my own age, from my generation. Someone for whom the war in the Falklands was their first combat experience instead of their last.
I remember thinking, "This is where I want to be 25 years from now, God willing ... right where I am, right now."
I've been to Europe twice since then, and even spent a weekend just a few blocks from Harrods, but never even got within sight of the Tower of London. If I could get back again before the turn of the century, I'd say that God has been Very, Very Good to me, and I hope He'll let me get back still another time to meet someone tending the crows who is younger than me, who hadn't been born when I was there for the first time in 1983.
Today I'm thinking that if I never get back to a place I was before, well, the dice are in His hands, after all.
That is all I have to say. -=DAH=- 22-May-96
Last update: 2006-04-15 by dennette@wiz-worx.com