May Thoughts Emerge
Exploring future trends at the Harold B Gill Foundation, LLC
I’ve been reading The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt as my breakfast companion after writing my mourning (morning) pages lately. I bought the book out of my interest in De Rerum Natura by Lucretius which came to my attention sometime in the later 1990s. I believe I picked up my copy of the latter work among the free books offered at the Presbyterian Church at 5th and Negley on some Wednesday evening just before the turn of the millenium. I’d later see in the third millenium on the evening of December 31, 2000 to January 1, 2001 at a party in Copenhagen, Denmark. I and my then-significant other were dancing to a tune by Santana:
We just forgot about it just a couple of weeks later, but I had moved there in one of my transformations on December 1, 2000. My writings tend to go this way. Music forms the scaffolding of my story and this one, well, give it a listen and you tell me.
De Rerum Natura translates as “On the Nature of Things” and we can all do well to deny ourselves illusions about the nature of things. Lucretius certainly tried to do this in his work. Its rediscovery ended up doing much to spark the Renaissance, the ripple effects of which continue to shape our current world and the society in which we move and have our being.
Being - now there is a loaded term. What does it mean “to be?” What can we say with certainty in a world in which uncertainty reigns supreme? We, collectively, appear to be on a careen through the here and now - out of control - and just hanging on as we are inundated with information. Light and sound - sensation. As I sit here in our second bedroom/storage/study/library annex/music room, I listen to the music of “Further” playing on the Como Audio Musica unit that I purchased some years back.
The band is playing on New Years Eve of 2011/2012 - eleven years after that party in Copenhagen. By the time this concert was going on over on the left coast, I was settled into my marriage to Lynn Bush Gill of Latrobe, PA who I’d met on May 3, 2007 a few blocks to the south of where I sit now. We were, on that New Years Eve, probably here in DC as opposed to our “country estate” as I called the townhouse she’d bought in 2003 in Burtonsville, Maryland. It’s been a ride.
I’m grateful for having the opportunity to have experienced these things. My marriage is, as it has been, quite strong and I count myself fortunate to have finally found someone when I was 44 with whom I have formed complete partnership. We are equal in just about every way but complement each other at the same time. May everyone be as fortunate and grateful for their relationships.
As I am writing, I have to look up at what I titled this because I am again wandering in my mind toward some foundational thoughts. I just added the word “Emerge” to the title to give the word “May” two meanings - both the month and the verb. In the first sentence of this paragraph, as the word “foundational” came tripping off of my fingertips, I am reminded that I am. I am the Harold B Gill Foundation, LLC. That’s what this work is all about - a creative expression of my father and his spouse of nearly 65 years, my mother, Margaret Ann (Snell) Gill. Creation - De Rerum Natura - which was dedicated to Venus. We all get here one way, after all, so far. Augmentation has resulted in children begin born that would not have been possible in the recent past. Something upon which to reflect - in vitro fertilization - freezing eggs, sperm, and embryos. We are a technologically advanced “civilization” - and I add the quotation marks with intent.
Are we actually “civilized?” What does it mean to be “civil” anyway? To my mind, it means that we are united in harmonious, constructive activity that leads to the greater good for the greatest number. Those who have achieved a great deal in their trajectories through our society probably all believe that they are contributing meaningfully to the greater good for the greatest number. I could expound on this for quite some time. After all, it was in working on translations of Peter Nathanael Sprengel’s Handwerke und Kuenste in Tabellen from 1988 through 1992 or so that I ended up projecting myself from Williamsburg, Virginia to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1994. Sprengel was a rector at the Realschul (or vocational school) in Berlin and published his work between 1767 and 1777 with the intent of giving the young men at the Realschul a good education in what it meant to be apprenticed to a particular trade so that they could make an informed decision. This, in turn, would lead to greater happiness and that - happiness - is the ultimate “good.”
It was at the University of Pittsburgh that I first was introduced to email which I accessed over a UNIX server at the computer room on the ground floor of the Cathedral of Learning - that 42 story neo-gothic skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of the university. What was apparent to me then, as it is now, is the very transformative ability of one person being able to tap out symbols on the screen that could touch the mind of another person at distance and cause neurons to fire in patterns which they would not ordinarily do were it not for having read what someone else had written. We were empowered in a way that had not been available previously. History was taking a swerve.
That brings me back to Greenblatt’s book and my own swerving careen of a career. I am one among over 8 billion people alive today. All of us have the ability to impact the others through our actions. We have the opportunity to mindfully act in ways that impact the greater good for the greatest number if we will only commit ourselves to doing so. This is a theme of the Foundation. To do this effectively, we need to study our actions as well as the actions of those who have come before.
In doing this work, we need to be aware that the law of unintended consequences is always active behind the scenes. We can have the best of intentions, and still run afoul of this constant - namely, that we can never take into account every possible result of any action or, for that matter, any inaction. Given the truth of this statement, there is still an imperative to act anyway. As we do so, we need to be conscious of the effects our actions engender.
I could go on and likely will - but for now, this post is probably long enough. I look forward to your comments and reflections in turn.
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