So much to do, so little time...
If you've read any of these entries over the past several years, you
may have some idea about the travel I have the privilege to enjoin
on behalf of Sun Microsystems, the company
that has employed me for the past 8 years (I celebrated a full 8
on Jan. 10, 2002...). That's the longest period of time I've spent
at any single firm since I began this sacred path of software. It's a
long time by any measure, especially in an industry that habitually
rewards those who move from job to job, from group to group, from
company to company. Travel is its own reward, whether around the
world for one company or around the valley to a different one. Our
horizons widen, our eyes see anew and our potential for associations
are magnified by simply moving about. And sometimes we even learn.
This last trip brought me to Helsinki, Athens, Istanbul and Stockholm,
four very different but very wonderful cities...we have so many on
this fair globe. And while I truly enjoy most every city I have the
good fortune to visit, it was Athens in particular that moved me...
most unexpectedly and most profoundly and I'm grateful for the experience.
To Athens I would return without agenda. Generally, when I'm on "vacation"
I prefer to remain home. But Athens spoke to me in a visceral,
ineffable way that makes me pray that one day Liz and I can travel there
and simply be for a good time...
The spirit of human civilization - much that is good and decent about
the "us-ness" of our species - was born in Athens. The names we
(at least we in Western cultures) revere from Ancient Greece, nearly
all were Athenians. Aristotle. Plato. Socrates. Diogenes.
Euclid was inspired by the Platonic virtues, and geometry was born.
Rome was arguably patterned after Athenian virtues, which led to
a Roman Empire, to a Holy Roman Empire, to a march of civilization
that remains unabated yet, that one day dark in September notwithstanding.
The Renaissance was bootstrapped by ancient thoughts first thought
in Athens. How can we not weep at the joy and despair that is that
heritage?
I was moved. So very moved by the beauty of landscape, architecture,
mind and spirit that still today haunts that mythical place.
One day, Liz and I will go there together, not on business...on purpose;
that much, at least, I know.
I turned 50 on Jan. 31, 2002. Again, the ineffable...I cannot explain
how truly liberating and joyous a thing it is. Numbers are important...
the celebration of five full decades of life is one that I quietly
sing. There is such a freedom now, one I'd never truly known before.
Most importantly, a freedom to think. All my life I've been a
"seeker," not much caring for the liturgical nonsense so many of
our institutions would sell as gospel - and I don't mean churches
necessarily. Now, for reasons I cannot put into words, I feel
not only enabled but obliged to actually think. It is that noble
virtue that I now dedicate the next 50 years of my life...to thinking,
to living, to loving and to life - all very consciously. And to
thanking God for all the gifts I have known - especially the love
I have been given since my own personal healing which began, by coincidence,
with the genesis of the evangelist in me and has culminated over the
last two years from having known the love of my wife. Life, as she and I are
both fond of saying, is goo.... :)
If
there's hope for humanity it's in software