Looking through old photos to find ones of Dwight (see my prior post) I came across a set of my favorite photos from when Rebekah was a little girl. She is now a grown woman, a neuroscientist. This is my idea of how it started.
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What sort of fruit would the ‘Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’ bear today?
Drawing and question by Marty Coleman, who used to think the little floaty things I got in my eye as a kid were atoms that I could see.
Quote by Leonard Louis Levinson who, it seems, wrote quotes.
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One of the most important things we can do for our kids is to expose them to the larger world. Whether that is as simple as going to a museum, watching a show on TV about an unfamiliar topic or as complex as a vacation abroad, letting your children see a world beyond their own daily life is essential to helping them make sense of their place in the world.
The goal isn’t to have them be disappointed with their daily life and the ‘lesser’ things that inhabit it. The goal is to understand how those lesser things connect to the larger world. Maybe they will understand how the TV show they watch actually has it’s roots in Shakespeare. Maybe they will realize the graphic design and photography they love in the windows at the mall had it’s roots in the museums of Europe or the pyramids in Mexico’s Yucatan, who knows.
The point is that no one’s world, no one’s things are truly ‘lesser’ if they know how to connect them to the large forces of culture, art, science and history.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1803-1873, English author. He wrote the famous line ‘It was a dark and stormy night’. San Jose State University (one of my Alma Maters) has an annual writing contest to find the worst original opening sentence for a novel. The contest is named after Bulwer-Lytton.
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The only thing I would add to this quote is to put a ‘yet’ at the end of it. I believe all is fathomable, just not yet, and maybe not even by us humans. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation.
In the meanwhile it is perfectly fine, and not against any belief in science and it’s ability to discover truth, to say we don’t understand something, that we sit in awe of the complexity of life, earth, the universe, emotions, feelings, death and much more.
I am happy knowing I am living in an era when searching for explanations, wherever they may lead, will not get me burnt at the stake or hung from a gallows for heresy. I am very glad for that.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily blog
Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, 1749-1832, German author, poet and scientist
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This is an homage to all the scientists out there, including my incredible eldest daughter, Rebekah, a Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience at George Mason University in Virginia.
The heart of science, from the beginning, when it was one and the same with religion, is to find out why things are the way there are and how to fix, change, improve, build upon, or just understand as much as possible.
To be a good scientist you have to withstand the appearance of absurdity in what you seek. Like the paleontologist looking for bones, having to answer questions from his mother or father about how he can make a living, or what good it will do to find some old bone anyway.
Or the cosmologist who has the engineer for a best friend who chides her for always having her head beyond the clouds and never producing much while she, on the other hand, has built a car or a bridge or something practical.
But it is the scientist who will discover where we came from, where we are going, who we are, how we can survive, what kills us, what saves us, and why it is so. It is the scientist who is searching and in the searching, absurd as it seems, is finding and becoming great in the process.
I love scientists. Pass this on to one you love, too!
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily blog. You should subscribe. It will make your brain bigger and your day better! Better yet, you should indulge in a voluntary paid subscription. It will make your heart bigger too.
Quote by Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet and essayist
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