The high school that I attended threw a holiday party for alumni – in New York.
I drove down to the Trenton train station and jumped on a train heading that way.
I was so nervous I nearly got off the train at Newark Penn Station rather than New York Penn Station.
When I got to New York, there were many people waiting for taxi cabs; but no taxi cabs would stop.
Finally, a pedal cab rode up; it’s like a giant tricycle: the driver pedals the tricycle, the passenger sits in the back under a canopy.
The driver was wild and calm, pedaling between buses, zooming in front of cars, dodging hapless pedestrians.
At first I was saying "Watch out!", "Be careful", "What have I gotten myself into?".
But, this driver was really great, so eventually I said "Well done", "Nice move", "Oh, my".
When I got to the event, I was so nervous, I had to sit down for a few minutes to collect myself.
It was a very classy place on 7th and 43rd street.
Out of place was I.
Fortunately, I met a few of my classmates:
-
a photographer/journalist,
-
a documentary maker,
-
an artist/designer/business owner.
Such are some of the trajactories upon which life has led us.
We had a nice conversation: we remembered things that we barely remembered that we remembered.
It reminds me of a song I heard. . .
Yes, indeed from a time
before
and
less before:
Speak to me of summer
Long winters longer than time can remember
The setting up of other roads
To travel on in old accustomed ways
I still remember the talks by the water
The proud sons and daughters
That knew the knowledge of the land
Spoke to me in sweet accustomed ways
Not so out of place was I, perhaps. . .
Fortunately, I met a fellow web developer/programmer/musician of great youth and knowledge, who encouraged me to stay current with the latest web technologies.
Finally, the party ended, as all parties must.
How was I to negotiate the darting,
yellow schools of taxi fishes
this time?
Fortunately, I had met another schoolmate, a world traveler, who had graduated a year after I did.
She had spoken to me during my aforementioned "out of place" phase.
She had also travelled by train to this place of celebration.
We walked back to the train station and traversed the treacherous terrain – among the surging crowd, amidst the skyscrapers, brightened by the lights - very stylish in our high heels, risking our feet, foot after foot after foot.
We continued our conversation as we rode back to our respective train stations, with no doubts about our destinations. . .
"Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at
work worth doing." So said Theodore Roosevelt in a Labor Day speech in 1903.
Work is such an integral part of all of our lives. It provides us with
sustenance and identity. On Labor Day, of course, we formally recognize the
importance of work.
The origin of Labor Day is somewhat is unclear. Some accounts say that Peter J.
McGuire, a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, suggested the
holiday. Other accounts say that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, founded the
holiday. In any case, the Central Labor Union adopted the idea and planned an
annual demonstration and picnic to honor workers. The first Labor Day holiday
was actually on a Tuesday, September 5, 1882 in New York City. Later, in 1884,
the holiday was set to be the first Monday in September. Soon, the idea caught
on in other cities. In June of 1894, Congress made Labor Day a legal holiday in
the District of Columbia and the states. In 1909, the American Federation of
Labor convened and resolved that the Sunday preceding Labor Day should be
called Labor Sunday and should be devoted to the spiritual aspect of work.
But does work have a spiritual aspect? What, in fact, is work? I suppose there
are many definitions. Work could simply be the external tasks one performs to
make a living and survive. Or, it could be the internal effort one makes to
achieve some spiritual goal. In physics, work is defined as force multiplied by
distance. I prefer that definition; it seems to encompass everything - the
mundane, the spiritual and the mathematical.
My own work history has been circuitous. I went to college to study electrical
engineering. Unfortunately, I was beset with doubts; I didn't know what I was
and what I wanted to do. I stopped college and got a job. I was disappointed in
myself but at least I was a good citizen capable of supporting myself. I worked
as a docket clerk in the Division of Law at the state house in Trenton. I
worked in the basement of the building, sometimes called the dungeon by those
who worked there. I wrote titles of legal documents in large, musty record
books. It was something to do; I could apply myself and I could forget myself,
too. Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish essayist and historian, once wrote, "Work is
the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind." That
was certainly true in my case.
Luckily for me, the state library was right across the way. I went there on my
lunch break to read about all the things that interested me - like music and
computers. The work I was doing, itself, had a very small importance to the
legal system; in that sense it was valuable. However, secretly, in my mind I
knew I couldn't work there forever. The visits to the library kept a spark
alive in me. Fyodor Dostoyevsky once wrote "Originality and a feeling of one's
dignity are achieved only through work and struggle." I decided to go back to
school at night to study computer science and work during the day. I definitely
had my work cut out for me.
Over the years it took for me to graduate, I got a number of jobs. Each one led
me closer to my ultimate goal of being a computer programmer/analyst. Once, I
worked for a pharmaceutical company. The company was submitting their product
to the FDA. I got a chance to work with databases containing the medical
information. There I could lose myself in work, yes, but it wasn't out of
self-disappointment. The work was genuinely interesting. And I knew there was
something worthwhile in me to save. Finally, I did graduate from school and I
was able to get my current job and achieve my goal. I'm doing the work I've
struggled so hard to do. I'm very, very fortunate. It gives me a sense of
identity that I hold to tenaciously.
But, how important is this work, this current job of mine? Is it really any
more important than writing titles of legal documents in large, musty record
books - as I did before? As a computer programmer, I'm entering arcane
instructions into the computer that are stored on microscopic magnetic regions
on a disk drive spinning hundreds of time per minute. A thunderstorm or a disk
crash or a careless use of delete key could wipe out all that work. Also, these
days, jobs are not necessarily secure. That form of work, that is, the mundane,
could vanish tomorrow just like files on a disk drive. However, because of the
other form of work I've had to do - through perseverance applied over the range
of life experience - that is, force times distance - I have a more solid
identity and spiritual foundation that allows me to continue despite setbacks.
The spiritual work to be done, however, will never vanish.
Thomas Carlyle once wrote, "Blessed is he who has found his work. Let him ask
no other blessedness." "Blessed is she, also!" I dare say with apologies to
Thomas Carlyle. Am I blessed? I would say so.
"Solitude is the play field of Satan." So wrote Vladimir Nabokov in his novel
Pale Fire. But wait, Publilius Syrus, a writer of maxims in the first century
BC, wrote "If you would live innocently, seek solitude." What is it about
solitude that evokes such differing reactions?
According to the dictionary, solitude "refers the state of one who is
completely alone, cut off from all human contact, and sometimes stresses the
loneliness of such a condition." This sounds forbidding, but is it?
When I arrive home from work, the empty apartment can be rather intimidating.
My mind is still racing. I say to myself, "Maybe I can solve that programming
problem I encountered at work. That way I'll have the solution by the time I go
back." So, I begin working on the computer. Then I ask, "What's going on in the
world?" So I turn on the television. But I want more in depth coverage, so I
turn down the television and turn on the radio. But what about that piece of
music that I was working on - maybe I can finish that! Hmm, maybe I can go onto
the Web; there's always something interesting there. What about dinner? I've
got to have dinner. There's really nothing on television; maybe I can watch
that old Star Trek video - I've only seen it ten thousand times! Well, you get
the idea: soon I have too many things going on and a terrible electric bill.
It's as if I'm trying to banish quiet and reflection that solitude might bring.
What if we were to remove the clutter and chaos in our lives? What would
remain? We, ourselves, would remain - not a vacuum, but a plenum - all the
unbidden thoughts and feelings that rise up and go out of existence. All of our
ambitions and frustrations and longings and resentments and loves and hates
would be there before us. Perhaps that is why solitude can be so difficult to
experience.
One of my best memories of solitude occurred during high school. In the
library, there was a window overlooking a field. During my free time, I would
sit on the windowsill with a book. I might read, look out the window or simply
think. These were very calming experiences.
My most difficult experiences, strangely, occur not when I'm alone, but when
I'm a stranger in a group of people. There seems to be some invisible barrier
between us. "How do they laugh so freely? What do they talk about? What's the
secret?" I ask myself. These are genuine questions, but they are also some of
those uncomfortable questions that well up out of nowhere. I try to observe
these thoughts objectively and let them pass. Without the resentment and fear
it might even be possible to say hello.
How do I react to someone else's solitude? My first impulse is to want to help
- because I know what it is to be lonely. Thhis is problematic, because I might
be projecting my own discomfort on someone else. My mother is a good example.
She has been rather ill lately. Her condition imposes many restrictions on her.
She feels self-conscious and does not want to go out of the house. She's an
independent person and it is difficult for me to see her this way. I try to
bring some hustle and bustle and good cheer into the house. Sometimes I
threaten to kidnap her and take her on a wild ride on I95 with the windows down
and the CD player blaring. Yet I cannot impose this upon her; instead, I try to
be gently encouraging while respecting her privacy.
Solitude is sometimes thrust upon us; sometimes we thirst for it. In any case,
solitude can be a way for us to hear our own thoughts. In his book, Walden,
Henry David Thoreau wrote, "I never found the companion that was so
companionable as solitude." Yes, I suppose, just as Greta Garbo did, "I want to
be alone," but only sometimes!
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning - that's the 4th UU
Principle. Could the Internet be used to help us with this noble quest? What is
the origin of this technology and should we trust it?
During the late 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), funded by
the Department of Defense, was conducting research on how to get different
computer networks to talk to each other. The scientists at the universities
involved in the research needed a way to exchange information easily. At the
time, there was no standard network hardware or communication protocols; it was
like the tower of Babel. Eventually, ARPA did find a solution to the problem
and linked together various universities including UCLA and Stanford. The
number of interconnected networks increased rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s and
also several important technologies emerged. For example, Tim Berners-Lee, a
scientist at a particle physics lab in Switzerland, CERN, came up with the idea
of using key words in data files to link to other related files - hyperlinks.
Thus the World Wide Web was born. Mark Andreeson, came up with the first
graphical web browser named Mosaic. Now, the World Wide Web is almost
inescapable
The Internet, then, is an infrastructure, a vast lattice of computers and
cables which store and transmit data. The World Wide Web is an easy to use
interface to the Internet, providing us with data - text, graphics and sound -
on just about any subject imaginable. It would seem to be the perfect way to
conduct a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Frequently, I stay
up later than I would like to admit reading about all kinds of things such as
music and the origin of the universe. I was even able to do some research on a
medicine that my mother needed to take. I realize more and more how little I
actually know.
But there is another side to all of this.
After the terrorist attacks in September of last year, everyone has become very
concerned about our security. The FBI has several electronic surveillance
programs. One is called Carnivore. It can be installed on an Internet Service
Provider's computers and can scan data as it is transmitted from computer to
computer. It can report on terrorist Internet activity, yes, but it could also
be used to spy on average citizens. This software can only be used after
obtaining a warrant from a judge, but the technology could be misused - and
that is chilling.
Then there is the problem of malware - malicious software. These are computer
programs - viruses, worms, trojans and the like - that infect or attach
themselves to other programs and email messages. They are designed to replicate
and transmit themselves through email, over computer networks or simply by
exchanging files on floppy disks. These programs can corrupt data and shut down
computer systems. Some of the people who design these programs are, perhaps,
challenged by the technical difficulties involved. Others might indeed be
malicious.
The Internet is an amazing combination of technologies. As any other tool, it
can be used for good or evil. Francis Bacon, an English philosopher once wrote,
"Knowledge is power." That is more true now than ever. Nothing is really free.
As you surf the Web and search for your truth and your meaning, you must
acquire knowledge, use your intelligence and be cautious just as you would in
any realm of life. And don't forget to have fun!
But the human element is still the most important thing. It's so easy, at least
for me, to hide behind the computer screen, away from the unpredictable world
of people. The World Wide Web is an invaluable source of information, but it
can never replace a dedicated, enthusiastic teacher. It can connect us in a way
not imagined only a few years ago, but it can never replace the simple touch of
a human hand. The Internet, then, is just one more network added to the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, wrote: "People say, what
is the sense of our small effort. They cannot see that we must lay one brick at
a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that
spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like
that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work
to do."
My parents grew up in a different world. At that time, black people were
completely segregated and treated as inferior. What I try to remember and
understand is the incredible perseverance, hard work and strength it must have
taken for my parents and countless other people to live under those conditions.
Yet they did survive and this has transformed our society for the better. They
did not give in to despair; they moved forward tenaciously, just as Dorothy Day
suggested. I hope I can continue the example they have set.
My parents wanted the best education for me. They sent me to a private school.
Frequently, I was the only black person present. I was aware of discrimination
in the larger world. I determined that I would be apolitical and neutral. I
would adopt a tunnel vision and accomplish my goal. No one would hurt me
because I would not allow my emotion to be touched. This approach had some
merit, I suppose, but I could not perceive some of the complexity of things -
good or bad.
After high school and college, I got a job. Once, I was working with a young
black woman. At one point, after we had been talking for a while, she said,
"You talk like you're white." I was shocked and hurt; I didn't quite know what
it meant. It was simply the way I talked, what could I do?
Had I lost my culture? Was I lost between two worlds? Somehow, I don't think
so. It took me a while to realize it. One can never really escape or destroy
one's true nature. One can, I believe, adapt or transform oneself as a response
to external influences and internal longings. My parents, although they were
Methodist, seemed to have a UU view of the world. By attending the school I
did, I was able to experience and appreciate many different cultures. For
example, I can listen to Duke Ellington and Miles Davis as well as Johann
Sebastian Bach and Bela Bartok. Surely, I'm a better person as a result of
this.
Because of the gains made during the Civil Rights movement, I have been able to
experience that broad vision of the world. But, are those hard won rights
secure?
The most recent presidential election was important to me. I made sure that I
voted. The ability to vote has not always been a right. In 1870, the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution gave black men the right to vote. In 1920, the
Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act, which
removed obstacles preventing minorities from voting, was passed in 1965. It was
one of the more important accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement. The act
was renewed and strengthened in 1982. All these events are relatively recent in
our history, however. Even now, we can't take our rights for granted. John
Philpot Curran, an Irish politician and judge, once said, "The condition upon
which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."
The election was contentious to be sure. Perhaps the country is divided between
the more liberal values, which gave rise to the Civil Rights movement, and the
more conservative values, which might return us to the past. However, I think
this is a great country; it allows us to disagree and to stand up for our
rights. The key is to continue a dialogue with those with whom we disagree, to
see their humanity.
Mahandas Gandhi once said, "It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try
as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the
evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but
will take in good heart whatever they might have to say."
Today is a good day to reflect on the meaning of independence and freedom.
Often, my mind is so filled with mundane concerns, that I forget how lucky I
am.
The Declaration of Indepenence says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness."
My parents grew up in a different world. Black people were completely
segregated and treated as inferior. This was appalling. What I try to remember
and understand is the incredible perserverance, hard work and strength it must
have taken for my parents and countless other people to live under those
conditions. Yet they did survive and this has transformed our society for the
better. I hope I can continue the example they have set. Though, there is still
a lot to be done, this country provided an environment in which this
transformation could occur. People of good conscience were able to stand up and
correct injustices for us all.
There is an interesting complexity to all of this, though. An oppressed person
may throw off restrictions imposed from without. However, that person may still
carry sprititual scars - a limited vision of themselves. At a recent Rainbow
Coalition meeting, Bill Cosby made some despairing comments about some people
in the black community. He said that some children were so badly educated that
"they're going nowhere." He blamed the parents for this because they had not
used the opportunities given by the civil rights movement. He said that at a
certain point, blaming the society paralyzes you: "And it keeps a person frozen
in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in."
If this is true, it is a terrible waste, but it's not hopeless. Gaining
independence is an ongoing process. It took America many years to achieve the
freedoms that we enjoy. There are so many opportunities in this country.
However, we must sometimes fight our own internal limitations invisible to
everyone around us to see those opportunities.
The Bill of Rights says, among other things, "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof;" This is one small sentence in the many articles of the Constitution,
yet it is extremely important.
My family did go to church regularly when I was a child. My parents tried their
best to give me and my brother and sister the best possible education - both
intellectual and spiritual. My family was Methodist, however, my childish mind
simply could not understand the logic behind it. In high school, I read all
kinds of books on philosophy to try to figure out where I belonged. I read
novels too; I was drawn to characters who were lost and questioning. I did
survive this time of intense searching. My brother and sister seemed to be
searching, too. I went to college and got a good job. But something was still
missing. That's why I went back to church, this church: to find my
spirituality. The open mindedness of Unitarian Universalism appeals to me. But
it combines and balances this open mindedness with common sense, skepticism and
intelligence. My brother recently joined another church and my sister has been
going to church for a long time. My mother once said to me that she was happy
that all of her children had found religion again.
Because of that right written into the Constitution long ago, I was able to go
on my spiritual quest and find my place.
Look around you. This is a beautiful place inhabited by beautiful people free
to exchange ideas. Suppose all that was taken away - everything I expect and
hope for - by some tyrannical government or power. Would I have the strength to
fight for what I believe in? Think of the people in the thirteen colonies
fighting for independence. Their's was not an easy struggle. Could I have
survived that? I'd like to think so, but I don't know for sure.
The day of 9/11 started out like any other day for me. I was impatient with the
traffic on Route 1. At work, I wanted to complete a project as quickly as
possible. When I heard of the attacks, I was awakened from a kind of
complacency. I was drawn out of myself into the larger world around me. My
lasting impression is that our lives and our freedoms are fragile and must be
cherished and protected. Perhaps John Philpot Curran was correct when he wrote,
"The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."
When people ask me what I do for a living, I often hesitate. In response, they
might say, "Oh, a computer programmer! That must be so boring!" Or they might
say, "Oh, you're one of those computer people! Those computers are everywhere,
the bane of our existence!" Or they might say, "My computer locks up for no
reason. It's driving me crazy!" Sometimes I want to run and hide. These
computers, though, are a human creation and they have human qualities - good
and bad - and this is what makes them so interesting and infuriating.
My interest in computers began in elementary school. The school that I attended
had a computer - just one computer. In those days, just after the Jurassic
period, computers were not so commonplace. By our standards today, it was
indeed a dinosaur. It was the size of a refrigerator and had external magnetic
tape reels on the front. One entered programs on a noisy Teletype. And, worst
of all, one had to reserve time on the computer, because, of course, other
people wanted to use it as well. Despite all this, computers fascinated me and
I wanted to write computer programs.
Computers don't understand our language or think as we do. Therein lies the
challenge. We humans have shared memories, experiences, and expectations,
languages and protocols that we can rely upon to communicate with each other.
We can reason, solve problems, create new ideas - and countless other things
that we take for granted. But how can one systematically describe such
activities. This task is more difficult than it might seem and makes one
wonder: what is human intelligence? In order to tell the computer to do a task,
one must write a very specific set of instructions written in an extremely
restricted language that the computer can interpret. This is programming at its
most basic level. However, there are so many interesting possibilities opened
up by this simple activity - writing a series of instructions.
After high school, I went to college briefly, but I wasn't quite sure what to
do with my life. So instead, I took a break from school and got a job. My
interest in computers and things electronic continued. But a question plagued
me. How do I make this interest into something useful? I became impatient with
myself; I knew I could be doing more with my life. I went back to school at
night and studied computer science; I worked during the day. At the time I was
working for a pharmaceutical company; I helped set up databases for their
medical studies. My supervisor was throwing away obsolete computers and
replacing them with new models. So he said I could keep one of the old
computers. I was amazed. This was one of the best things that could happen. It
allowed me to work on programs at home as well as at school. This was both good
and bad. I could do more work but I was up until three in the morning solving
interesting problems, drinking black cherry soda and eating chocolate chip
cookies. Often, I become so involved in a problem that I simply can't stop
until I solve it.
After a lot of work, I earned my degree and got a job as a programmer. This was
important to me because in some sense I could say this is my identity, this is
who I am. The challenges remain, though. How to get the computer to perform
useful tasks? On the job, there is an additional challenge: the deadline.
Recently, my co-workers and I worked on a project; it had to be completed by a
certain date - without a doubt. I did not have the luxury of contemplating
technical problems at my leisure. We all worked long hours and we did finish on
time. From the outside the job might seem boring. All I do is sit at a computer
all day and type arcane instructions. But there is a quiet drama going on. I
feel panic when things go wrong and elation when things go as expected.
But, am I a "hacker" in the best sense of the word or am I a corporate
automaton? The term "hacker" was originally defined as a computer enthusiast or
explorer, someone who takes a joyful interest in solving the problems posed by
computers - everything from networks, to user interfaces to artificial
intelligence. In the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution the author
Steven Levy states the hacker's ethic as follows:
- Access to computers should be unlimited and total
- All information should be free
- Mistrust authority - promote decentralization
- Hackers should be judged by their hacking not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position
- You create art and beauty on a computer
- Computers can change your life for the better
Some of these tenets sound similar to UU principles. I'd like to believe that
even within the rigid structure of my job, there is still room for creativity
and even play - although on a very compressed time scale. So maybe I'm a hacker
after all.
Recently, I went into the church office. A member of the congregation, Howard
Bennett, was sitting at the computer reorganizing files. As he worked, he was
talking to himself or maybe he was talking to the computer or maybe he was
talking to me. I assured him this happens to me all the time when I'm working
on one of those infernal machines. The next time you switch on your computer,
remember that there is a human face behind the integrated circuits.