Why do you get up in the morning?

Conversations on the weather, and such…

Just over a month ago, I travelled across the ocean, with my brother, to say goodbye to my father: according to the medics, he may not have made it to his 85th birthday on 13 August 2023. 

Later, an old school friend asked how he was doing. I said he was too busy to die… planting food in the adjacent forest for the baboons (so they won’t raid his vegetables) and so forth.

Last night, the two of us chatted on WhatsApp about the weather (strong winds and rough seas where he lives in Africa), The Four Agreements and words of wisdom. 

He had visited a naturopath operating from premises in the industrial area of his town of George. This man had taken over from his father, formerly a manufacturer of anti-malaria medication. (I assume my father was exploring alternative options, since chemo & radiation would merely cause a diminished quality of life for him.)

He related that the man asked him “a damn interesting question”:

Why do you get up in the morning?

My father replied that he is studying machine learning, and there is much to do. He had developed the first tree planter, now used in Brazil, and he now wanted to engineer an onion bulb planter. 

You see, you can’t just put an onion bulb in the ground. The roots only go one way, so the machine needs to know where that is. It needs to see where to direct the bulb so it would grow. To this end – first there is a gathering and integration of all relevant machine learning theory, then programming, followed by a mechanical build. These things take time, and time is limited.

Our discussion continued, about the possibilities of artificial intelligence. I related my experience of job applicants using AI to respond to pre-interview questions, impressively well, but with a lack of creativity ~ identical responses in some cases; a kind of plagiarism (although the challenge of defining this is not new).

I then complained that the world and social media is overloading me with information, and my head is full.

To this, my father replied that:

Information is useless without experience. 

You can be completely au fait with the intricacies of balancing on a bicycle and going for a ride, but without the experience of it, you are bound to fall on your backside. We all once thought we knew everything, until we lived a little more. Certain certainties have morphed, and clearer meanings emerged. 

And it goes on.

Many people impress me with their articulate description of their knowledge and understanding across complex topics.

I frequently fall over my own tongue.

And after all this experience, I still wonder ~ sometimes ~ why I get up in the morning. 

***

Perhaps: To smell the sea, swim, dance, exercise, sweat, breathe, laugh, watch the sunset, hug, drink wine, write, create, teach, and share… to make a small, positive difference to another living being. 

That, for now, is enough for me.

***

“The rest is still unwritten”. And it’s your story!

Namaste.