Sailng To Oblivium: June 30, 2017

The mathematical concept of “limits” destroyed my future as a physicist. Another concept of limits may destroy our country: decency limits.

The question today, June 30, 2017, is: shall we have controls on our behavior toward our fellow travelors along the road of life?

In mathematics, a limit is the value that a function or sequence "approaches" as the input or index approaches some value. Limits are essential to calculus (and mathematical analysis in general) and are used to define continuity, derivatives, and integrals.

I never could fully grasp it, so I abandoned the thought of nuclear physics.

Oh, I have abandoned many dreams in life, but I’ve reached a few, and I’ve always tried to be decent about it. I do admit, occasionally, to using a military service hat to scare people blocking an aisle at a supermarket while talking on their cell phone. ("Oh my god. It's one of them. I've got to run!")

As a minor expert in my field, I do sometimes respond to the same question being asked me in a myriad of different ways with, “Sir (or Ma’am) I haven’t learned anything in the last five minutes that would allow me to give you a different answer.”

For some reason, that answer tends really to piss people off, so I use it rarely, and I certainly don’t use it with my wife. Anymore.

So you see, there are what I call “decency limits,” or points in human interaction beyond which a thoughtful, confident, and considerate person will not proceed. Many, if not most, of us abide by this rule. We do it because, among other things, the Galilean told us to “love one another.” Some of us would employ a similar thought from Gautama Buddha, “True love is born from understanding.”

And, back in the day, we listened to the words of people like John Steinbeck, “Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.” And I think it was Alice Walker who said, “What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.”

Whatever the inspiration, it is, I believe, a positive sign for the future of the species that most of us place decency limits on our behavior, and we establish points of personal rancor and antagonism beyond which we will not go.

The question today then, is, why doesn’t the President of the United States?

Just what the hell did we expect?