We called ourselves “The Junto”.

Taking our name from a club started by Benjamin Franklin, we met every other week to share and discuss what we were learning both in and out of work. Each meeting was simple: short informal presentations followed by questions and insights. From artificial intelligence to business accounting, code patterns to animal health, the conversation flowed freely from one topic to the next.

As my work takes me from client to client, I’m no longer involved with that group. Yet the experience stuck with me, so I want to capture what made it valuable. I’m making these reflections public in the hope that they might help others.

Introduction

This reflection grew out of a question from a company “Come Together” meeting. Someone had pushed back against the daily rat-race described in the short film This Is Water, which we had just watched. In response, another person asked: “Well, what does reality look like? How would you describe it?” This was followed by uncomfortable glances and a change of conversation. Of course, I was quietly turning over the film’s failure to overcome the daily rat-race with its description of a better, more fulfilling way to live. But the unanswered question remained planted until the next month when the “Come Together” theme, Earth month, brought its own concerns. An answer to both that question and the concerns that I had had over the past two months burst forth in a vivid image that explained and transcended the daily rat-race. I will attempt to sketch that image as follows.

Every year, around my birthday, I become thoughtful about where I am and where I’m going. This year, I remembered that I will be old enough to run for the 2024 US Presidential election. While the idea of being the Commander in Chief is fascinating, as any position with power and prestige naturally is, I don’t see myself called in that direction. Upon further reflection, It is completely crazy what we ask the President to do and only an insane person would seek to gain that office.

The summit gained.

The prisoner’s aide heaves aside the cross and disappears
amid the chaos of the gathering crowd.

“Strip the prisoner and nail him.”

Clouds gather as we stretch the bloody limbs and drive the spikes
Maddeningly, he is silent still
What is he? He must be mad!
A soldier shrugs and points to the two protesting thieves.
Their turn.

Here, light a torch
now hoist them up
His accusers arrive in the deepening gloom.
“If you are the Son of God, come down from that cross”

Shall I crucify your king?
The taunting challenge and cowardly reply hover in the air.
We have no king but Caesar.
Upon His bleeding shoulder, my men shove yet more suffering.

Leaving the gate, He falls under the weight.
Near a woman, whose arms instinctively reach to catch him.
Doesn’t matter that his mother is here.
We don’t want him to die on the way there.

I see a strong man and order he lends a hand.
“He won’t make it. Here, you, help him take it.”
Then I turn to see another woman break free
wipes the face from Galilee.

A couple of months ago, I picked up the out-of-print “Philosophy of Religion” by Venerable Fulton Sheen. Unlike his more popular works, it is written for an academic audience and requires more effort to read. One point that stuck out to me was his lengthy and lucid explanation for why Evolution without God involves a contradiction.

I will attempt to summarize:

• Evolution describes the slow realization of a greater order from a lesser order.
• This realization of a greater order from a lesser order is either intrinsic or extrinsic to the universe.
• If it is extrinsic to the universe, then it must be from some transcendent being in whom is the perfection of all that is in the universe.
• If it is intrinsic to the universe, then that law of evolution must have been put in place by some transcendent being in whom is the perfection of order.
• This transcendent being, in whom is the perfection of being and the perfection of order, is who we call God.

This is only one of the arguments. He works his way through psychology, biology, physics, mathematics, and other sciences that have - at one time or another - each attempted to declare itself the supreme science and to reinterpret the other sciences based on its discoveries. With each, he demonstrates where they are lacking and uses Thomistic philosophy to fill in the gaps.

With the weather warming up again, I’m rushing to accomplish a home project of refreshing the insulation in the attic. Last year, we suffered through the summer with the temperatures in the house reaching up to the low eighties while it was in the upper nineties outside. I don’t want to experience what will happen if the temperature goes above 100.

I spent a good chunk of time last year insulating part of the house, but I missed the area that was absorbing the most heat. The house was properly insulated a while back, but the existing fiberglass insulation has settled since then. Rather than piling on more fiberglass, I’m leveraging mineral wool insulation, which is resistant to settling, doesn’t absorb water, and doesn’t burn the same way as fiberglass (it has to get above 2000F before there’s a problem).

This is a bit of a long one, so hold on to your hats.

I heard about the “Platinum Rule” in a series of different presentations recently. According to the different presenters, they said that the Platinum Rule is based on the Golden Rule “Treat others as you would want to be treated”. The “Platinum Rule” is “Treat others the way that they want to be treated”. Some said that the two rules were good in different contexts. Others said that the Platinum Rule was superior to the Golden Rule and hinted that the Golden Rule was not sufficient. Because of my upbringing, this appearance of a rule that was claimed to be similar to or even better than what I had learned from my parents rubbed me the wrong way, and I was determined to figure out where the problem lay.

I was speaking with a good friend today about my previous blog post, and ended up discussing my general learning style. I thought it would be good to capture some of my thoughts in written form for future reference.

I have very strong beliefs. Glancing over some of my recent blog posts, this is probably obvious to anyone who reads them. Thankfully, my education helped me to understand two things: First, I can’t be correct about everything. Second, the best way to learn is either to reason through the problem or to experiment with possible solutions. Typically when approached with a problem, if I have some idea of the answer, then I can ask questions and reason my way to a possible solution. If I have no idea, I try to grasp the context of the question and then start throwing random ideas at it as quickly as possible to see what sticks.

I often hear people quip, “Don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good’”. In particular contexts, this statement makes good sense. Don’t allow perfectionism to prevent you from finishing a task or a project. Since we don’t know what perfect looks like, we may be spending time adding an unnecessary feature. However, this statement is often said as a truism, as if it could stand on its own without additional clarification or context. In this last sense, I heartily disagree.