My fate

January 6, 2024 • 2:31 pm

It’s a dismal gray day in Chicago; last night we had the first snowfall that actually stuck. The snow continues with a few barely discernible flakes. It’s a day of the doldrums.  As I walked home this afternoon,, I passed this tree, or rather the remains of a tree that’s crossed the Rainbow Bridge. It’s an ex-tree, singing with the Choir Invisible.

It was planted in honor of a beloved teacher at the U of C’s Laboratory School, in hope that a small sapling would become a mighty tree that would evoke her memory for decades.

Didn’t happen. The tree died young and all that remains just a bunch of upright sticks. Such is our fate: whatever “immortality” we hope to gain, through books, children, accomplishments—all of this will vanish. Even our immortal genes, carried in our descendants, will be washed out in the tide of interbreeding and genetic drift. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

Carpe diem.

71 thoughts on “My fate”

  1. This is all true, but you have created a wonderful written record on WEIT, which will influence people in and out of science long after you are gone. Can you please make arrangements for your friends who help you out with WEIT to continue this website when you are gone? I know this is morbid and premature, but Ceiling Cat, it is better to take care of these things ahead of time.

      1. “Not to be born at all
        Is best, far best that can befall,
        Next best, when born, with least delay
        To trace the backward way.
        For when youth passes with its giddy train,
        Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils,
        Pain, pain forever pain;
        And none escapes life’s coils.
        Envy, sedition, strife,
        Carnage and war, make up the tale of life.”
        Sophocles

  2. Rage rage against the dying of the light.

    And good compost or starter fertilizer / root starter inoculum can help.

    (I got a fig to grow outdoors for a few years that way.)

  3. Life endures in our children, in our works, and in those who remember us. Plant another tree in her memory.

  5. “O May I join the choir invisible
    Of those immortal dead who live again..”

    Nothing lives forever, but perhaps, in some strange way, words do.

    Here is Mary Oliver:

    Wild Geese
    =======
    You do not have to be good.
    You do not have to walk on your knees
    for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
    You only have to let the soft animal of your body
    love what it loves.
    Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
    Meanwhile the world goes on.
    Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
    are moving across the landscapes,
    over the prairies and the deep trees,
    the mountains and the rivers.
    Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
    are heading home again.
    Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
    the world offers itself to your imagination,
    calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
    over and over announcing your place
    in the family of things.

    1. +1

      Rosemary,
      This is my favorite poem!

      Especially the beginning lines:

      “You do not have to be good.
      You do not have to walk on your knees
      for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
      You only have to let the soft animal of your body
      love what it loves”

      But really all of it.

  6. I can relate. It’s a cold and gray day here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I am weeks away from my 70th birthday. I am finally over a health issue that had me feeling sometimes incapacitated often over the course of 4 years. Age and knowledge of the tenuous nature of strength and vitality have me contemplating my mortality.

    So in a little while I’m going to get some exercise and revel in my ability to still sweat and exert myself physically (even if not to the extent that I could in my youth).

    Then I am going to avail myself of the two bottles of excellent beer (Samichlaus Classic) that await in my fridge. I will give myself over to the pleasure of that indulgence.

    For me, life is best when invigorating stress is followed by allowing for contentment at having engaged in the struggle of being alive.

    Enjoy the moments of both. They’re all we have, and that’s enough for me.

    1. “Life is just a party,
      And parties aren’t meant to last.”
      -Prince (“1999”)

    2. +1

      Yes, it has to be “enough”. At some point, it has to be enough.

      Whether animals have consciousness or not (the subject is under debate), whether they contemplate mortality or not, they are keenly aware of the bright line between life and death. They live with us, and yet, in so many ways, are not among us.

      Time must mean something very different to animals.

      I see the wild ones everyday, around me, foraging, killing, nursing their young, exiting in a world removed, less neurotic than we are, more complete.

      They live less for tomorrow, and more for today.

      Some say humans can -consciously- find some of the same magic if we stop, be still and look. I am inclined to believe it’s possible.

      Happy early B’day. ❤️

      1. Yes, I think I remember wondering, when I had d*gs, if they had any sense of a future, or if, for them, there was only the present.

        If the latter is true, that must be kind of nice. Makes them less prone to neuroticism, as you pointed out.

        Thank you for the birthday wish.

    3. Oh, wow! We must have been born about the same time. I will be 70 at the end of this month, and I too, inevitably, have been reflecting on my mortality.
      I suppose one way to think about it is that chance has been our friend in that we have existed at all, or as Dawkins puts it: “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.”
      Another way to think about it is that when we are gone, the love for us doesn’t die. Those whom I have loved and that have loved me will go on loving me after I have gone, and that at least is a comfort. It is sad, though, that when I go, the love I still have for my late parents will die with me.
      But that is just the way it is. I suppose, we all have to learn to live – and die – with it.

  7. We are stardust, and some time in the future we will again be stardust, from which new stars will be born. We are each a unique and momentary arrangement of that dust that has somehow become self aware for a brief flash of time. Enjoy your flash.

        1. I have it written on a meme with a background of the galaxy. I might print some for my sis to give to friends when the time comes. I adore it so much.

    2. We are stardust
      We are golden
      And we’ve got to get ourselves
      Back to the garden
      ——————————-

      Woodstock, Joni Mitchell.

      1. Joni Mitchell wrote the song ‘Woodstock’ in one night. It was August 1969 and she wanted to go to perform at the Woodstock festival but it was the very early days of her burgeoning career and her first TV interview was scheduled for the next day and she was unsure if she would be able to get out of Woodstock in time to appear on it.

        She became more and more upset as she sat and watched one of the biggest events of her generation unfold on the TV screen, almost half a million people attended Woodstock and she wasn’t there. David Crosby, Steve Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young took a helicopter into Woodstock and they made it out the next day and made it on time to the same TV interview.

        Joni said that when she saw that they made it and she could have gone, her heart broke right there, she missed out and wrote the song out of her disappointment. Robert Bush

        1. Most of us remember the CSN&Y version, but Joni’s version is beautiful:

          1. I agree! Her version is wistful and haunting. My eyes tear up when I hear her sing this song. The exhilarating high note is the ultimate siren call!

          2. Historical footnote: Joni made it to the Atlantic City Pop Festival ~3wks earlier. She started a song but disintegrated very early into it and left, saying that she couldn’t continue.

  8. Aw c’mon. You know what you know because of your predecessors’ books and accomplishments, and your ideas will flow into the future. Maybe not attributable to Jerry Coyne, but part of the fabric nonetheless. A bit like the tree rot feeding the fungi and the soil. My father’s favorite aphorism: “Life is a coral reef. We each leave behind the best, strongest deposit so the reef can grow. But what’s important is the reef.”

    1. Yet Ozymandius is still remembered over 3000 years later. Many of his ‘works’ are still with us.

      His “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” still “Stand in the desert” even though it’s just his feet, rather than whole legs, and the Ramesseum is no longer in a huge desert. I have photos somewhere.

      Ironically, Shelley’s ode to his haughtiness is one of the many reasons we remember him.

      Have hope. Books will last as long as humanity, in some form or another. Plant another tree. A hardier one. Like Ramses II.

    2. I think this comment and several others fail to acknowledge Jerry’s fundamental point, that our accomplishments and the memories we leave behind with our families and friends will inescapably fade. I know the names of my great grandparents, but virtually nothing about the details of their lives. I do not even know the names of my great-great-grandparents. A rare few will leave behind work known for millennia, though those creators probably did not expect that. But those too will dissolve in the ineluctable force of entropy. Is this realization morbid? I don’t think so. The prospect of death haunts many of us in the West. In the East (and certain practitioners in the West), particularly in non-supernatural versions of Buddhism, and in ancient Greek philosophy, the prospect of death is freeing. How much of our personal suffering is due to insecurity, egoism, and fear of alienating members of our tribes? Isn’t it possible we can release these constraints when we realize they are flimsy illusions? As Jerry intimates, are we not impelled to “seize the day” when we fathom we have precious few days remaining in our lives?

  10. Our impermanence doesn’t lessen our impact on the ones with whom we travel through life, nor theirs on us. Mary Oliver got it right, “love what it loves”. That’s enough.

  12. Remember Richard Dawkins’ lines from ‘Unweaving the Rainbow’:

    “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”

    Chin up!

    4. I agree unwaveringly. This small passage is one of the most moving things I’ve ever read. I remember that he read this at a colleague’s funeral, and there is no better way to remind people of the preciousness of life. It perfectly illustrates the beauty of science and nature and reveals just how lucky we are to have been able to have the opportunity to witness it.

      It reaffirms what most Richard Dawkins readers know already: he is, without doubt, one of the finest non-fiction writers ever to have put pen to paper. What Keats did in poetry, Dawkins does in prose. He is an astonishingly powerful writer who we are lucky to have.

      It’s also worth remembering that Keats was only 25 when he died! What more would he have written if he had lived a longer life? Another reminder that we should all try to ‘carpe diem’.

      1. I agree with Jerry that the 60s and 70s produced the best rock music (I also listen to baroque, mediaeval, and English traditional music). However, whether or not the music is to one’s taste, the clip above shows that there are still people writing good music with their heart in it, as opposed to Tin Pan Alley mass-produced auto-tuned forgettable consumer pop.

    6. “Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.”

      I’m always bothered by this quote because of the inherent dualism in it. It makes me want to shout There’s no there there!. There are no unborn people. No unborn ghosts. Possible people aren’t people!

  13. I accept that for myself but feel badly when I see a dedication like that, which came to nothing even in the short term. There’s the Lab school right across the street now and nobody there ever cared enough to even replant the tree when the initial sapling didn’t take.

  14. Love can take the edge off ….
    This woman urges her lover to shun the angels and Eternity ……

    Sonnet 22
    When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
    Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
    Until the lengthening wings break into fire
    At either curvèd point,—what bitter wrong
    Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
    Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
    The angels would press on us and aspire
    To drop some golden orb of perfect song
    Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
    Rather on earth, Belovèd,—where the unfit
    Contrarious moods of men recoil away
    And isolate pure spirits, and permit
    A place to stand and love in for a day,
    With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

    ~ Elizabeth Barrett 1845, an actual love poem written during her courtship with Robert Browning.

    Now THATs an atheist love song!

  15. I live in the area and you described the day with perfection. I will not try to cheer you up. These feelings are as valid as good humor and can lead to insights and a depth of feeling that enhances life. This is not a state of mind to linger in, but visiting occasionally seems like one aspect of wisdom and an examined life.

  16. Beautiful and sad! That’s why I cannot truly love astronomy. I hate the thought that with time, the Earth will be destroyed, the Sun will burst into a red giant and then shrink into a dwarf and then be extinguished, and our entire Universe will die. About the latter, I comfort myself that scientists may be wrong.

  17. Contact Joey Santone of Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t on YouTube. He is one enthusiastic mf. And he likes using the f-word in his enthusiasm. He has been after people to tear up their lawns and ornamentals and plant species native to Chicago, which he is also. And maybe that’s what you can do is plant something native in honor of your friend. I think Joey would give you a hand. Also his videos are great and inspirational just like WEIT.

  18. Your title My fate reminded me of a poem called My shoe that always makes me smile.

    Since I hurt my pendulum
    My life is all erratic.
    My parrot, who was cordial,
    Is now transmitting static.
    The carpet died, a palm collapsed,
    The cat keeps doing poo.
    The only thing that keeps me sane
    Is talking to my shoe.

  19. Prof JC get away from that cold Chicago weather and pop down and see us in New Zealand.
    Magnificent Summer’s day here.

    1. The tomb Larkin was inspired by is in fact in Chichester cathedral, where WEIT reader Dom was a stone mason in the early ’80s. My oldest friend was a student in the city, which is how I met Dom.

  23. Life is but a checkerboard of days
    Where Fate, with men for pieces, plays
    Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
    And, one by one, back in the cupboard lays.

  24. Goodness, boss! Be easier on yourself. IMPACT is important and you’ve had decades of that through your writings, talks, books, and now WEIT which reaches and effects (positively!) cumulatively more people than you could have ever IMAGINED 30 years ago. Your HUMAN capital is immense.

    NYC winters aren’t as .. sadistic.. as the Chicago ones but it is easy to get down here also. At those times, maybe being a lawyer… I think “Hey, I’m not under arrest, imprisonment, indictment, party to a lawsuit, deportation, divorcing or bankruptcy proceedings.” Phew.

    Taking my lawyer hat off, exposing the baldness of 52 well lived years, childless but with dog (!), I zoom out and think where I am on the totem of luck of humanity by virtue of citizenship and the TIMES we live in. And my peeps.

    And I smile into the Manhattan gloom.
    best,
    🙂
    D.A.

    ps if that doesn’t work, you’ll be able to read my article tomorrow to tell you how wrong you are about the “Two State Solution.” MwahaAHAHHA!

  25. That tree looks fine to me. A lot of deciduous trees evolved along side big herbivores like Proboscidea, so can re-grow when the stump is cut.

    But your point is valid nothing matters very much, & most things don’t matter at all.

  26. I would take solace from the fact that despite our impermanence, our influence in the world persists in ways both knowable and unknowable. This is true for everyone, but especially so for anyone who has had the privilege of working with and guiding young people (as is the case for you in your role as an educator). And it’s not just the transmission of knowledge…of my teachers, I remember most the words of encouragement and the moments of discussion which shifted a mindset. Insomuch as immortality can be found anywhere, it resides in those moments.

    1. But it clearly is not dead, merely coppiced! There is plenty of growth there from multiple potential new trunks.

      1. And with a little bit of skilled help, tree could look downright presentable next to the concrete monument, even overshadowing it someday.

  28. Death does seem too close at times. I turn 78 this year. My wife died 13 years ago. My two best friends died over 30 years ago. I do like this sentence from Terry Pratchett, “And, with alarming suddenness, nothing happened.” I am hoping that suddenness describes the end.

    Thank you for keeping WEIT going all this time. You fill WEIT with humor, cats, wildlife, travel, philosophy, and science. It is truly an asset in my life.

  29. my other comment is just spinning in a circle and not loading > 5 minutes Charles Allan Gilbert (September 3, 1873 – April 20, 1929), better known as C. Allan Gilbert, was a prominent American illustrator. He is especially remembered for a widely published drawing (a memento mori or vanitas) titled All Is Vanity. https://imgur.com/Z6HzW4F

  30. This is only slightly below random ………….

    The film “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.”

    No deus ex machina, yet somehow comforting.

  31. Well I’ll be, Jerry is not only a scientist, but a poet and a philosopher too! This post is profound, highlighting the most consequential question each human being can contemplate.

    Our accomplishments and the memories we leave behind with our families, friends, and colleagues will inescapably evanesce. I know the names of my great grandparents, but virtually nothing about the details of their lives. I do not even know the names of my great-great-grandparents. A rare few individuals will leave behind work known for millennia, though those creators probably did not predict that. But those too will dissolve in the ineluctable force of entropy. Is this realization morbid? I don’t think so.

    The prospect of death haunts many of us in the West. In the East (and certain practitioners in the West), particularly in non-supernatural versions of Buddhism, and in ancient Greek philosophy, the prospect of death is freeing. How much of our personal suffering is due to insecurity, egoism, and fear of alienating members of our tribes? Isn’t it possible we can release these constraints when we realize they are illusions? As Jerry intimates, are we not impelled to “seize the day” when we fathom we have precious few days remaining in our lives?

  32. “Why should I fear death?
    If I am, then death is not.
    If Death is, then I am not.
    Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
    Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
    Religious tyranny did domineer.
    At length the mighty one of Greece
    Began to assent the liberty of man.”
    – Epicurus

    The above was distilled by the followers of Epicurus in an epitaph commonly chiseled into their gravestones:
    “Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo.” (I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care)

  34. My take is that there is no death because from our own individual perspectives we never die. The world begins when we become conscious of it and reality ceases when we no longer are. I’m never going to experience being dead, and neither will you or anyone. If it is impossible for something to be experienced, we can discount it. There is no future beyond us.

    The broad perspective may be discouraging, but there’s something to be said about going very small. Solipsism has its uses.

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