Welcome back to reality! Like many of us, I tend to spend the early days of the year in a daze, fighting through the lingering holiday stupor and forcing my attention toward work. If you're like me, you might also spend this week in a reflective mood. I'm a procrastinator, so I usually meet midnight on January 1 having done no self-reflection beyond what I learned from Spotify Wrapped, and certainly with no resolutions. While I'm opposed to your standard New Year's resolutions, I appreciate the changing of the calendar as a prescribed time for collective thoughtfulness and introspection. What is this arbitrary construct called "the date" for, if not to guide humans collectively forward? So this week, I spent time thinking about the past year and my hopes for myself in 2024. For instance, I would like to invite more curiosity into my daily life.
That's why this week's Classics is about UFOs. This time two years ago I was fact-checking Chantel Tattoli's profile of the French information scientist and ufologist Jacques Vallée. A sober and ironically grounded guy with the "heart of a poet," Vallée simultaneously pursued two life callings: an impressive career in tech and the study of UFOs. His ever-evolving theory of the phenomenon, explained throughout his numerous tomes, balances the mysteries of consciousness and the human experience with science and empirical evidence. Published in February 2022, Tattoli's piece, "Jacques Vallée Still Doesn't Know What UFOs Are," has all the trappings of a great story: a philosophical Parisian, flying saucers, "big-eyed, bald-headed aliens," congressional UFO studies, Arpanet, Steven Spielberg, young love, and Austin, Texas.
Admittedly I had never heard Vallée's name before fact-checking this piece. Digging into his world turned out to be illuminating and delightful. Over six decades of working in academic astronomy, creating computerized maps of the cardiovascular system, earning a PhD in artificial intelligence, helping to build Arpanet, and entering Silicon Valley venture capital, Vallée kept journals. In addition to his work advancing computer science and the study of UFOs, he published five volumes of diaries. His vision of the world, as laid out in surprisingly beautiful prose, is inspiring and often astonishing. Though it's clear from his resume that Vallée is a man with a curious mind, it's best illustrated in his writings.
I think we could all stand to be a little more like Vallée, who, despite constantly hearing fellow scientists deride ufology, continued to press forward, bringing wisdom and beauty to the field. This year I hope to be more contemplative, open-minded, and inquisitive, whether that's wading into Valléean metaphysics or finally figuring out exactly how the blockchain works. While traversing the hundreds of UFO sighting records, theories, and yes, studies, might be farther down the to-do list, it's definitely higher up than it was before. What about you? What sidelined activity will you take up this year? What oft-overlooked or even mocked topic might you explore? What questions with no answers will you ask? Leave a comment below the story and let me know.
Happy pondering!
Sam
.jpg "flying disk")
Posts
حبيبي ليس يعدله حبيب *** ولا لسواه في قلبي نصيب حبيب غاب عن بصري وسمعي *** ولكن في فؤادي ما يغيب يا حبيب ...
No comments:
Post a Comment
🤔