The Threshold and the Four Junctions

You have begun a book which makes an agreement as it begins. I have no reason to seek a way to tell the reader what to think, all I am seeking to do is find a method of thinking which we all may benefit from using. Thinking is after all an expensive process, one which none of us may afford to carry out without following a reliable path.

Thus, my method of thinking results in a book, one in which I have already walked the path I am asking the reader to follow. The architecture of water, the sharp commentary offered by the mathematics of 1/137 — each appears as a landmark. Familiar landmarks within the map the book draws and through which I serve not as an expert, but as guide.

This territory is not new but has been walked by countless humans before us- mapmakers, guides, familiar hands to hold - and steps to follow - as we arrive at a place where nothing will agree to hold still for us to measure it.

We stand at a threshold where we must begin higher order thinking, or we will suffer untoward consequences. Since this kind of thinking is expensive and requires much of us, we join hands and become each other’s guides – each one, teaches one.

Whether we hear it in popular song, or figure it out for ourselves, the carpet – the whole floor, is moving underneath us as we try to maintain balance & harmony.

From the beginning we recognize we stand on moving ground, and step into the new philosophical and scientific and personal territory together, following the map in the shape of a book.

The fateful doorstep from which we contemplate the human future now, depends upon each one of us, and on what we are each willing to bring.

There are no free rides anywhere to be found, there never have been.”