Peripatetic Philosopher shares his opening gambit:

PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON NEW WRITING PROJECT

JAMES R. FISHER, JR., Ph.D.

© November 17, 2017

Henry Adams in his autobiography, "The Education of Henry Adams" uses "he" for "I" throughout. Whereas his life spanned the 19th and 20th century, mine has the 20th and 21st.

That is where the commonality ends as his grandfather was President John Quincy Adams and his great grandfather was President John Adams, the second President of the United States, and one of the Founding Fathers. If that was not enough, his uncle was Edward Everett, one of the premiere orators of his day along with Daniel Webster, who incidentally was a friend of the family. Henry Adams family was ten to twenty levels deeper in accomplishment to mine with clerics, scholars, politicians and academics.

My da completed the seventh grade and was a brakeman on the railroad; my mother graduated from high school but suffered from poor hearing all her life and so was always a home body. That was a great asset to me if not to the family's economic fortunes.

With the exception of my mother's brother, my uncle, who earned two Ph.D.'s from the University of Iowa (economics & psychology), modesty and ignorance beyond simply work has been the story of my family.

Perhaps that is why work, workers and the workplace have been so engaging. In any case, from a preliminary conceptual standpoint, I plan to use the gentlemanly "he" in briefly tracing my earliest recollections to the present. This section is to be designated PERSONA.

The next section is to be devoted to THE INDIVIDUAL and how that status has evolved, devolved and stagnated over time to reach the critical stage of essentially no longer being relevant. We are a spoiled brat society with a herd mentality and that has progressed over my lifetime to the point of boredom.

The next section is to be WORK as viewed through the books I have written on the subject and why they were written. I would have preferred to write poetry and prose but felt I was more qualified to write on this more pragmatic subject.

The last section will be on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, not from a scientific and theoretical perspective, but how they have become like atomic energy, a great source of cheap energy but with the impossible challenge of how to control and dispose of them once they negatively impinge on society.

Like my family which is of simple roots, I am blessed with more ignorance than knowledge, and I'm sure this will show only too clearly to readers. That blessing often finds inspiration for readers' own ideas by reading someone less gifted than they are, giving them the courage to enter the fray and possible embarrassment by exposing their own ignorance by writing. I've never had a problem exposing mine so it should come as no surprise to readers who have known this of me all along.

My hope is that I have the time and energy to complete this insanity.


JRF


PS Readers are still trickling in who want to receive these updates. I've tried to give them back issues of how this process is unfolding, but I will desist from that from this point forward as that has become time consuming. At the same time, I welcome newcomers as I welcome comments from everyone as they keep my feet to the fire while clarifying my approach to this undertaking.