Midlife Meditation

Cover art depicting the Mule from a paperback edition of Foundation and Empire. “The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.”  ―  Isaac Asimov ,  Foundation and Empire In 1973, Isaac Asimov changed my life. I was that most pitiful of adolescent types, a lonely nerd in search of a passion. I was mercilessly bullied by my seventh grade peers, had no close friends, and had only recently lost my interest in playing with action figures, but had yet to find anything to take the place of them. I had a knack for writing and some modest musical talent, but neither of these pursuits had become a passion for me yet. My hatred for sports (it was always pre-empting my favorite Saturday morning cartoons) meant I had little in common with other boys my age. As a whole, then, my life was...

Warning: the following blog post contains spoilers. That was some read. I'm referring to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, a "young adult" fantasy epic that, in my opinion as a sci-fi fantasy geek, compares favorably with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Madeline l'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time , and C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy  and Chronicles of Narnia. It's a multiverse-spanning work that tackles heavy matters of theology, philosophy, and quantum physics, while keeping its focus on two tween-aged characters, Lyra and Will, who are at the center of the cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. While it's written for the YA audience, the attention to detail in both the world-building and the philosophizing is flawless, and there's plenty in here to bend the mind of this double-Masters degree reader. What grabbed me most--and has given this trilogy its notoriety--is Pullman's upending of Christian cosmo...