Praise the Lord Amazon
he who brings
gifts and blessings
to my doorstep
anytime of the day.
Who through his omniscience
makes me aware
of the needs
I didn't even know
I ever had,
and when he does,
I fall on my knees
filled with gratitude
for his benevolence.
Praise the Lord Amazon
for the dopamine rush,
when I hear his chariot
stop in front of my house;
and hearing the brief chime
of the doorbell that follows
makes my heart
skip a beat with joy.
Another day, another morning.
The alarm on the smartphone goes off and I reach over and turn it off. For the next few minutes, I would linger in a twilight zone of consciousness trying to reach the state of being fully awake, get up, brush my teeth, and head downstairs to the kitchen for my first cup of Earl Gray, and let its aroma bring me back into the world of living.
Some days, however, bringing myself to speed is not easy and today is one of those days.
I just lay in bed unwilling to get up. Wrapped under the cotton sheets, the mind starts to scan through the portfolio of engagements during the day.
To effortlessly slide into the daily routine, I have been advised to have various tricks in the toolbox. If you want to exercise first thing in the morning, go to sleep dressed for exercise. If you want to do some yoga or to meditate for a few minutes in the morning, spread the yoga mat before heading for bed.
Another trick is the notion of park facing downhill in the evening so when morning comes, all one needs to do is to let go of the brakes and the car automatically starts to move.
The crux of this trick is that if you are in the middle of writing something the previous night, do not bring it to a finish, instead leave the task unfinished and when the morning comes, without a heavy lift, it would be easy to pick up from where you left and get your day going.
The same idea could be generalized to other activities — cleaning or rearranging a room, folding clothes after laundry — leave them half done in the night and pick them up the next day without needing to think about what needs to be done.
Here is a small, but related digression.
I don’t know about you, but it happens quite often to me that in between major tasks during the day if I get a 15–30 minutes break, it is not trivial to think about something to do. A solution for that is to have a go-to list of small engagements that can be picked up without any conscious effort.
A possibility is to have a saved list of articles one wants to read, and if there is a short stretch of time available, pick one to read.
The secret of well-being, and fulfilling life, is to have a bag of holdings within easy reach filled with creative and engaging activities to draw from.
Even with all those tricks in my toolkit nothing is working this morning. What is needed today is something different to look forward to that will prod me to get out of bed.
Today the mind is looking for something different than the routine to have a rush of dopamine, cheer itself up and bring springiness to the feet. A casual glance through the landscape of engagements during the day draws a blank.
The mind keeps scanning the activities through the day trying to identify a source for a hit of dopamine.
Then it stumbles on something.
The mind remembers reading an email last evening that said that the package I had ordered from Amazon will be delivered sometime today. The memory instantly releases a rush of dopamine and I suddenly feel all perked up and motivated to get out of bed, face the day, and get on with the usual items in the portfolio of engagements that are laid out for the day.
Praise Lord Amazon. It has once again rescued me and has given me something different to anticipate and look forward to.
The mood brightens and I am heading downstairs for my first cup of Earl Gray.
Ciao.
Have you ever wondered why, despite Captain Kirk’s relentless voyages into the farthest reaches of the universe — driven by the iconic call to go where no one has gone before — he so often encounters life forms that feel oddly familiar? Beyond the obvious explanation that each episode springs from the imagination of screenwriters, whose creativity is inevitably shaped by their own human experiences, might there be a deeper, more fundamental reason behind the recurring outcomes of Kirk’s adventures?
The answer, quite possibly, is yes.
What follows is a straightforward, axiomatic account of how life might arise across disparate regions of the universe — and why, despite vast cosmic diversity, it may still be bound to a biological paradigm strikingly similar to the one we know on Earth, and the one Captain Kirk encounters time and again.
While you read through it, please remember that although I have some background in physics, and would not venture into the realm of absurd speculations, try not to split hairs at the “physics” statements below. If it is more palatable, take these words as science fiction (that my immediate family loves to read) that is grounded in some reality of physical laws as we know them now.
Since it is an axiomatic approach, let us start with a few axioms (with less being better).
Axiom 1: Atoms are the constructing blocks for everything in the universe.
Axiom 2: The Big Bang happened and created a uniform soup of matter (i.e., atoms) and energy.
Starting with a uniform distribution of matter, random fluctuations in its density would result in lumpiness in some parts of the nascent universe, and those lumps subsequently evolved into stars and galaxies we observe today.
All stars, at their core, are engaged in thermonuclear fusion which is “necessary” to counteract the inward gravitational pressure of surrounding gas of atoms, and in the process, release energy. If they do not then the gaseous cloud will compress inwards and implode to become black holes or some other super dense object.
This energy from thermonuclear fusion heats up the core of the stars. This heat conducts outwards towards the surface, warms up the outer layers and is radiated into the space as photons.
The spectral density of the energy that is radiated outward depends on the temperature of the outer layer of the star (which is determined by the size of the star and how actively thermonuclear fusion has to work to counter the inward pressure of the surrounding gas) and the elemental structure of the outer layers (which dominated by the first element in the periodic table — hydrogen).
The photons coming out of the stars traveling through the empty space are the source of energy that is available for consumption and is the energy that reaches the planets that circle around the stars.
Although planets are also made up of the same atoms as their host star, planets are not the producers of energy via thermonuclear fusion but are consumers of the energy that falls on their surface.
With the availability of the star’s energy, atoms interact and engage in an intricate dance. Some have the affinity to bond with others and form simple molecules, which over time, form into more and more complicated molecules.
Eons pass by and the structure of molecules keeps getting complicated. A few more eons later some of the molecules, by chance, figure out that with the help of each other they can self-replicate. By doing so, they start the epic battle of natural selection — evolving structures that are more efficient in consuming the energy that is available to anyone for utilization.
And then the rest is history, bringing us to the point where I am in the process of putting these words together that you might be reading.
The energy available to these life forms originates from the radiation emitted by the star in their vicinity. The spectral density and peak wavelength — defined as the wavelength at which the emitted energy is maximized — are determined by the star’s atomic composition and its size.
The hottest stars have the peak wavelength in the ultraviolet and blue parts of the spectrum while cooler stars emit more in the red and infrared. The peak wavelength of the Sun’s emitted radiation is in the visible part of the spectrum and falls in the yellow-green region, and corresponds to a yellowish color.
The progression from atoms to simple molecules to more complex, and eventually to emergence of self-replicating molecules from which all life evolved fundamentally depends on the fact that stars are the source of energy, the peak wavelength of which falls between ultraviolet and infrared. All activity that happens on the surface of the planet circling the star evolves according to the spectral characteristics of the accompanying star.
Beginning with the axiom that atoms are the fundamental constituents of everything in the universe, we recognize that — following the Big Bang — the inevitability of random fluctuations gives rise to galaxies, stars, and planets. Embedded within this cosmic unfolding is another inevitability: the emergence of life forms. And with it, a constraint — that these life forms, regardless of where they arise, are likely to follow a similar biological paradigm. This is because…
…because the spectral density of stellar radiation is governed by physical laws, life throughout the universe is constrained by the energy available from stars with broadly similar spectral profiles. This shared constraint shapes the biochemical possibilities for life, nudging it toward familiar paradigms as on the Earth— regardless of where it emerges.
No wonder, whether it is Klingons or some other friend or a foe, Captain Kirk keeps encountering similar biological forms as us.
Ciao.
If I lived on Venus
that turns slowly
on its belly
and where each day is
243 Earth days,
would I wonder
about the meaning
of the moments in between
dawn and dusk,
the same way
as I do
living on this
fast turning Earth?