An Instrument of God
Letters from Leopoldo Giordania to Arturo

Arturo, we are flutes with missing key pads, guitars with broken strings and pianos out of tune. I have often thought of us in this way, out of harmony with nature’s rhythms, discordant and atonal. But there is a better metaphor, that of the lens.

At one moment we see the world as if through a microscope, drilling into the finest minutia, lost in an argument with a friend or ruminating on a simple persistent compulsive behavior like staring compulsively into a mirror at blemishes, folds and wrinkles.

The next moment we are carried up into physics, unifying theories, the vistas presented by NASAs orbiting Hubble telescope. But it is all the same thing, bits of a whole, dependent on our focus at the time.

While gazing at stars an ant crawls beneath our feet. Looking down, a comet passes overhead unnoticed. We are limited, as the ancients tell us, by eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Even imagination is limited as it requires the connection of disparate ideas to understand the whole of a thing, to give our lives context and help us plot the next step.

In your lifetime, with the resources at your command, you will have access to quantum computing. Think of what that capability could do for the enterprise. Imagine the focus required to play three-dimensional chess as we do, but elevated to eight-dimensional chess. Imagine access to computational devices capable of winning that game, every time. I cannot. I am a human being who, like God, uses the instruments at hand to reshape the universe around me.

Do you remember our lessons with the slide rule? Your father’s engineers carried the ability to make complex calculations in their minds and breast pockets. Long before that, the abacus and Pascal’s mechanical calculator. The point I make is simple. Focus is limited to the resources and information at hand, and that body of information is always changing.

What is in front of you now that you have taken on the business, is dense nearly impenetrable amounts of information. Your father ran on what he called his gut, very often making horrible decisions based upon too little information, and then forcing square pegs into round holes to make it all work. He used and abused the people around him as if they were mere machines and disposable instruments of his will. He never understood, nor tolerated, weakness, believing at every step that he could force the outcome.

I thank God every day that you are not your father. Your spirit is genuinely curious. These traits lift you above the men and women in your life. Use your gifts. Be patient. Stay focused.

A Duty to Philosophize
Letters from Leopoldo Giordania to Arturo

Today you asked about philosophy. What a great question for a young man to ask. I am not formally trained in the discipline, but let me point to the difference between having a philosophy and philosophizing. One is what we think we know, the other is action!

Thoughts rush like a turbulent river, over and through us. We have little choice but to flow with them from birth to death. We are all in that river, Arturo, and when the truth is told, we are the river itself. Human beings think. Turning thoughts into a memorable, repeatable and useful philosophy is the goal of philosophy, but the act of doing this is philosophizing.

No one should have to embrace a particular philosophy, only to philosophize. This is one of the tenants most dear to Socrates, a man we’ve talked about at great length. Our minds travel in diverse directions, sometimes all at once. Mind can also become stubborn as a donkey. When that happens, remember this little joke. Kick your ass in the ass and keep going.

Some call Socrates the father of philosophy. That is a bit ambitious, but the life he lived, and the arguments he made, have influenced thinkers for centuries. He philosophized, debated, and challenged the thinkers of his time. In the end, they killed him for it, the whole while believing in their own piety.

Let me tell you a secret. Everyone around me claims to know God. That word to them is a noun. How can that be? I only know God as a verb. Nouns exist outside of the self. That is what Aristotle was all about, labeling things ad infinitum.

There is no money in philosophizing, so says the bastard. He may be right, but why condemn this old friend for intellectual curiosity? There is no value in money except what to do with it, so what does he do? Little of value. I love the bastard, but there is more to living.

You asked for my philosophy. It is to philosophize. That is my duty, pleasure and passion. Making and losing money is enticing. Ascending to power is going to be seductive, celebrity is alluring. But in the end, I am just Leopold and you are just Arturo. Your father can believe he is something more, but even that lovely bastard is just a man.

Here is a philosophy for you, be what makes you happy!