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Great essay. The impossibility that each of us even exist should make you joyful. Made me think of Eric Idle's "Galaxy Song"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk

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Dec 12, 2023·edited Dec 12, 2023Liked by William Hunter Duncan

Just arrived on this Substack (via your comments at Helen Dale's). Only read this and your Dec. 7th essay. Subscribing as a non-paying user to see how things go. I gather money is not your main driver for writing. And I will at best be able to keep up if you are not too frequent a poster.

I might but probably won't go back to review too many of your past essays, while you possibly take a break.

Are you channeling Wendell Berry, or Victor Davis Hanson, or both?

I suspect I will find Law of Acceptance via divine acceptance a hard nut to crack. Long history there.

But if you want to expand your sense of awe, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kTe0xRAU1w and at around minute 7:30 check out the super super galaxy cluster mapping shown there.

Then go the other way with Nick Lane and his recent book Transformer, discussing biomolecular chemistry and a potential path for autobiogenesis [aka abiogenesis] (without any panspermia required). There are helpful You Tube videos on RNA, too. (One by Arvin Ash is pretty good). There are still gaps in our understanding of the full sequence, but perhaps still fully explained via natural processes.

One thought triggered by your remarks about family (maybe from 12/7?) is the need for adolescent separation from their family to find their own sense of self, etc. This aspect of maturation is recognized, but perhaps not emphasized as much as it might be, at least in current modern society. Maybe your Octagon Society ideas help there, or not?

From the limited samples I have seen so far, I think I am in deep sympathy with most of what you have to say. But I would suggest you work on tightening up some of your phrasing, as it will also tighten up some of your thinking. Anyway, let's see how it plays out - you can't please all of the people all of the time, but I am hoping to meet you more than halfway. :-)

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Also, thank you for being the one to venture a comment on this piece. I very much appreciate it.

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Welcome to my substack. I am a small fish so I have not turned on paid subscriptions, though I am considering it as I have some pledges. I consider Wendell Berry to be an American Icon, while VDH I respect but hold no particular fondness for. I would not expect anyone to accept most of my points let alone all of them, I am more concerned that my readers trust and have faith in me.

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