Just Joshin' #95 (Miracles)
1 Family Photo:
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One time – I was maybe 10 – we went to the beach, and I was playing in the water, and past the undertow I got caught in a riptide.
Suddenly, my feet couldn't touch the bottom. Suddenly, my family was getting smaller and smaller. The shore was escaping farther and farther. I tried swimming back, but I couldn't get there - riptide.
I fought to keep my head above water. My arms got tired. My legs got tired. I didn't know what to do.
Then a lifeguard appeared out of nowhere paddling a 10-foot surfboard. He pulled me to the board. He pulled another boy I hadn't seen near me in the water to the board as well. Then the three of us held on and kicked our way out of the riptide.
(protip: if you're ever caught in a riptide, don't try swimming against it. Relax and swim across it, parallel to the shore. Eventually you'll get past the current and you can make your way to the beach. This is good advice for life as well as riptides.)
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In 1800, about 50% of babies died before their fifth birthday. As recently as 1950, a quarter of children didn't live to puberty.
If that lifeguard doesn't show up, I'm probably not here today.
And also if we don't develop genetically modified crops, or discover antibiotics, or invent indoor plumbing, or if the surgeon who set my broken elbow doesn't do his job right.
Then Calvin and Lawrence aren't here today either.
So many things have to go right to create a life. And so many things have to not go wrong to maintain a life. And so many of them are out of our control.
It's a miracle any of us are here at all.
1 Dad Joke:
Waves
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
– Gen 1:9
Highlights:
Miracles
When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent.
– Exod 7:9
The Beginning of Wisdom is Humility by Zohar Atkins
I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory by Virginia Heffernan
How Jensen Huang’s Nvidia Is Powering the A.I. Revolution by Stephen Witt
The Paradox of Apology by Agnes Callard
The one thing you can never do with miracles is expect them to take place. Miracles, almost by definition, have got to come as a surprise. This makes apology especially miraculous, as it is a miracle tasked with invoking a second miracle.
In order to apologize, you have to avow the offending action as your own, otherwise you’d have nothing to apologize for; but you also have to disavow it, otherwise you wouldn’t be apologizing. You have to present the action as something you saw fit to do, which is to say, something that didn’t just arise accidentally in conjunction with your behavior but showed up as choice-worthy to your mind’s eye—and then also to insist that you don’t see that action from your mind’s eye, but instead from the victim’s perspective, as an unacceptable object of choice. What you feel about it is not the eagerness of the agent that you are but the genuine sorrow and regret born from channeling the mindset of the victim that you are not.
And yet this task, for all its difficulty, is nothing more than a prelude, because forgiveness is a second, distinct miracle over and above the miracle of apology.
In order to forgive me—as opposed to excusing my behavior, or brushing away the slight aside as insignificant—you have to both hold me responsible and absolve me of responsibility. Those are feats that you have to perform; I cannot perform them for you, no matter how well I apologize. Apology cannot produce the forgiveness at which it aims, which means that apology is a miracle that serves only to set the stage for a second and independent miracle. Apologizing is like trying execute an alley-oop with a player who refuses to get anywhere near you. It’s no wonder the words stick in your throat.
There is no way to orchestrate this performance. No one can really believe in an apology until after it happens. That’s the telltale mark of a miracle.
In Favor of Niceness, Community, and Civilization by Scott Alexander
Please try not to be insufficiently surprised by this. Every time a Republican and a Democrat break bread together with good will, it is a miracle. It is an equilibrium as beneficial as civilization or liberalism, which developed in the total absence of any central enforcing authority.
iamJoshKnox Highlight:
A child sleeping through the night is a miracle: Bedtime Medley
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Josh Knox
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