#22. People will most definitely come.

I have had a really terrific writing day, a good day at work, a great session at therapy—I even caught an avocado on its perfect day of ripeness. It was a good day…

And then I looked at the news.

Things can be so disheartening, especially now, especially when you have skin in the game and it just feels like there’s nothing left that you can do. You’ve voted. You’ve written your representatives. You’ve protested. It’s very hard, on days like today, to know what to do.

And I don’t mean to say I have any terrific answers because people who are more vulnerable than me are suffering more than I am. But here’s what I take hope in: the human spirit.

Fela Kuti, a remarkable musician and activist, said “The human spirit is stronger than any government or institution.”

I truly believe that in the persistent progression toward a better world. There will be setbacks. There will be defeats and injustices and wars and death, but I believe that we’re better off now than we were a hundred years ago, and in a hundred years from now we’ll be better off still.

The movie “Field of Dreams” has a lot to say about the human spirit, and the reverence and magic that exists inside mankind. In the culminating scene, a writer, Terrence Man, talks to Ray Kinsella (who has plowed under a portion of his corn field to build a baseball field, which is bankrupting him) and gives the following monologue:

Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.

“Of course, we won't mind if you look around,” you'll say. “It's only $20 per person.” They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes.

And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

I’m actually not a baseball fan myself, but I had a truly life-changing experience at Wrigley Field in 2008. I don’t remember who was playing, but I, an intern, was sitting next to the president of the company, and we were talking, just talking, and it was like there was no barrier between us—just two humans eating hotdogs and watching baseball.

People will most definitely come. And mankind will most definitely win.

Bits and Bobs from the News

#1. The James Webb Space Telescope is at it again. It has found some sources of light that, by all known laws of the universe, shouldn’t exist: We know that when we look at something really far away, we’re literally looking back in time, because we’re looking at the light that has traveled all of that way to get us, over all those billions of light years. And the JWST has found nine lights that are SO OLD that they couldn’t possibly exist: they are between 200 to 300 million years older than the universe itself—and if you know the universe, that’s NOTHING. Galaxies should definitely not formed that early. Anyway: probably aliens. (No.)

#2. What if things aren’t infinite? Infinity has been a weird thing since Day One, Day One being 2300 years ago when Aristotle first talked about infinity as a concept (you take any number and +1 to it and you keep doing that forever.) And infinity has been, mostly, a given for a long time. But some mathematicians (who call themselves ‘finitests’ because it’s silly and neat) claim that we shouldn’t do calculations using infinity because everything we know about the universe is that there is finite matter, and the universe, as weird as it is, has limits. So, they’re recommending some math stuff that I don’t understand. This probably won’t help your kid pass algebra, but you could definitely label yourself a finitest and get a business card or something.

#3. So, on the list of things “I Didn’t Think Were Possible”, scientists have officially declared a 2017 lightning strike to be the largest lighting bolt ever recorded. IT WAS 515 MILES LONG. It went all the way from East Texas to Kansas City. (Apparently it’s taken them so long to come to this conclusion because Science Requires Proof, and scientists don’t have all day to just measure lightning bolts. Anyway, they filed an official petition with a thing called the World Weather and Climate Extremes Archive, and it looks like they’re getting in. (What do you bet some jerk at DOGE wanted to get rid of that? Who would record our largest lightning strikes, then, Elon!?)

#4. What you’re looking at in the above photo is when real life is not the same as Indiana Jones. Because what that is is EXTREMELY COOL. It’s the (broken) remnants of a jade mask in the burial Te K’ab Chaak, the very first Mayan leader of Caracol, ascended to the throne in CE 331. Archaeologist excavating a Mayan temple happened upon the burial site, which also contained carved bone tubes and funerary pottery. I’ve been on archaeological digs, and you don’t just find stuff like jade masks. (Hey, we can’t all be King Tut.)

Distractions and Diversions

Not much to tell about this one, except that this is one of my absolute favorite nostalgia love songs, being covered by Mary Spender, who is an absolutely entertaining YouTuber and brilliant writer.

I love archaeology, and Sutton Hoo fascinates me. It’s an actual Saxon burial, where the king was buried with all his precious goods—in his long ship—and the story of how it was found is neat. This helmet is, perhaps, the very coolest thing they found, and this curator for the British Museum walks you through the whole thing. (And yes, I know the British Museum is the worst, but this burial was in Britain—they didn’t steal this one!)

Howard Ho made a name for himself by analyzing Hamilton—to the point where he’s even getting called out by Lin-Manuel Miranda at conventions—and this new video discusses exactly what makes “Wait For It” so good, musically and lyrically.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got this week. You can read about me on my website.

People will most definitely come.