Almanac

   I always check out the yearly almanac from the library, although I notice myself questioning the sources and wondering about the accuracy of the data more than in the past. That is the result of the division within our society and the deliberate distortions of reality among some people. I  consider myself a skeptical optimist, which means that I have tried to keep an open mind about things while maintaining a preference for the methods of science and logical reasoning. The cynicism and distrust I witness of our institutions is unnatural and distasteful to me; I accept that the data may be off by a few decimal points but that is the best human beings can do. I do not accept the cynical attitude that the majority of people have bad intentions.                                                                                                                                A couple of facts in this years almanac regarding money is that the wealthiest 30 U.S. individuals possessed over 2 trillion dollars in wealth as of April 2022 according to Forbes magazine. That is approximately what the U.S. spends on Social Security and Defense combined in one year.  The top 20% of people own 52.7 percent of wealth, the bottom 20% own 2.9 percent. That unequal distribution has been ongoing since 1970, with  the middle 60% also losing wealth consistently over the decades.                                    In the obituaries of 2022 is Peter Robbins, the voice of Charlie Brown in the 1965 Christmas special, and Jay Last, a physicist who helped create the semiconductors which laid the foundation of silicon valley.  Both are unknown to most people yet their influence continues long after their deaths. Many of the obituaries in the almanac describe accomplished people who are totally unknown except to their own generation and those who personally knew them. That exposes the profound temporariness of existence; people of every generation are forgotten by the next one, and only the most influential-the Einsteins or Lennons or Hitlers -survive the forgetting of time until what remains are the fragments that historians decide to preserve. Also in the almanac are people from other cultures whom western societies have totally neglected; history is written by the powerful. Nowhere in the obituaries are recorded the daily exchanges of the individuals who interacted with them; I do not suppose Buddhas family thought too highly of him when he abandoned them to seek his enlightenment.                                                             So an almanac is a potpourri of information that offers perspective, incomplete though it may be. It is an attempt to be objective in a world that desperately needs one.