77 lines
4.0 KiB
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77 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
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C I R C U M L U N A R
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T R A N S M I S S I O N S
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Issue One May 2021
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====================[ THE HEARTH OF THE MATTER ]===================
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by durtal
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It seems that Kepler first used the Latin word 'focus' in 1604 to
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refer to 'the point of convergence' in the mathematical sphere. It
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is possible that this is an analogical use of the term and may
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reference the point of light created with a lens. You probably know
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what I mean. I remember another child showing me a trick with a
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magnifying glass outside one sunny day. He quickly adjusted the
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glass's height over my forearm to effect a sharp pain as the
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converging rays burned a hole in my skin.
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Hobbes brought 'focus' into broader English parlance nearly fifty
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years later. I don't know if he did this with a magnifying glass or
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not. But, Hobbes is certainly not my favourite philosopher. With
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its particular take on human nature, he published Leviathan about
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the same time he popularised a word whose use is ubiquitous but
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whose original meaning is too often unknown. Sometimes the
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abstractions of science and a specific sort of philosophy separate
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us from the mundane realities of life in unfortunate ways.
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Ironically, the political philosopher who espoused that humans are
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"all take and little give" used a word that belied his contentions
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in the original. Focus is the Latin equivalent of the Old English
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word 'hearth'. People still used the latter term in my youth,
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especially in rural regions. Phrases like "hearth and home" and
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"keep the home fires burning" catch something of its ethos. The
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hearth was where household members gathered to cook or to work by
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the hearthstone's firelight. In its warmth, children sat to hear
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the stories of the family and community after dusk. Kith and kin
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entertained themselves with music and drinking and dance nearby. In
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some cultures, families kept ancestral bones beneath the
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hearthstone. Here was a point of convergence in the human habitat.
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The rising or setting sun reminds me of a hearth fire as it
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converges on the horizon. I know what it is to wait in anticipation
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for the warmth of a fire on a cold winter's morning. Others gather
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close to you, hoping to absorb a little of your body's heat
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while they wait too. You each rub and blow warm breaths onto
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your hands and comment on the cold, and you remark on the
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day ahead. As the kindling catches, hope builds and
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blossoms as the flames devour the larger pieces of wood.
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The fire roars madly as you back away, waiting for the
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wooden pyramid to collapse. When there are coals left
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mostly, you cook your breakfast over them and drink your
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morning coffee. You smile and share a joke or two with your
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fellows. One of them ruefully remembers that it is his day
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to do the dishes; they are piling up as the others finish
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and go. This time, like its later double, is a short space
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of intimacy before separation.
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By analogy, sunrise is like the birth of a child for whom the
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family cares. Such brief familial intimacy is still most often the
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case for the young. But, not so for the elderly. We fill the noon
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meridians of our lives so completely with striving and drift so far
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from one another that, too often, family members no longer live
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near to one another at the sunset of a loved one's life. Now
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others, not family members, nurse the frail and wash their bodies
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late in life and at its very end. Frequently, there is only the
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intimacy of strangers who alone know where the bare bones of our
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final days lie before we slip into the deep dark of death's night.
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This is all that the world offers in this day when hearth fires and
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home are all but forgotten. We now only focus camera lenses
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(automatically).
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Did old Thomas Hobbes have a point?
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