I'M A PRODUCT OF MIRACLES

Just another Sunday musing today, reflecting on my life full of miracles.  The greatest was being born on 6 September 1940.  What were the odds?

• The average male produces 2 trillion sperms in a lifetime.  
• The average female produces 500 eggs in a lifetime.
• Multiplying the two, and you get one chance in a quadrillion for me to have been born.
• And that's just only because my mother and father got together.
• Incidentally, the longer odds of this happening can be viewed in a TedX talk by Mel Robbins.  He says:  1 in 400 trillion.
• And another view.  Essentially, we're all miracles.
• There have been 117 billion miracles since the beginning of us.

My childhood was mundane and totally uneventful.  I lived just to the right of that tall building on the right, in a day when there were no tall buildings.  Nothing much happened until I got into high school.  As a sophomore at McKinley High School (photo to the left) in Honolulu, the odds on my getting accepted by one of the better universities in America was one in a million or maybe quadrillion.  Essentially no chance because I was just of average intelligence, with no social standing or accomplishments.  

Miracle #2...in a flurry of activity triggered by our family getting kicked out of Kakaako by Bishop Estate and moving to Kalihi, and suffering from a broken wrist in a basketball game, just about one year later I got accepted into Stanford and Cal Tech.  Want to know how?  Midway through my posting last Sunday are some links you can read.

Pretty soon perhaps you'll figure out how one miracle led to another, then....  Okay, so I on my first flight away from Hawaii I went to Stanford, and appreciate that in a class of around 1400 I was the only one of Japanese extraction (no Blacks and no one then was called Hispanic), from a poor family, of below average intellect of incoming students and no friends.  However, I did graduate, in less than four years, and in chemical engineering.

The third miracle is how I evolved.  The experience Stanford gave me was surviving under impossible circumstances, leading to an importance sense of confidence.  Time and again I was thrown into similar conditions:  sugar industry, life in Louisiana, competing among University of Hawaii faculty, working in NASA on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, on laser fusion for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and spending three years being responsible for drafting original legislation on ocean thermal energy conversion and hydrogen.

I also was the lead Senate staffer for the Hard Minerals Act (seabed mining), and all these political links led to my later Hawaii Natural Energy Institute become national centers for marine minerals (Department of Interior), marine bioproducts (National Science Foundation) and biofuel, wind energy and hydrogen (Department of Energy).  Co-created the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR) to take university research into the marketplace.  I just went to their web page, and what a current board of directors!

Mind you, nothing has particularly developed well.  Actually, I was the Senate staffer for the original wind energy act, which led to the American Wind Energy Association and the state of this technology today.  But the Blue Revolution, Hydrogen Society, Laser Fusion, Geoengineering of Climate Change, World Peace, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Geo-onsens, Rainbow Pearls and a few more only remain in various states of development.  Maybe none of them will make it, but, then again, maybe a few more miracles will someday occur.

The fourth miracle is just the life I've lived.  I'm 82, so things are already not so optimal, and will only get worse, but what a blessing so far.

• Growing up was a minor pain, but nothing close to what I just saw in India, and I can imagine for most of Africa, and even China.  That's half the world population.  Not a miracle lifestyle, but far better than average.
• I don't think I've ever had to sleep overnight in a hospital.  So far, no heart problems, cancer or other serious ailments.  No replacement parts, can see 20-20 and hear good enough, although perhaps I should enhance that.
• I was married for 47 years in a wonderful relationship, and now have a second that will hopefully continue forever.
• That forever part seeks a miracle.  Atheism is the only religion with absolutely no afterlife.  Which means most people in this world are looking forward to something better after death.  In the U.S., from Roper:

• That is, apparently 80% of Americans believe in Heaven.  And it's particularly interesting to look at these details:

• 4% think Heaven will be boring.
• 7% = total darkness.
• 14% = people will have sexual relations with their spouses (which leads to a worse conclusion, after all, Heaven is all morality).
• 20% = there will be sports and other leisure activities.
• Well, at least 90% will be happy.  But doing what?
• I'm not an atheist as such, but I don't think there is anything like a soul that somehow continues.  If the final miracle is Heaven, as I don't believe, I understand I won't be able to get there.  On the other hand, in my life of miracles, that could well become my ultimate miracle.  There is room for hope:

Seems almost sacrilegious, but I'll end today with the NFL, because the playoffs are confusing:

• So far, we know that the San Francisco 49ers beat the Seattle Seahawks 41-23, and the Jacksonville Jaguars won over the Los Angeles Chargers.
• As I write this, it is the first half, and the Buffalo Bills lead the Miami Dolphins 20-17.  Oh, second half, and the Dolphins lead.  Maybe another miracle to come.  Whoops, they just got behind.
• Later today, on your Fox channel, the New York Giants play the Minnesota Vikings at 4:30PM ET, and on NBC at 8:15PM ET the Baltimore Ravens play the Cincinnati Bengals.
• Then tomorrow, Monday night on ESPN, the Dallas Cowboys against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 8:15PM ET.

Oh, one bit of good news.  Tomorrow, Monday, is Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, a Federal Holiday.  Did you know that most have three days off?

King was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964 and was assassinated in 1968.  The bill make the third Monday in January a national holiday was passed in 1983. What happens tomorrow?  A few marches, parades and speeches.  The Post Offices are closed, and so are most banks, schools and the stock market.  Stores are, of course, open.

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