May 27, 2022 Dear Nikola, Thank you for your letter. Is it presumptuous and condescending of me to write that I'm glad, or that I'm pleased, or that it makes me happy to know that you are well. This in the context of the visible exponential decline (albeit with an only moderate time constant) of my own physical health, now to the point where I can barely stand. I ask myself, what happens next? My psychiatrist would identify my intellectual exuberance as the ultimate denial of my relentless morbidity and ultimate mortality. But then, dancing on Golgatha, isn't that what we Christians have been doing for the past two millenia, and isn't that what our "religion" has come to be all about? The weaker my vision, the more intensely I gaze into the heavens and count the stars, until I've convinced myself that the meteor I saw was God. 23 Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! 24 That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! 25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: 26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: 27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. 28 But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me? 29 Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment. Job 19 My evangelist isn't Donald Trump or Billy Graham, or even Harry Emerson Fosdick. My evangelist is Richard Feynman. I read and often reread one or two of his sermons every evening before I go to bed. There are 115 of them published on the Internet, and if I am faithful about doing my homework, I should be ready for the final exam in about 4 months. I know I can't pass, and so, if I'm still here, I will just start over. My life has been a chain of failures, and if anything is to keep me alive, it will be failure. I seem to remember that you once reported to me that your physics professor had advised you just to memorize and remember the formulas of mathematical physics, not necessarily to try to "understand" their derivations. When I now reflect on the drastic limitations of my "understanding" of physics, I excuse myself with the obvious and inescapable impairment of my senile memory. If only I could remember everything I read, my memory would constitute my understanding and I would be a "physicist", ready to teach a course about or to publish my own version of "Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden heuristischen Gesichtspunkt" (A heuristic consideration concerning the generation and transformation of light.) What I do instead is, I think about thought. Goethe once explained he had achieved so much - "Wie hast du's denn so weit gebracht?" (How did you accomplish so much?) by boasting "Ich habe nie über das Denken gedacht." (I never gave thinking a thought.) That was his putdown of Kant and the Kantians. I, on the other hand, find thinking about thinking about thinking my docta ignorantia, the hermitage where I conceal my ignorance. Is thinking about thought inspiration or expiration? Is it expansion or recursion? Does it make sense or generate nonsense? Is it revelation or deception? Is it the way to truth or to falsehood? Please let me know the answer. As always, whenever you choose to come, I shall be happy to see you. As before, please let me know when you are coming and negotiate with Nathaniel to have him have the door open for you. As always my very best wishes to you, and my greetings to your parents. EJM P.S. http://ernstjmeyer.ddns.net is now on line.