Graham has been blogging since July of 2008, but he has been journaling entries in his personal notebooks since 1960. He started in his teens, not realizing then that this activity would gradually become his version of the unexamined life is not worth living—an idea first espoused by the ancient philosopher Socrates, who lived in Athens circa 400BC.
Graham in Navy
Graham quit high school when he turned 17 and joined the Navy, where he participated in the John Glenn space flight recovery, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the hunt for the USS Thresher. He also got to see a lot of South America and the Caribbean. By the end of his tour of duty, he was a Petty Officer 2nd Class (STG2/E5), and was admitted to his hometown university, based on the results of standardized tests. He graduated with a BA in English Literature.
It didn’t take long for him to realize that a BA in English doesn’t open any doors that a high school diploma doesn’t open. Fortunately while he was in the Navy, he already received excellent training in electronics and analog computers, so he returned to university to study digital computers, and earned a BS in Computer Science and an MS in Information Science.
Graham in 2006
While Graham became successful in a material sense, he could never quite let go of his first choice. He found himself trying to blend the arts, literature in particular, with real life to perhaps come to a more balanced understanding of what it means to exist.
“We need both, I think: the practical materialistic thinker and the dreamer who asks what if?”
“Its a little like unified field theory for living things instead of inanimate objects.”
“We need closure as we get older on the meaning of life. We need to feel like it was worth the journey. I believe it was Samuel Johnson (or perhaps George Bernard Shaw), whose last words were, ‘What the hell was that?’ As I inch my way to the inevitable, I now realize I want my last words to be, ‘I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have missed it at any price.”’
Copyright © 2008 by Graham
EMail: theworldaccordingtograham@gmail.com
I believe there are decent thoughful people having a reasonable knowledge of human events and having no particular agendas, can enhance the lives of others by revealing universal truths though discussions (blogging)based on personal experiences. The retrospective and prospective view we have at this point in human existence is unique. Never before has man been able to know so much, and know so little and yet be so sure of where we came from and so certain that mankinds future could end tommorrow but will certainly end in the near future relatively speaking as the world of the dinosaurs ended with an asteroid or supervolcano like Yellowstone. So I talk to everyone everywhere I go. The innocent conversations I have had with strangers -lead to so many rewarding experiences – I leave nothing on the table everything, I take eveything with me! Best wishes.
(By the way I give you this just for fun Lincoln said “If I call a dog’s tail a leg, does the dog have five legs? No it doesn’t. A tail is still tail”. Lincoln also told this “tail” using a mule.}
You make an interesting point. As the ancients would say, “the only thing I know for certain is that I don’t know.” Thanks for dropping by, and for causing me to pause a few minutes to think a bit about life.
Hi! Loved your stories! K : )
Thanks! I am rather new at this and appreciate the feedback.