Reason for Being in the World: "Becoming"

Chapter 1 of An Experiment in Intellectual and Spiritual Accounting

Painting by physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf commemorating the ninetieth birthday of mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson

When I began publishing Reason for Being in the World in May 2024, I imagined it only several weeks in duration. As it has turned out, for reasons of expanded ambition and the state of the nation (American Samizdat), I am now, approaching the final chapter, number 9, into the ninth month of writing and publishing this first draft. I have hundreds more subscribers than when I began, and even those here from the start may be forgiven for not recalling the foundation laid down in chapter 1. I thought, then, in preparation for the conclusion, I might serve us all by republishing the first chapter, here today, and offer this summary recap of what follows it.