Wanderings

John retired from the practice of law in 2011 and, shortly thereafter, located just outside of Cambridge, England. From 2011 through 2015, he wrote his first book, Limits of Science, published in 2016. Subsequent editions, updated through mid-2022, are entitled Important Things We Don't Know. Diagnosed with ALS in 2015 and confined to a wheelchair by 2018, John wrote his first collection of essays, Wanderings of a Captive Mind, published in 2021. This new, second set of essays was written, largely during 2021, entirely using just his eyes. They are by practical necessity shorter than, and without the many references of, the essays in his prior collection.

Diagnosed with ALS in 2015 and confined to a wheelchair in 2018, he wrote his first collection of essays, entitled “Wanderings of a Captive Mind”. A second set of essays, “The Eyes Have It (Wanderings Part 2)”, was written entirely using his eyes. Those essays are by practical necessity shorter and without the many references. This new set, also written primarily with his eyes, is Part 3 of “Wanderings”.

More reminisces and inquiring commentary as I embark on my ninth year following my diagnosis with ALS. Like the last two collections, I have written these essays with my eyes, reading the sources using the Kindle app. My childhood memories are probably of interest only to those who may share some of them, but it does add to the picture (pictures) presented in the first three Wanderings books. The others, only to other old-fashioned reactionaries like me. Otherwise, I just continue to wander and to wonder. Now, I am reading several books at once to keep the mind working. A long time colleague and friend wrote: "Remarkable. Even God needed Moses's hand to write the Pentateuch. And you are, with the exception of certain passages in Genesis and Exodus, a better writer ...."

I have now written over 700 pages about political/social matters and 900 pages on science. But, I keep on reading and thinking, and new issues and different perspectives keep arising, with no end in sight. So, I return to the practice of collecting the first versions of new essays in modest-sized books as part of my Wanderings series. As long as I continue to wonder, I shall continue to wander and to record my wanderings. Is there an end in sight? As I wander, I keep making "discoveries"-things that are new to me, that I had failed to realize (not to suggest that no one or, even, everyone had not already recognized these things). In my idleness (and my awareness of the impending end), I decided to write down the "discoveries" as they came to me. I rather wish that I had started to do so earlier. But, I guess that I assumed that I would remember them or be able to rediscover them again later! Anyway, the result is my Wanderings series, of which this is number six and takes the total pages to well over 1,000. The essays herein address historical matters (the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Recontruction), philosophy and science (the question of free will) and public policy (health care, immigration).

Diagnosed with ALS in March 2015 and confined to a wheelchair by late 2016, the author occupied himself with meditation, reading and watching operas through “Met On Demand”. But, an active mind in an increasingly useless body needed some affirmative participation in the world, something less passive. These essays are the result. Ranging from intensely personal to dryly academic (from dying to taxation), they reflect the matters that caught his mind's attention and as to which he discovered that he had strong opinions. They are individually independent and can stand alone, but there is some substantive overlap. Of course, the world view expressed in each is the same. John majored in economics at Amherst College, receiving a BA, summa cum laude, in 1970. He received his JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1973. Following law school, he did post-graduate research at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. In late 1974, John began a 37-year career as a commercial litigator with a major law firm in New York City. His cases spanned many industries and technologies. John retired from the practice of law in 2011, after which he relocated to a small village outside of Cambridge, England. In March 2015, however, John was diagnosed with ALS (motor neuron disease). As a result, he decided to return to the U.S., to live in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, with his daughter Sarah and her Rhodesian Ridgebacks. His son John Eliot and daughter-in-law Megan, with his two grandchildren Hannah and Jeffrey, live nearby.