File this under TLDR - you've been warned.

Good morning, digital neighbors! Happy Friday, friends & refugees, early birds & later-dayers, conversants & lurkers, PHAM & misfits, ADD irregulars & WSN curators, black sheep & curmudgeons! Over at Padre’s, one of our members posted about Scott Adams’s declining health and impending death, based on a thread on X. As a priest, I deal with death far more frequently than the average person. I think about it constantly—not in a morbid way, but with an acceptance of its inescapable reality. I can fear it, avoid it, or ignore it, but none of those choices have the power to stop it. Nothing does. One can live wisely, try to prepare for it, and possibly delay it, or one can live foolishly and be terrified and surprised when it touches your life or the life of someone you love. Faith tells me there is something on the other side of death—and how I might prepare for it. That’s another post.

I hadn’t planned on writing about life and death, but Scott’s approaching end has given me pause to reflect with gratitude on having known of him and benefited from his wisdom and his life. Unlike 98.7% of the garbage on the internet, Scott’s gift is his wisdom and critical thinking about life and the current chapter of global and national issues. He did that with a touch of humor, an occasional dash of self-congratulatory pride, and a constant supply of what we trendily call “receipts.” Scott wasn’t just another influencer chumming for likes, farming influence, and hoping for viral streams to sustain his income. He had something to say—well, really, he had questions to ask. I don’t ever recall him telling his audience how to think so much as how not to think.

All data is suspect, and we must not rely on it for overconfident assumptions—something humans take great pleasure in doing. There are so many variables that can impair accurate judgment: incomplete information (often the case), unquestioned blind spots (and many people have them), or being so wedded to our paradigm that we don’t even realize what we do or don’t know. We often don’t know what to ask or what we ought to be seeking in any given scenario. I don’t care how one begins to grow in humility, but recognizing our ignorance and the smallness of our understanding is a good start. Doubts and questions lead me down the path of healthy, seeking skepticism rather than resignation to cynicism. As I’ve mentioned in past posts: ever the skeptic, never the cynic. Skeptics ask questions and are often left with inconclusive understanding; cynics just say we’re all screwed in the end, so why does it matter?

I really appreciated Scott’s use of “directionally correct,” which, if I understand it, means something might not be 100% certain or accurate (and if you only accept 100% verified reality, you won’t accept much), but it is trending in the right direction given the information you currently possess. Life rarely affords us 100% certainty or accuracy; we often have to make the best decision with the data we have, subject to change if new data arrives. Clinging to old or outdated data is one of the worst forms of loserthink, and every profession can become contaminated by it.

Like little Toto in The Wizard of Oz, Scott is one of those questioning souls who frequently pulled back the curtain of “certainty” to expose the doubts and question the assumptions of experts who were more content to guard the current orthodoxy than to be humble seekers trying to make sense of things. I know Scott isn’t perfect and sometimes says some weird-ass stuff, but overall I thought his contribution to meaningful dialogue far outweighed the crazy shit he said. Most people are the exact opposite: they mostly have crazy shit to say with only the occasional gold nugget. Scott was more like a gold mine of reasonable questioning and insightful observation. Anyone who can help on the road to self-possession and emotional integration is worth my time, and Scott often provided that through his questions, commentary, and wit. I never read Dilbert, I was more of a Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes & Bloom County comic consumer, but I always saw Dilbert there in the comic section. It was in 2015 that Scott was really introduced into my life with the election speculation and I am so very thankful for that. In 2016 or 2017 I found CWSA and I was entertained by the Simultaneous Sip and Scott’s commentary. I supported his Local’s community for a couple of years, but was never active in it. More of a lurker there than a participant. I was more drawn to Rubin Report, Phetasy and Triggernometry. I pray for his final days and his journey toward ultimate reality after death. May he know God’s peace. I am so very thankful that I have the benefit of listening to and learning from him.

“When it’s time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived.” — Henry David Thoreau