So at 2:40 a.m., I just got off the phone with my father. I called him at about 7:00 p.m. and this is when he decided to return the call He hasn't figured out how to set up voice mail on his phone, but he can read the number when someone calls.

I'm taking him out to breakfast on Father's Day. I have to pick him up at 5:30 a.m. because he usually eats at 6:00 a.m. He used to have to be at work at 7:00 a.m. when he worked at the factory, so this is actually when he is used to getting up. I'm an early riser myself, so it won't be so bad.

I suspect that this is the last Father's Day I will be able to take him out to breakfast. At 77, his mind and his body are failing quickly. He gets confused in the middle of sentences and he has trouble walking.

It's sad, but sad is the nature of the world. Some time ago, and I can't remember when, I was reading about some English upper class member around 1900 visiting a poorer neighborhood in the North of England. He remarked on how badly the poor lived. How many of the young just starved to death.

England around 1900 was at the height of its power. It was the most powerful empire ever, controlling more resources than any nation before. Controlling more land than any ever has, including up to the present day. The benefits of that wealth were pouring into England.

And yet, there were still children starving in the north country. Which means that there have always been starving children, except for now in certain locations. Starving children was the default state of the human condition, dictated by mother nature.

It's only science that has brought us past that point. So that in some parts of the civilized world, there are very few or no starving children. Only in some parts of the world can alleviate human suffering. And only the power of the human mind has brought us out of that state of nature.

It's compassion, driven by human empathy. It's the power of human reason in service of that compassion. The universe is a vast, empty, largely lifeless place, and our planet is a tiny speck within that emptiness. For vast, vast majority the life of planet earth, perhaps less than 1/3 the life of the universe itself, there have been no beings capable of compassion here or at least none that we have found records of.

For about 2/3 of the existence of the earth, the mindless struggle of life has been present. For perhaps 300 million years that life has had brains capable of feeling what we might recognize as pain or pleasure. It's hard to say when those brains developed the capacity recognize pain or pleasure in others. Maybe the first animals that had to be protective of their young. Certainly anyone who has a dog knows that dogs are capable of empathy, so it goes back at least that far.

Empathy itself didn't stop suffering. In fact, carnivores may use it to outsmart their prey, guessing where they might go next by getting inside their prey's heads. And the cold equations of life and the process of evolution itself meant that suffering was necessarily a part of life for the majority of organisms. Selection only takes place when is chosen from the multitude. And whatever natural process that things age made sure that even the selected eventually suffered and expired.

So here we are now, and my empathy is causing me to take my deteriorating father out on Father's Day. Yes. He was a screw up. Yes, he did bad things. But he did try. And my empathy and my human foresight make me understand that 30 years from now, 2/3 again my current life span, I will in all likelihood be in his position.

At some point though, we may move beyond this. Not permanently because physics tells us that everything ends. But beyond decrepitude and aging, and to a point where ther are no children starving, anywhere. And if it happens, it will be human reasoning and the human mind that brings us there.

If I sound a bit cosmic, it's because I've been rereading "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon. One of the most important works of fiction to come out of the 20th century. It's a bit of work, but I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I get to see Loey on Monday. She probably won't call on Father's Day, but I am going to Buffalo to a rock concert on Monday.