After graduating college with a Physics degree I joined a Catholic religious order of teachers. I spent 9 very happy years living, teaching science and philosophizing with my students in high schools in Harlem and the South Bronx (New York City.)

Becoming a bit restless, I left the order, and traveled to Istanbul, again as a Physics teacher. Over four years I learned a fair bit of Turkish, did a lot of traveling around Turkey, eastern Europe and the middle east, noticed lots of interesting parallels between Christianity and Islam, and was lucky enough to make some wonderful friends (who as "cagdas, laik Turkler" generally found it bizarre that somebody who teaches Physics would be interested in religion, but politely put up with it!)

I now live and work in the suburbs north of New York City, where I grew up, and return regularly to visit friends in Istanbul.

In my future life, I still see myself as a teacher of sorts, after the next Great War.

After building the great tech-driven global capitalist society of the 21st century, which makes millions rich, lazy and self-centered, while leaving billions more poor and desperate, it will all fall apart rather brutally Ð and then what? Then we have to pick up the bits of our shattered cultures and shattered egos, learn a bit of humility and respect for each other, and start over again.

Not starting with great plans, but by a renewed respect for personal ethics and integrity, stressing a few values for personal living, and keeping all the larger decisions consistent with them. In Physics, one sees that nature isn't organized top-down, it's bottom-up; from a handful of simple rules governing the smallest pieces, the entire magnificence of the universe emerges in large-scale order. But it only happens because the fundamental particles all agree on the same basic rules. Just so, the optimal (never "perfect") society can only arise from the consent and effort of its lowliest members.

DOSTUM (English)

E-mail to: pbianchi@attglobal.net

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