Smoke on the Water & Paul

On Saturdays I meet up with the UO Noon Running Group, which really does not meet at noon anymore as most of the runners are retired now. However, we do meet up on Saturday and have a route that takes us over the Autzen Footbridge across the Willamette River. On this run yesterday, the fog atop the water was beautiful as the rising sun captured it. I also walked, instead of run, as my knees have been giving me some challenges lately. I walked with Paul Slovic, the founder of the group (from back in 1969!) and our elder runner (he’s 88). Plus walking with Paul is great as I get to talk with him and listen as we try to solve the world’s problems. Paul is a psychologist whose work involves the concept of “psychic numbing,” which is basically the human inability to grasp suffering at a large scale. On a small scale we easily get emotional about it, but when the numbers get too large, we become numb to the suffering of others. I always learn a lot from Paul about his research or we talk…