Ed’s suggestion that the Earth’s ocean chemistry could be reset completely was a dangerous idea when he was young, and he had stayed up nights to study while the people he knew were watching Joe DiMaggio and arguing about the McCarthy trials. Forty years later his idea was one that I could take for granted as I dared my way into my own ambiguous future. It was kind of tragic, I reflected, that we all spent our lives working but never really got good at our work, or even finished it. The purpose instead was for me to stand on the rock that he had thrown into the rushing river, bend and claw
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