My dad was a man of many dualities, in so many different aspects of his life.

As you can see, he was an artist. He loved to paint, on canvas or wood or stone. He made a sculpture of a 6 foot long praying mantis in his backyard. He loved to read. And he had some of the most diverse tastes in music that I've ever seen in someone his age.

And yet, for all of his artistry, he was one of the most scientifically literate people I've ever known. He would read the encyclopedia cover to cover as a child, and somehow this stuck with him throughout his life. I think many people grow up thinking "my dad is a genius" and then later in life realize more about what constitutes common knowledge.

In my case, I grew up with such a skewed view of what constitutes common knowledge that to this day I'm still not sure of what exactly it means.

I realized later that most parents don't casually drop the details of Archimedes' principle into conversation, understand the basics of nuclear physics, or throw around terms like "Chain reaction oxidation" when teaching their kids how to build a fire.

Funny story - I'm not sure that he understood how skewed his view was either. We went to the franklin institute as a kid and saw a presentation where the presenter led off by saying something like:

I'm gonna ask some trivia questions! Please raise your hands to answer.
Other times though, I'll ask really general stuff like "When you freeze water you get … " and you can just shout out ... "ice!"

Halfway through, the presenter sets up "When ice turns directly into gas without becoming water first, that's called…" And my dad shouts out "Sublimation!" before realizing that was not, in fact one of the common knowledge questions

So my dad was passionate both the arts and the sciences, and he was also an outdoorsman.

He loved gardening, he loved camping, and he taught all his children to build a fire. He Loved the time he spent outside relaxing, away from all of the noise of the world.

Seeing him in his garden, in the pool, or in a tent, it really seemed like being in nature was his happy place, no matter what the elements threw at him.

And yet, despite his love for nature, he was a technologist. Halfway through his life he switched from being a DJ to being a sysadmin. He took this career shift that (I have to imagine) would have been surprising to those that knew him in college. The half of his life that wasn't spent enjoying the sunlight was spent at a DOS prompt

He showed these dichotomies in his temperament, as well. He was so gentle, especially with the animals in his life. He had truly special bond with his cats, and while I think he would hurt a fly, he would definitely avoid hurting a spider if he could help it.

And yet this gentleness was undercut, or maybe accentuated, by the anger and the rage he felt at times. Especially when he saw people he loved being hurt, or when he thought they were hurting themselves.

And his duality extended to his spiritual and philosophical life. He was a lifelong, passionate fan of Salvadore Dali. He was an absurdist through and through. The only degree that hung on his office wall was one that was made up as a ransom note for "Achievements in Existential Terrorism."

And yet, he looked at life seriously.

He cared deeply about his family.

He cared deeply about the world around him.

And despite a long absence, at the end of his life he began taking comfort in religion.

At times he seemed to look at life as a joke - but not because it was something that shouldn't be taken seriously. I may have been joke that you had to take seriously. But ultimately, it was something that you had to laugh at.

And then, finally, at the end of his life, his duality seems to have came back to mock him. He had such an unparalleled ability and drive to learn about the world. And then gradually, and yet all at once, even his awareness of his own lack of awareness was stripped from him. One last cruel joke to laugh at.

The dichotomies of my dad's life have influenced me in a huge way. Have instilled in me a notion that it's not enough to do just one thing, to look at things from one direction, or to hold just one belief. That being varied in how you approach the world is of the utmost importance.

I've never been a religious person, and I don't believe in an afterlife, per-se.

But I've spent a lot of time thinking about the brain, and about consciousness, and what it means to be alive at all, and the pseudoscientific conclusion I've come to is that, on the most fundamental level, our mind and our conscious experience is made up of the patterns of thoughts that we have. To know things, to care about things, and to experience things in the specific way we experience them, is synonymous with being alive.

One consequence of taking this hard stance means that I do firmly believe, in a literal sense, that my dad does continue to live on now - not in a heaven, or an embodied afterilfe, but in the minds of all of us in this room that he imprinted himself upon. Maybe in a degraded, copy-of-a-copy, Michael Keaton's multiplicity pizza-in-the-wallet sort of way. But he's still in there, and still gets to look out at the world and experience new things.

And so in light of that, I'd like to share some of the times that I feel his presence most strongly:

• Every time I'm close to rain or thunder. Especially if I'm not getting wet - separated by a screen door or a tent flap from a torrential downpour, I can feel you laughing
• Every time I see a piece of art or hear music that twists my brain or makes me uncomfortable, I feel your appreciation
• Every time I hear new music, especially if I might not like it, and I have to caution myself against thinking "that's just noise" -- I can feel that you're proud of me
• Whenever I see something I don't understand, I can feel your excitement at the opportunity to learn something new
• When I look out at the world and see it as simultaneously complex, and simple, mystical and scientific, beautiful and terrifying, I can feel your awe
• When I tell a story or share a fact with friends simply because that understanding brings me such fulfillment that I just can't wait to share it with others
• When I reflect upon the importance of family
• When I feel scared about what the future holds
• When I relish uncertainty
• When I take time to relax in sunlight
• When I chop wood
• When I back a car into a tight alley
• Whenever I finally decide to get my first tattoo, even if I'm 50 years old
• When I read science fiction, or watch a movie, and become unabashedly engrossed in a made up world
• When I have to temper my pride, pick my battles. Even when I do something you might not agree with, I can talk it over with your memory and hope that I can convince you.

I want to leave you with two final memories:

One afternoon, a few months before he moved to Arbor Terrace, and well after Alzheimers had started to affect him, he came across a book my mom was reading, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow". He looked at the title of the book and continued the quote from Macbeth:

"Creeps in this petty pace from day to day"

This morning I looked up the rest of this quote (because I don't have the memory for Shakespeare that he maintained when he could no longer remember his own address). It seemed serendipitously relevant, so I wanted to share it with you now:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.