A disappointing reply, Rip, in that there is nothing contained in it, except for your grace. I had hoped for a good structural reply after you wrote a good article with questions about the big picture. But... I understand more from which position you wrote your article. It is obvious that you are curious, but you don't want to know any answers.

Parting notes therefore from me:

We are all mostly passengers on the big boats in life. There are so many things in life we do not control, and we can say that in most cases we are not the captain.

Yet when you write that article, then you are the captain. It may be a dinghy or smallish boat that you controlled, but you are the captain.

Next, when someone else is communicating with the captain, it is weird to see the captain immediately morphing into being "I'm just a passenger on this boat".

Where is the captain that wrote this good article?