On March 16, 2025, I celebrated my 80th birthday. The whole Stahl family came to Cape Cod to mark the milestone event.
This included my two sons (Zake and Rusty), Zake's daughter Nastasja, Rusty's wife Sarah and their daughters Ruby and Ora, my brother Alan, his husband Bill and their son Hardik, and of course my wife Carol.
The main formal event was dinner at the Wild Goose Tavern in Chatham
(clockwise are Ruby, Rusty, me, Zake, Bill, Hardik, Nastashja, Alan, Carol, Sarah, Ora)
We had a number of informal events, such as walks down to the beach, hikes in open space, assembling an intricate lego version of daVinci's flying machine, a face-to-face go game and a champagne toast.
Rusty interviewed Alan and me about our family ancestry. (coming soon here: the interview transcript.)
Zake and Nastasja assembled a park bench for our woodlands -- a gift to commemorate the celebration.
We all tried out the bench. The artists in the family enjoyed drawing in my studio.
After seeing Zake and Nastasja off for their return to California, I began my next decade by attending the Chatham Energy and Climate Action Committee, where I am working on preserving the local salt marshes and anticipating the impact of climate change on Chatham (see website I drafted on this). I then went to the Chatham Select Board meeting to defend a Citizen's Petition concerning expanding traffic at the local airport (see video of my presentation).
As part of celebrating 80 years, I reviewed my collected writings and released 2025 editions of the 21 volumes of my eLibrary to include my latest publications. My website now links to my 410 publications, 145 academic presentations, and 230 sculptures (with videos of 100 showing them in 3-D).
When I now assess my current activity, I feel that my academic research and writing is complete. I am satisfied that I researched and analyzed computer-supported collaborative learning of mathematics rather successfully, detailing an approach for that new field.
In particular, I articulated a philosophy of group cognition, with its many dimensions. Unfortunately, society is not structured to make good use of my approaches -- with AI and social media going in the opposite direction from my explorations.
Similarly, my work in wood carving and sculpture may be approaching its culminating stage, as I feel I have extensively explored my philosophy of "opening up" the sculptural material and building up positive and negative forms by aggregating multiple smaller sculptures, as in my recent "Cave of Forms."
So now I look forward to discovering what the next decade will bring. Perhaps a stimulating, yet pleasing blend of innovation and continuity.
The following people wished me a Happy Birthday with cards, phonecalls, emails, texts or knocks on the door. This was one of the most rewarding parts of my birthday.
