John Major Jenkins: Reflecting on a Life of Discoveries and Tribulations

by Jonathan Zap

Under somewhat ominous circumstances on Sunday, February 12th of 2017, I drove from where I live in Boulder to the home of my old friend and colleague, John Major Jenkins, who lives in Windsor, Colorado. It was a beautiful day with Colorado’s gloriou high-altitude lighting and unseasonably warm temperatures. The metaphorical weather, however, was out of synch with the actual weather because there were dark, storm clouds massing on the personal horizon of my old friend.

John is facing a life-threatening health crisis, and the main purpose of my visit was to record the long conversation you have in front of you, an in-depth reflection on the meaning of John’s most important discoveries, and the triumphs and tribulations of a path of exploration he began when he first visited Mayan ruins at the age of twenty-two. It is the sort of health crisis where one could still hope for miracles, or at least to be an extreme statistical outlier, but only a fool would neglect preparations to cross the event horizon. And John is no fool of course, and has been spending all his free time in ultimate deadline writing and publication mode.

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