1. We'd all love to predict earthquakes,
2. it is possible that some day, earthquakes will be predictable,
3. we cannot now predict earthquakes, and
4. we're trying to understand earthquakes better.

These ideas of "a single beam of light, straight and true" and "the seeker seeks the teacher" make little sense to me.

Today, for example, I'm looking at the properties of 150 swarms of earthquakes in the US and Japan, and seeing whether their properties are related to the occurrence of nearby large earthquake (so far, they're not).

The best way to make progress is to look at the problem carefully and with the sharpest tools, IMO.

n.b., you're not the only aspiring quake predictor to try to give me a lecture today, unfortunately.