You experience anxiety. You’re not alone. Being anxious is a common experience. Scenario: You are a passenger in a car, and another car comes within one millimeter of hitting you. Close call, but, fortunately, no accident. Yet, your heart rate increases, you breathe differently after the incident than you did before it, and you voice your concern to the driver, “He almost hit us! He almost hit us! Oh!”

​The driver, oblivious to the feeling of panic that has rushed through you, says, “Relax. Nothing happened.”

“Not good enough,” you think on some underlying level of self-communication. “We were almost in an accident,” you say to the driver. “Pay attention to your driving.”

Those words start the argument.
“I was paying attention. That guy almost hit us.” Et, as they say, cetera: The conversation continues, exacerbating your feeling of anxiety and throwing bad feelings toward the driver into the mix. The driver becomes defensive.

But no accident occurred. That’s the reality. If the car missed you by a millimeter, it was the same as if the car missed you by infinity. The accident did not happen. Your car and the other car occupied two different places at the moment of the near miss. You were not in the place of an accident. There was no difference between one millimeter and infinity when nothing occurred. Missing the collision meant missing the collision. The distance was irrelevant. You were safe.

​Think of what Mark Twain said. “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” Will you spend your life being anxious over “many troubles” that “never happened”?

Sometimes you seem like images in a funhouse room of mirrors—multiple images that show many perspectives. Those images in your daily life are reflected from others, people that see you from different angles. Is there a “real” you? You can, if you wish, coalesce multiple images into unity by eliminating the extra mirrors and paring everything down to a simple reflection. Are you the reflection you see or the many reflections others see?
 
Today, we hear talk in wellness centers, in some circles of friendship, and in stories about lost souls that people need to “find themselves,” to “find the true Self.” The expressed need to “find oneself” seems to stem from the idea that there really is a single Self, some deep-down essence, the ultimate reality of YOU. Yet, I guess that using a single reflection to capture your essence would somehow make you feel incomplete. You might even resent those who would limit you to a single image reflected from a single perspective. What if there is no real “YOU” to find in a single mirror?
 
What if there are as many versions of you as there are linguistic ways of portraying sounds, just as dipthongs sound very much like single vowels (say, dye). Just as there are multiple mirrors that reveal different YOUs, so there are multiple ways to represent sounds, some that even divide a single syllable into a phonetic glide. To native speakers of English, for example, the pronunciation of you is very much the same as the pronunciation of the letter u. Should we assume that like the mirror images of you all versions of any kind hide an underlying resolvable unity, just as dipthongs represent sounds that can be resolvable in a single letter? Is there an underlying, definable “YOU” that is like a language without dipthongs?  
 
You probably don’t make a big deal of your letters. You say the alphabet automatically, “A, B, C....” If someone asks you what “B” means, you most likely respond that it is just a sound placed second in the alphabet of sounds. There is at least one language, however, in which a letter’s sound also has a special meaning. In the Greek alphabet you can find upsilon, which is both a letter and a word that means “bare u” or “simple u.” The name distinguishes the sound from similar, but dipthong versions.
 
“Bare u,” or “simple u.” Reflected by multiple mirrors, the many YOUs are difficult to resolve into a single image. And your alphabet? It has dipthongs. Don’t let anyone call you “Upsilon.” I don’t like that. Do u? 

Unlike the nineteenth-century practice of giving a detached piece of paper from a bond to signify an interest payment, today’s practice is to give a coupon with money to get something. The coupon serves as a money substitute, at least in the minds of the purchaser. The coupon has value, and, typically, the seller sets the value of the coupon. The purchaser, in turn, accepts the responsibility for the cost the coupon doesn’t cover.
 
What if coupons were available for all human interactions, not just economic ones? And what if the “purchaser” could set the value? Ah! Then we would know what kind of sacrifice the “purchaser” intends, what value the purchaser places on the “thing” to be acquired. We would also know what value the seller places on giving up the “thing.”
 
What would a love coupon be worth? Isn’t love the relationship in which the participants act as both purchasers AND sellers? Apparently, from the many divorce tales, abuse tales, and abandonment tales, such is not always the case. Some “love relationships” appear to place a value on the coupon used to make the purchase. Some friendships are apparently similar: Coupons obtain a value.
 
May you find many relationships where the coupon has no value for the purchaser and full value for the seller. 

Would a king rebuild a city he destroyed just to get you to teach his son? That’s what happened some 3,350 years ago in ancient Macedonia. Philip II got Aristotle to teach young Alexander (A.K.A. “the Great”) by rebuilding Stagira, Aristotle’s hometown  and resettling the inhabitants the king had ousted. The philosopher’s knowledge was the bargaining chip.
 
Alexander seems to have profited from Aristotle’s lessons if you think conquering the world is an accomplishment. If you think spreading and preserving the arts and culture is also significant, Alex did pretty well there, too. His fame is with us today, and many accomplished people have borne his name. Alexander Fleming, thanks for the penicillin. Alexander Pushkin, thanks for the stories. Alex G. Bell, thanks for the phone. Alexander Hamilton, thanks for the political thought.
 
We put Fleming, Bell, Pushkin, and Hamilton in textbooks as models of accomplished people. Can’t do that will all Alexanders, of course. Some are infamous. There’s Alexander Pichushkin, the Russian serial killer responsible for 48 deaths. Not sure who taught him or what he learned. Then there’s Roderic Borgia, who took the name Pope Alexander VI, famous not so much for his being the brightest lawyer on the block, which he seems to have been, but rather for his dalliances and illegitimate children, including the famous Lucrezia Borgia.
 
But enough about geniuses and criminals. Back to you. Really, would a king want you to teach his children, to educate the next Alexander the Great? Will those you influence spread that influence like Aristotle’s famous student? You might have no desire to be an Alexander, but you might want to consider being an Aristotle.

What a target for the Archer! It’s a bit hidden and, oh, so far away. We’re talking about Sagittarius, the constellation. The target? It’s the very center of the galaxy that is shrouded by intervening matter. From Earth you have to look through the Archer to see where the center hides. Could the Archer draw the string back far enough to launch an arrow to the heart of the Milky Way?
 
Want to see the location of the target. Find Sagittarius in the summer sky. “There’s the center of our galaxy.”
 
“Where? I see a darkened band interrupted by irregular hazy light and pinpoints of distant light. I see the so-called Milky Way, the light of 100 billion suns, but I can’t see a target.”
 
“There, seemingly just behind the Archer, lies the distant dark target. If Sagittarius did have the power to fire an arrow into the shroud of dust, gases, nebulae, and stars, he would have to be very lucky to hit the unseen target, a dark spot of a black hole around which the galaxy rotates. Distance and visibility. You have to consider both. Arrows fired into a faraway darkness usually end up lost.”
 
“That, my friend, is the reason you practice hitting visible targets in easy reach. Something nearby and very visible. Something you can generate the force to reach. Far off targets are the stuff of fairy tales, Broadway shows, high-school counselor or commencement-speaker advice. “To dream the impossible dream” are the lyrics in Man of La Mancha and the stuff of all those uplifting speeches. But they make one a modern day Quixote aiming for a target Dulcinea he’ll never get. Aim for an intervening target, not the distant one. If I were the commencement speaker, I would argue for intermediate goals. Work your way toward the distant target a bowshot at a time. Don’t dream. Keep firing arrows, but shoot at something you can see, something within reach, and something within your power to hit.” 

You are a plot in the making. You are both author and protagonist of a daily tale. You have control of keyboard, pencil, and pen. But there are editors and proofreaders out there, other writers intent on revision of some kind, possibly small deletions, maybe some additions in a different style. Their intentions could either be bad or good, helpful or inimical. The plot and the style can unfold from within or without.
 
Everyone has a writer’s options: Consider the value of suggestions and adopt those that enhance the story. Every writer can throw out that which is extraneous. Some prefer extensive editing over helpful suggestions; others reject all edits, regardless of their value.
 
Most tales seem to have either of two kinds of endings: The predictable denouement that culminates in tears of laughter, joy, and reconciliation, and the strange ending with shock from unexpected twists and departures beyond the protagonist’s control.
 
Any author can choose to write a strange ending, one that shocks. But in the story that you author, are you transferring some of the writing to proofreaders and editors? Are you headed toward a strange ending? Strange derives from the Latin for “extraneous” and “foreign,” something from the “outside.” The story you are writing can have either of two endings, the one you write in your style or the strange ending others write for you.

Some people clean their own houses. Others hire someone to do the task. The latter usually find someone both reliable and efficient, but there’s a catch. Probably the hired cleaner does not go into the recesses of the closet where the homeowner stores the most private and valuable objects. Cleaning those closet recesses is usually the homeowner’s task. Of course, out-of-sight, out-of-mind applies: The recesses of the closet might remain un-cleaned for weeks, months, or even years. The homeowner might venture into the back of the closet to retrieve something now and then, but generally, his or her visits are infrequent and brief.
 
The key word in the last sentence is “generally.” Some homeowners seem to prefer the back of the closet, and they visit its recesses frequently. Why would they do this? Those objects hidden in the dark corners inordinately occupy their attention, and they devote time to arranging and rearranging the contents while assessing and reassessing their value. In some instances, a homeowner simply stares blankly at the collection, not quite sure of its significance, yet unable to “clean the closet.”
 
What would happen if the homeowner allowed the hired help to clean the back of the closet? Would the collection appear different in a room under a flood of sunlight and through someone else’s eyes? Would objects that seemed important in the back of the closet suddenly lose their value or seem, in the new light, to be an unnecessary assemblage?
 
Take a moment to visit the back of your closet, and, without thinking too much, without rearranging, and without reassessing, grab something that once seemed significant, possibly something that caused embarrassment or a grudge. Take it out into the light. Look at it there, not back in the dark recesses of the closet corners.
 
Is what you keep in the back of your memory closet worth keeping?

Once called the “Terrestrial Paradise,” Ayuthia, the old capital of Siam, fell rapidly into ruins after an attack by the Burmese in 1767. Also known as Krung Kao, “the old capital,” Ayuthia was the “Oriental Venice” for a few hundred years. It was built on the banks of the Meinam (Me Nam, meaning “mother waters”), or Chao Phrya (“Chief”), River, and it was once a resplendent city with more than 300 temples, many with golden spires or pagodas.
 
Ruins elicit different emotions, don’t they? We see Maachu Picchu, and we say, “This is just magnificent. What a glorious place!” Ruins also elicit sadness. We say, “How was all this glory lost? What happened to these people? They seem to have had everything.” So, we elevate the significance of ruins on two feelings: Wonder and pity, both touched by a bit of curiosity. What was it like to have lived in a “terrestrial paradise”?
 
Well, look around. What is it like? After all, some day in the distant future someone will look over the ruins of your cities and ask, “What happened?” Your coliseum will, like the one in Rome, stand in partial ruin; your theaters, like the amphitheaters of ancient Greece, will be empty. Someone will walk by, see the ruins and ask what you now ask about all the ruins of the ancient, medieval, and even more recent world. What happened?
 
“Not my city,” you say. “Not the gleaming towers of the twenty-first century. We’re here to stay. Look at our technology, our wealth, our industry.” True, you live in an age when technology has built the great towers in Dubai, Singapore, New York, and elsewhere. Earth gleams resplendently at night with the silver light from thousands of urban areas.
 
You’re here to stay, you argue. Your house, your apartment, your neighborhood, your town or city. But ruination comes in many forms. Ayuthia fell into ruin after an attack from the outside. Today’s slums fell into ruin by attacks from the inside.
 
Think of ruins again in light of Meadowcroft, the ancient site of inhabitants dated to a time before the last big ice sheets melted off North America. Visit Meadowcroft outside Avella, Pennsylvania, a small rural community where the rock shelter housed generations of unknown people for millennia. They didn’t do much building; the tale of their many lives lie in the ruins of artifacts buried in layers of soil that accumulated like the stuff in your garage. Time itself appears to ruin place, even a cave-like rock shelter used for thousands of years.
 
Want something to last? Make it your thoughts. We build our modern cities on the geometry of Euclid. We still read the philosophy of ancient Greeks, and if we want, we can sit on the chipped and worn steps of an ancient amphitheater while we discuss what Aristotle, Plato, or Sophocles wrote. Terrestrial paradises are fleeting entities. Better to build a paradise of the mind.   

In the nineteenth century the Duke of Wellington and his ally Gebhard von Blücher won the famous battle at Waterloo that undid Napoleon. Sometime after the battle someone asked Wellington whether or not he was surprised by his victory at Waterloo. The standard anecdote has him responding, “No, I was not surprised then, but I am now.” Later, Wellington wrote to his friend Lady Shelley on the matter, “Supposing I was surprised; I won the battle; and what could you have had more, even if I had not been surprised?”
 
So, you did your job today. You performed your tasks. Did your duty dutifully. No one said anything. Bummer. But, think about it, you won the battle, and what could you have had more, even if someone had said, “Good job.”

If you fly over Nevada, look out the window at the landscape below. Nevada is a series of valleys and ridges that make up a large region called the Basin and Range. The alternating lowlands and highlands are there because Nevada is being stretched from below in part of a tectonic process that will probably open up the state to ocean water encroaching from the south. Yes, dry Nevada will partially become a sea (Not this week, if you’re planning a trip to Las Vegas or Reno).
 
Nevada isn’t without water, however. Snows and rains do fall, and they form streams that wear away the highlands. Erosion leads to deposition. The rocks of the highlands become the sediments that cover their lower flanks in coalescing fan-shaped aprons. With repeated deposits of debris washed from the higher elevations, the fans of sediment spread out, overlap, and eventually make a sloping embankment called a bajada. Bajadas are piles of rock debris (from boulders to cobbles to pebbles to sands) clearly visible from a high-flying jet.
 
Highlands throughout the world undergo constant attack by erosional forces. Landslides and rock falls make dramatic and quick changes. Ice and water usually act a little more slowly, but they effect most of the change. And at times big downpours in desert storms can wash large volumes of material downslope.
 
That the erosion of a highland leads to the development of a bajada is like much of what happens when humans, like Nevada’s ranges, are elevated. Erosion of every highland is inevitable, and in the case of human interactions, the agents of erosion are legion. Seems that some of those in the valleys can only scale the highlands on slopes of debris, material sometimes deposited in catastrophic collapses and at other times deposited by an infrequent, but inevitable rainfall.
 
Some of those who live on the slopes of highlands seem happy with the debris. They attempt to level the landscape not by elevating themselves, but by wearing down the highlands. Today, from the altitude of an airplane, the differences in the landscape are both noticeable and remarkable. From the perspective of distant time, only those highlands that escape complete erosion will stand above an encroaching sea.