The cashier at Walmart thanked me for my purchase and said, “Have a great day.”

I responded with, “Thanks, you, too.”

The expression “Have a great day” is common and friendly. Time to change it.
 
There’s a bit of passivity in “Have a great day,” even though the verb is imperative. To switch to a more active thought, let’s use, “Make a great day.” Or, better, “Make the day great.” I think I prefer the latter. Change the verb to make, and use the definite article (the) rather than the indefinite a.
 
Now, go make the day great. Go make your day great. Go make someone else's day great. 

Angry about something? Anything? Maybe not something personal, possibly something more far reaching, say a political matter or a religious one? But think. Regardless of whether or not the supposed cause of anger is proximal or distal, what is really taking place “in” you? Is some general anger driving you? Or, do you have something specific “in mind”? There’s a personal geography in this.
 
Generally, you might think the world is an angry place and that you are living in the angriest of times. Both history and myth seem to suggest otherwise. For indefinite numbers of reasons behavior driven by anger has been a persistent human condition. It’s as though the story of Cain is everyone’s story—not the killing, but some manifestation of anger in varying degrees, occurring not only through time but also in every place. Don’t want anger to control you? Concerned that you might be a little too miffed on occasion?
 
We all live on multiple levels. There’s a level on which we operate within a closed system of Self, another level on which we interact with close associates and occasional strangers, and a third level on which we might have no immediate connection yet feel drawn into conditions far outside the Self. That last level is one that drives us to attach ourselves to causes or movements of like-minded anger. The movement can be an amorphous, very loosely structured one, such as Occupy Wall Street. Participants of OWS, when asked why they were doing what they were doing didn’t offer much specificity to reporters questioning them. The participants seemed angry about a variety of economic circumstances, all of which they tied to an entity called “Wall Street.” When the cause of anger is distal, we find a scapegoat to make it proximal. When it is proximal, we have identified an object-person.
 
Here’s a method for lessening anger on any level. Think place. That is, as anger begins to well up from the brain’s interior, try to analyze its place on one of your levels of existence. “Wait, am I in my proximal anger? Am I in my distal anger?”
 
Maybe you find this too cognitive an approach to work, but think about what it does. When we “place” anger—find our distance to its cause—we give pause to our emotion. We take anger out of the brain’s interior, and in doing so, we see our relationship to whatever drives our anger. Think of anger as a connection of varying lengths and strengths.
 
Imagine anger as some kind of elastic connection, a rubber band of emotion. In most instances of proximal anger, the rubber band closely retains its thick, relatively upstretched shape. It’s tough and unweakened. The band of distal anger is stretched, losing, depending upon how much stretching it undergoes, its thicker shape. Or think of proximal anger as a thick, but amorphous dark cloud of smoke that envelopes your immediate world and distal anger as also amorphous, but thinned out and blown by winds beyond your personal control. An angry mob carries your distal smoke with it. Want one more image? Proximal causes of anger are immediate drenching cloudbursts; distal causes of anger are approaching squall lines that from afar appear threatening but that do not necessarily ensure drenching where you stand.  
 
Picturing anger’s connector and distance to object-person is a key to its control. The next time you get angry, be aware of the geography of your personal anger. The awareness itself will impose self-control. You can think, “Here I am; there is the nearby—or distant—cause,” or “I see how I am connected (near or far).”   

It’s time for a party. Your friends are elated. You have earned their respect for having set a record that will go into the Guinness Book. What did you do? We’ll circle back to that in a moment.
 
“Mr. Versatility,” Ashrita Furman, has 121 Guinness World records, more than anyone else. What has he done? Well, the 56-year-old started in 1979 with 27,000 consecutive jumping jacks. He has, for example, run the fastest hula-hooping mile past Ayers Rock in Australia and walked the longest distance while balancing a pool cue past Egypt’s pyramids. “Wow!” you say. “I wish I could be good enough to bounce on a kangaroo ball on the Great Wall of China like Furman.”
 
All right, I know that you probably didn’t say ‘wow.’ More likely, you said, “I don’t see the need for balancing a pool cue, risking tendonitis in doing too many jumping jacks, or, while blindfolded, catching more lemons in one minute tossed by another person than any other person has ever caught in such a short period.” (Yes, catching lemons while blindfolded is one of his records). If you said ‘wow,’ it might have been more associated with his having set his ‘records’ on seven continents than his having set the records themselves. “Wow! He has seen the world.” 
 
When you consider Furman’s records, you might think it’s just a matter of choosing some action that no one ever thought about doing. Who thinks about racing while hula-hooping? Granted, all Furman’s records require a bit of physical skill, a certain proprioceptivenss that not everyone has. Furman has capitalized not just on his agility, but also on his ability to think of doing something very specific he can do repetitively while most others, seeing the act, would fail to repeat because of their inability or lack of persistence.
 
What kind of a world record do you want to set? None?
 
There are three requirements for setting a record: Uniqueness, ability, and persistence. Whatever you do, you need at least two of them—anywhere in the world. So, there, just where you are at the moment, you might ask yourself, “What do I have the ability and the persistence to do beyond the capacities and endurance of others?” Abilities differ. We aren’t equally gifted. Persistence, however, is a matter of will. Ashrita Furman seems to have both, no matter how silly (or unique) you think his records are.
 
Here’s the record that your friends and you can celebrate: In whatever you chose to accomplish in any place, you were known to be more persistent than anyone thought possible.
 
http://www.livescience.com/33326-weirdest-world-records.html  

Ask for a straw at the restaurant today. Put it in your glass of water. You’ll see what we all would see, a straw once straight now appearing bent or broken. You probably know the reason: Refraction (bending) of light traveling through two media of differing densities, water and air. You know, of course, that the straw isn’t actually bent, but it seems so from most angles of observation.
 
Even though you know that the straw is straight, you cannot get your visual perception to conform to your knowledge. No amount of thinking straightens the straw. Two realities seem simultaneously characteristic of a single entity.
 
Sometimes those with whom we associate are like straws in glasses of water. 

Maybe you believe the most important things are those that fulfill daily needs, you know, like bread, milk, and eggs. “Hey, can you stop at the market and pick up some bread, milk, and eggs?”  Maybe you believe the most important things are those that fulfill some intellectual need. “Hey, can you stop by the library and pick up works by Bacon, Mill, and Eckhart?”
 
Francis Bacon believed that the universe is a problem to be solved. Given the right methods, some experimentation, and inductive thinking, humans could arrive at an “understanding” of the way physical things worked. John Stuart Mill took the logical, scientific method of Bacon to another level, seeking “understanding” of the way societies worked. Meister Eckhart tried to achieve an “understanding” of God.
 
Are those the three intellectual needs? We want to know how the universe works, don’t we? We also want to know how people work. Then, we have the question of God. Even atheists are concerned with the question—at least, they seem to go to great lengths to deal with the question of God.
 
Three intellectual needs—picking up at the store of understanding something about the physical world, the social world, and the spiritual world—appear to dominate all thoughts not centered on the need for bread, milk, and eggs.

Unless you undergo cremation upon death, there’s a possibility that someone might find your remains 90 centuries from now, submit them to archaeological and genetic review, and make you a celebrity. You will be known as “The Ancient One.” People will flock to a museum to see your display, marvel at the techniques long past that were used in your burial, and hypothesize about your life on the basis of artifacts found in the grave. The mysteries of your daily existence will be subject to scholarly papers, and there will be arguments centered on desecration.
 
So, now, Kennewick Man has been reburied on the Columbia River Plateau.* From what we can gather, he had some difficulties in his life as all humans have. His included some injuries to skull and hip, the latter by means of a spear. Rough times 9,000 years ago for the 38-year-old.
 
And you some nine thousands years hence? Hopefully, there will be no evidence of blows to your head or stab wounds to your hip, but, hey, it’s a tough planet, what with all the violence, accident, disease, and natural disaster. The future will find you just as we found Kennewick Man, purposefully buried, revealing a sign of culture if not of respect.
 
Start making your list. What do you want people to find when they discover your remains? Leave a clue to their meaning because, if history is any guide, today’s languages will morph into some other languages, maybe leaving only hints for translation, something that a new Jean-François Champollion will decipher.
 
What? Depressing? This stuff about you 90 centuries from now? Or, maybe a sign that like Kennewick Man, once buried and now reburied, you, unlike all the other animals on the planet, belong to a species that shows reverence to the departed? Someday, you will be The Ancient One, the ancestor of ancestors. We can speculate about how you will be treated, but then that might be as difficult as those nine thousand years ago understanding those living today.
 
What do we have in common with an ancient people? What commonality lies in our humanity? What have we inherited that we will pass on? Kennewick Man probably had knowledge of family and tribal history. We live in the Age of History. We have knowledge of more than family and tribe. We have all written history plus the artifacts we have uncovered. Will that knowledge make it through the next 9,000 years? Possibly, but just as possibly not. Will anyone know the context of your life? Let’s say so. Now, realize this. Kennewick Man represents all of the people who lived in northwestern United States 90 centuries ago. You, the new Ancient One, will represent all of today’s humanity.
 
If you are going to be treated with reverence, astound them. 

* http://www.archaeology.org/news/5322-170221-washington-kennewick-man-reburied
 
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/tribes-bury-remains-of-ancient-ancestor-also-called-kennewick-man/

This is what we know: There are planets that lie beyond our Solar System. This is what we don’t know: Planets beyond our Solar System harbor life, possibly even “intelligent” life.
 
That there is life beyond Earth has been a topic since people burned Giordano Bruno at the stake. That means that for hundreds of years we have pondered, joked about, and spoken about the possibility of unearthly life and intelligent extraterrestrials.  Intelligence, of course, is variable, so we still argue about its nature as some would say it’s just a matter of degree as much as of kind. Then, there are the peripheral arguments. There are some, such as those who burned Bruno, that argue any such life would negate their religious beliefs. And we even have jokes and serious essays about that negation.
 
The argument that finding life outside the boundaries of Earth would overturn many of the world’s religions is an “argument from.” Many arguments are “arguments from.” Predisposed to a position, those who “argue from” are locked into established beliefs of any kind, even personal, individual beliefs. In contrast, those who argue the acquisition of knowledge or even new mysteries can only enhance our understanding of the context of belief, “argue to.” Arguing to is a reaching out even when the goal is uncertain.
 
Let’s take belief in a Creator and the possibility for life elsewhere in the universe as an example of “arguing from.” If the Creator is capable of making by fiat a universe for which we can find no boundary, why is there a limit on the fiat? If one accepts the fiat, one already acknowledges an act beyond understanding. Is there a limit on a fiat that engendered a universe? My asking, of course, is an affront to those who would limit a Creator in a fiat that produced a universe with an estimated two trillion galaxies. But I am not arguing for a particular religious position, nor am I arguing against some general fundamentalist position. Beliefs are beliefs, and I am bound just as everyone else is bound to a set of beliefs, assumptions, and axioms. I think, however, that we need to assess process and goal in argument. With respect to a universe of ubiquitous life, I pose this: To argue against a universe in which life occurs universally is to argue from a conclusion; it is to “argue from.”
 
And that’s what we often do when we argue almost anything. We don’t argue to a position, we argue from one. That’s what gets us into unresolvable problems. If everyone argues from, then no one argues to something else. Or, if someone argues from and another argues to, then neither sees the other’s argument as tenable. In personal arguments that become shouting matches, both sides argue from.
 
Are we locked into our own fiats? That is, are we, when we insist the solution is an “argument from,” just saying, “Let it be” as we take on the role of Creator. “This is the way things are. This is how ‘I’ have made them. There’s an axiom of creation, and all arguments need to conform to such self-evident truths. Particularly, ‘My’ truths.”
 
Again, this isn’t about accepting an unbound Creator. This is not about your religion if you are a fundamentalist. It’s about the way you might argue to an impasse: You arguing from while another is arguing from a different from, or you arguing from with someone arguing to.
 
A note: You will say, “I have to start somewhere. I can’t just begin an argument without a foundation of some accepted truth.” Yes, you are correct. We all begin from some assumption we accept. In violent arguments, the assumptions are rooted in emotions, in deep parts of the brain. But when we can dissociate ourselves from emotion, can we see our argument as “reaching” rather than as “defending”? As open rather than as closed?
 
Some “look outward” to explore an unknown universe that might contradict belief, add to knowledge, or even befuddle them more by discoveries of mysteries as yet not contemplated. Such arguments are movements toward a more encompassing perspective, maybe even a fuzzy perspective that merely hints at truth.
 
In practical terms, merely ask yourself in your next debate or argument whether your position falls into either the from or to category. You might not win your argument, but at least you’ll have a better grasp of its nature. And you’ll know that if you end up where you started, you did so because you argued from.  

“Macaques have a speech-ready vocal tract but lack a speech-ready brain to control it,” according to W. Tecumseh Fitch, Bart de Boer, Neil Mathur, and Asif A. Ghazanfar.* Using “x-ray videos to quantify the vocal tract dynamics in living macaques during vocalization, facial displays, and feeding,” the researchers demonstrated that we’ve been wrong all these years about why monkeys don’t talk as we do. Apparently, we have a brain that talks, that is, neurons specifically capable of using our vocal tract mechanisms. Monkeys don’t seem to have such a neural setup.
 
Obviously, we humans have our struggles mastering talking. We say a few syllables when we first begin the process of learning language, and all the adults around us jump for joy. “Did you hear that! She said ‘dada.’” Then, by our toddler years, we begin to run at the mouth, and we don’t stop. Over and over, “Blah, blah, blah, blah.” And about everything. Every subculture’s favorite topics; all the general stuff we share. “Blah.” Generation after generation ever since we, unlike the other primates, developed the neurons to control the mechanisms of speech, we’ve been talking.
 
Story told to me by a friend: Her friend’s toddler hadn’t spoken regardless of the mother’s efforts to get the little girl to talk. One day in frustration and in a desperate voice, the mother said to the toddler, “Why won’t you say anything?”
 
The little girl, never having spoken, looked up and said, “There’s nothing important to say.”
 
Imagine a world in which we all wait until we truly have something important to say.

 *Science Advances  09 Dec 2016:
Vol. 2, no. 12, e1600723
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600723
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/12/e1600723.full
​

Tiny plastic pellets called nurdles have an almost ubiquitous presence on beaches in Great Britain. They aren’t just colorful pellets that decorate; they can pick up toxins and poison animals that ingest them. According to a report by BBC News,* 53 billion of these button-size nurdles are accidently released into the environment of the UK annually.
 
Just when you thought it was safe to go to the beach: A recent survey of the UK’s beaches discovered nurdles on 73% of those beaches. At Widemouth Bay, 33 volunteers counted 127,000 nurdles within 100-meter section of the beach. If you swallow some seawater, you might also ingest a nurdle or two. The problem of nurdles is exasperated by the accidental release of an estimated 230,000 tonnes of them by European mainland countries. If those who release nurdles are aware, should they be held responsible for cleaning up the mess? Should they be careful not to release more nurdles?  
 
Little things certainly do add up. Little actions, too. So, today, think of any one of your specific negative behaviors as a nurdle. You’ll do your part for the present by cleaning up any toxic nurdles you’ve released into your environment. You’ll do your part for the future by not accidentally--or purposefully--releasing any negative nurdles today, not even one.
 
* http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39001011

The late Dr. Heimlich, who devised the life-saving anti-choking maneuver, saved Ms. Ris in a Cincinnati retirement home. They were sitting next to each other when Ms. Ris showed signs of choking. Right place, right time. The 96-year-old Heimlich went into action immediately, dislodging the food and saving her life. She sent him a thank you note that read “God put me in this seat next to you.”
 
Maybe you haven’t devised an emergency medical procedure, but you have sat next to people choking on emotions. For that procedure you are well trained. You don’t have to squeeze the air out of their lungs. You don’t have to make some incision. You need simply to look and say, “You seem to be upset.” Don’t add, “Is there anything I can do?”
 
Simple procedure. Sometimes it works. Doesn’t seem to have any nasty side effects though someone could say, “Mind your own business.” But then, there’s a remedy for that. “Sorry, I was just concerned.”
 
Maybe the emotional choking will continue, but for a moment you will have stopped it. Right place, right time; or, right place, right brief moment.