Physicists love invariance. It guarantees that they can go on with their work; they can assume that the universe works the same everywhere. If they could not make that assumption, then all their rules, principles, and laws would be useless. They have a consistency they’ve come to know and trust. Go to the moon and watch a hammer fall toward the surface just as one falls to the surface on Earth. Yep. Consistency. On the scale of human existence, the universe works consistently.
 
And then, after running experiments that demonstrate invariance, physicists go home, or to a bar, or to a reunion, and when they do, they enter another kind of universe, one in which variance is the law. People don’t work the way the physical universe works. Yes, there are definitely two universes: A consistent physical one and an inconsistent social one.
 
Variance is the law in social relationships, so seeking invariance in a partner is a fruitless quest. No such law applies to people naturally. In the experiment called life, one needs to recognize that loved ones, life partners, and acquaintances change. As in any physical mutation, social or personal variance takes on one of three forms: Some mutations are good for a continued relationship; some are neutral, and some are detrimental. When people recognize the inevitability of change in others, they have choices: Accepting change; rejecting change; struggling with change, neither fully accepting nor fully rejecting it; and ignoring change until if forces its way like a magma chamber onto the surface in a volcanic eruption.
 
Demanding invariance in social relationships is like demanding that hammers dropped by astronauts don’t fall toward the moon’s surface: Neither demand can be fulfilled without overturning the laws of their respective universes. Variance is the universal property of human existence. Learn to deal with it in the lab of life.

Do you think Cleveland will ever run out of fresh water? There it is, city by one of the Great lakes, the largest surface supply of fresh water. For residents of the city, Lake Erie’s waters flow through four giant intakes, more than a dozen pumping stations, and over 5,000 miles of water mains in a seemingly endless supply of fresh water. Life must be good by the lake because life requires water, and Cleveland has water in abundance.
 
A water molecule in Lake Erie is a temporary resident, spending perhaps two to three years before leaving via human use, Niagara Falls or evaporation. During that brief span, fresh water can change character, especially for a lake that drains more than 30,000 square miles with factories and farms. Pollution is inevitable. Lakeside people, to put it bluntly, pee in their drinking water. Phosphorus runs off farms and causes algal blooms. Algae die, sink to the bottom, and use up oxygen, creating anoxic dead zones that support only anaerobic bacteria. Such dead water zones acquire excess manganese. Manganese colors the water. Yuk!
 
In a 10,000 square mile lake, no one can control where the dead zones occur, and they sometimes extend from the depths of the lake to the water company’s intakes, changing the color of the water that reaches Cleveland’s residents. Not to worry. Manganese colored water isn’t dangerous; it’s just not the clear stuff Clevelanders expect to pour from faucets.
 
So, there you are, a visitor to Cleveland, and you’re thirsty. “Hey,” you say to yourself, “got to be a lot of water here; I can see the giant lake outside the window.”
Your host says, “Wait, I’ll get you a glass of water,” and returns with a cloudy solution. “Oh! Don’t worry about the cloudiness,” your host says. “That happens every once in a while; we’re used to it. It’s just some water from the dead zone. In reality it’s harmless and just as healthful as clear water.”
 
Do you say, “Thanks, I am really thirsty”? Do you gulp without thinking?
 
Of course, you do hesitate. Appearance changes your notion of abundance and safety. You’re in a quandary. If you show the hesitation, you might offend your host who went out of the way to explain the cloudiness. Then, as you lift the glass to your lips, you keep repeating to yourself, “dead zone water, water from a dead zone.”
 
Tough to get past both that description and the cloudy appearance, right? It doesn’t matter that Cleveland’s water company allowed the water to flow through those mains to the host’s faucet, and it doesn’t matter that the host made assurances about the water’s safety. “Dead zone water,” you think. “Cloudy appearance,” you think.
 
A simple description and an appearance can alter acceptance of the most innocuous of substances, water, the very stuff we need to sustain life. And so descriptions and appearances alter the way we accept or reject one another regardless of reality. 
​

In the “Dies Irae” (“That Dreadful Day”) of the Requiem Mass one of the early lines is “Flammis acribus addictis,” or “doomed to flames of woe.”*  The words of this famous poetic sequence and/or its accompanying music have been part of numerous musical works and movie soundtracks, including Star Wars. But this is not about death and that “day of woe,” that “dreadful day.” Rather it is about life.
 
Throughout our species’ history, our ancient and contemporary relatives have had to overcome the woe associated with barriers to success. That woe is associated in part with our finite limitations. We can’t fly like birds. We can’t run as fast as a cheetah. We can’t lift what elephants lift. Yes, we have limitations. Yet, we keep striving and, as we do, running into obstacles imposed by members of our species. The bias that prevents some from achieving goals is, in fact, a demonstrable part of human history, and imposed limitations have real effects on real lives.
 
“Even small biases, if they happen repeatedly, can have career-related effects,” says Brooks Hansen. Hansen and Jory Lerback conducted a survey of scientific literature and the way scientific journals and reviewers accept research and findings by female scientists as opposed to those by male scientists.** There appears to be, according to their findings, a gender bias. But why? Science is supposed to be completely devoid of whim, of bias, and of closed-mindedness. Yet, there seems to be evidence that reviewers and journal editors incorporate a bias into their decisions and judgments.

Could it be that scientists are humans who are affected by their human frailties?
 
The good news is that more women have their research accepted, and even those who have struggled to succeed haven’t given up on their science and on their attempt to discover objectively the nature of our physical and psychological world.
Sometimes people just need a pioneer, someone to risk sailing over the edge, enter the wilderness, or mix some substances. Once done, imitation seems assured. 
 
I was listening to Tackling Life, a podcast by former Baltimore Raven and football great Ray Lewis and Dr. Christian Conte (whom I know because he grew up in my home), when the latter began a discussion on inspiring oneself to reach goals. Dr. Conte started a segment on inspiration to achieve formerly assumed-to-be-unattatinable goals (at 29:30) by saying, “For the longest time…in track people wanted to break the four-minute mile, but couldn’t break it. It was this unbreakable mark at the ‘four-minute mile.’ And then in 1954 Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. And what’s amazing about that is once he did that, now, thousands of people have been able to break the four-minute mile…The moment we understand that [something is possible], that’s possible within ourselves.”***
 
We don’t have to acquiesce to self-imposed or other-imposed limitations. There’s always someone, male or female, who breaks a “four-minute” mile. That person shows what is possible. Then it’s up to individuals—you and me—to repeat the accomplishment and to build on it. The first isn’t necessarily the best. It is the first. You don’t have to be consumed by flames of earthly woe because of those who say, “It can’t be done,” or “That is beyond your reach.” You—male or female—can work diligently and tirelessly to overcome obstacles and to improve on not only personal achievements, but also humanity’s achievements. And you can do so daily until that dies irae imposes a "four-minute-mile barrier" no one can break. Male or female, "run" now while you can. 
 
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKJur8wpfYM&list=RDRKJur8wpfYM
Or, in Gregorian Chant with translations: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=egorian+chant+dies+irae&view=detail&mid=D250B4D9B240B4154BD2D250B4D9B240B4154BD2&FORM=VIRE
Or, the ominous version by Berlioz in Symphonie Fantastique (start at 46:00):
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Berlioz+symphonie+fantastique&view=detail&mid=AE08486785BCBF55DBA1AE08486785BCBF55DBA1&FORM=VIRE
 
** Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2016.20708 http://www.nature.com/news/journals-invite-too-few-women-to-referee-1.21337
 
*** Episode 25, Tackling Life (available free on iTunes), discussion starts at 29:30.

Boreas (N), Kaikias (NE), Eurus (E), Apeliotes (SE), Notus (S), Livas (SW), Zephyrus (W), and Skiron (NW) were the gods of the winds. The Tower of Winds was an ancient octagonal building with each side facing one of those winds. Wind.
 
Think not so much breeze or gale; rather, think capacity to evaporate water. If you live in temperate or boreal latitudes, you’ll hear weather forecasters talk of “wind chill.” The concept is a simple one: Air carries energy in its vibrating molecules. That energy can be transferred to a drop of water, exciting the molecules of the drop to such a state that they break free from their environment. They absorb energy from the passing air. The more air that passes by, the more energy transferred. It’s the principle behind hairdryers and blow dryers. Even on a cold day, the air carries such energy, and the evaporation off skin cools the skin because it takes not only the energy from the passing air, but also from the skin. Evaporation, as one learns by experience and by textbook, is a cooling process.
 
In a world filled with much sadness, tears run round the clock and in every direction. Somewhere someone is sad right now. Maybe you. In a world of tears, we need some help from the evaporating winds. Would it not be comforting to know that the eight winds of ancient times were waiting to provide solace, to take away the tears? Eight directions. No matter where you face as you stand on The Tower of Winds, Eurus, Livas, Zephyrus, and the others would provide the drying energy.
 
There are the metaphors and references to the winds that push, the ones that fill sails, and, as the lyrics go, lie beneath wings. Maybe a wind in the face isn’t such a bad metaphor. No, it doesn’t allow one to spit, but it does dry moisture on the face. True, that’s not so good for us when the air is very cold because evaporation makes the face even colder, but it can be good when it dries tears.
 
Shouldn’t sad people be able to get comfort from every direction? Shouldn’t we all be the kind of wind in the face that dries the tears of others?  

In a letter to J. Norvell, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” He wrote that in 1807. And what’s the talk today? Fake news.
 
Jefferson didn’t take kindly to newspapers. In the same missive, he writes, “Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies. The first chapter would be very short.” Gotta give it up for Founding Father humor.
 
So, today we know that anyone can say anything about anything or anyone, and that there’s little accountability for falsehood. It was true in Jefferson’s time; it is true today. And individually, we can’t do much to change what is said because, unlike Jefferson’s time, our time has more literate (and semi-literate) people with more avenues of expression.
 
We’re not going to change our circumstances. All those avenues—and probably more as yet undreamt ones—will continue to overflow like a river under spring rains after a snowmelt. So, what are we to do?
 
Look in a mirror. Do you recognize the person you see? Do you know his or her character? Do you know the truth? Nothing outside of that knowledge changes that truth.
 
Would the “fourth chapter” as Jefferson describes it, hurt? Of course. But then, you really don’t have to read any further than the first chapter with regard to yourself or to others whose character you know well. Chapter One is really all that matters.