“How do you think of your life?” I ask.
 
“Oh, no,” you say. “Is this one of those I’m-going-to-do-all-the-work-self-help projects? What’s this mean? How do I think of my life? It’s fine, or, maybe not all-the-time fine, but generally everything’s-okay fine. I’m not looking for some intrusive know-it-all to tell me how to live—anyway, if I continue this any longer, I might have to order more hyphens from Staples.”
 
“No, I’m not questioning the quality of your life. What I’m after isn’t about accomplishments, challenges, behavior, or happiness. I’m after the perspective you have on how life—your life—unfolds. Is it more linear than nonlinear?”
 
“Huh?” you grunt. “Of course it’s linear, at least it seems to be linear in a temporal sense. Minutes follow minutes, hours follow hours, and so on. How could a finite being living a temporal existence think otherwise? I do this, and then I do that.”
 
Again, I ask, “Do you think that you live episode to episode? Is your life really based on Time’s Arrow in its direct flight to the future? What about your relationship with someone close to you? Is it episodic? ‘We’ll do this, then that, and then that, and eventually we’ll become this.’ Or is your life nonlinear?”
 
“What’s the difference?” you ask skeptically.
 
“I’m just posing a question for you to answer for yourself. In a nonlinear life, there’s an overriding set of values and goals, and episodes, as much as they can, fall within a framework. True, no one can escape the unexpected that lies in the next moment and around the next corner. In a linear life, there are mostly episodes to which we react, the outcome of which is haphazard. Nonlinear living has a more encompassing purpose than linear living. Nonlinear is a meaningful set. We all understand sets, don’t’ we. Think things that have something in common. In nonlinear life, we choose the episodes to put in the set. Nonlinear falls within the perspective of long range. Linear is immediate and episodic, and it is governed by whimsy and external pressure.”
 
You say, “Every life is both linear and nonlinear.”  (That you have such wonderful insights is the reason I treasure these little blog talks; I think I learn every time you say something. It's almost as though you are a little voice inside me, working to keep me humble by correcting the errors in my thinking)
 
I agree, “You have a point. But haven’t you noticed that some people appear to live primarily by episodes, whereas others appear to live by some overarching drive? Here’s a model from the world of college students. Some get to college without a clear vision of their goals and a work ethic to reach them. It’s party time. Someone drops by the dorm room just as one is about to study, and says, ‘Hey, want to…?’ The linear person then leaves the study behind and follows the external control, sets a pattern of behavior of allowing episodes to determine life, and then suffers the consequences of poorer grades. Among college students, missed classes are missed because an episode controls the decision to miss. Here’s another model from the world of relationships. Even in relationships, partners can always maintain their individuality, but a relationship is a set of mutual moods and responsibilities. When two people join in a loving relationship, random episodes accepted by one can negatively affect the set both share. This isn’t to argue that, for example, a wife can’t go hunting while the husband stays home to care for the kids or that both partners can’t participate in separate activities or reach individual goals. It is, however, to argue that most separate episodes should not interfere with the unity relationships entail.”
 
And I add, “You can junk this entire piece if you are so inclined. I won’t be offended because I know you to be insightful. Remember, I’m just posing a question: How do you think of your life?”
 
I could refine that question a bit, “Do you live a mostly linear or nonlinear life?”   

Ever say or do anything that might have offended someone? Ever do something that you regret? Not going to have that engraved on your tombstone, are you?
 
Euchambersia mirabilis, a Permian Period pre-mammalian critter that lived some 257 million years ago, was recently the topic in the news because it was venomous: “Euchambersia manifests evidence of all characteristics of venomous animals: a venom gland (in the maxillary fossa), a mechanism to deliver the venom (the maxillary canal and/or the sulcus located ventrally to the fossa); and an apparatus with which to inflict a wound for venom delivery (the ridged dentition).”* We have two fossils of Euchambersia. The first fossil of this dog-sized animal was discovered in 1932 near Colesberg, South Africa. The second fossil was discovered in 1966, somewhat surprisingly, just a few feet from the 1932 find. Considering how difficult it is to become fossilized—thus the bias of the fossil record—we should be happy to have these two presereved specimens.
 
Just about anything can go against the fossilization of a land animal. It dies. Carrion eaters attack it. Bacteria, too, plus insects and fungi. A bone-eater carries off a leg. Another carries off a skull. A stream washes parts away, or a strong wind blows the pieces apart. Fossilization is chancy. (Don’t worry, we’ll do our best to preserve you)  
 
So, imagine. Two Euchambersia died 257 million years ago. Their bodies were fossilized by chance as all fossilized bodies are, and they lay for millions of years unknown to the world until the two discoveries brought them to our attention. What is it that should fascinate us in this? That they were venomous is no longer a secret. The truth is out.
 
Have you noticed how politicians and monarchs speak of their legacies? Presidents have multimillion-dollar libraries with all the photos and papers they want to preserve to show themselves in a favorable way for posterity’s adulations. And they have an advantage. They can choose what gets to be preserved, to be fossilized for future researchers to uncover. Wealthy donors and fans donate the money for such preservation, and possibly some, like Sandy Berger, might contribute clandestine activities to hide anything that might damage the legacies in some way.
 
Remember the late Berger? Berger, Director of the National Security Center under President Clinton, went into the National Archives in Washington and stuffed classified documents into his socks to sneak them out. He was caught, lost his security clearance, and was disbarred, all for the preservation of the Clinton reputation. Tough to preserve the truth about something when it escapes fossilization. Berger was not a friend of the nation’s archivists. We don’t know how many administrations (or kings, or queens, or emperors, or religious leaders) might have had their own “Bergers.”
 
But millions of years from now, no one will probably care. In fact, you might already say, “Who cares? That era is over. Eventually, all the libraries and archives will turn to dust as will all the records they now contain. There will be no legacy; nothing will be fossilized. Unlike the bias of the natural fossil record, the human fossil record will be biased through conscious choice.”
 
Euchambersia did leave a record. It left evidence of its venomous nature. Those who preserve their legacies in presidential libraries or in other special buildings or tombs will do their best to leave no evidence that they had some venom. Since we have short memories and little sense of history, the ensuing generations will know only a history approved by the individuals memorialized.
 
That means that members of a future generation will have little sense of what motivated people to act the way they did. It means that white-washing will eliminate imperfections, including any venomous words or actions. So, legacies will be preserved as those who believe they deserve a positive one can preserve them. It’s the way of the world, and it predates our era.
 
Euchambersia lived in the Permian Period. That age ended in the Great Dying, an extinction event that wiped out nearly all marine and terrestrial species. No creatures lived to tell the tale. Yet, the secret is out. Euchambersia, that cute dog-size critter, was as venomous as a snake.
 
There is a chance that all venomous activity will someday be known. Like a creature with a built-in venomous gland in its maxillary fossa, all humans have the potential to inject venom. We really can’t hide that fact. Someday, someone will dig up the truth about our species.  
 
*Benoit, Julien, luke A. Norton, Paul r. Manger, and Bruce S. RubdigeReappraisal of the envenoming capacity of Euchambersia mirabilis (Therapsida, Therocephalia) using μCT-scanning techniques. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172047
Artists' renditions at http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=euchambersia+mirabilis&id=9FADF186D4B4C9E7E82478A78CC7A3CFEB39E883&FORM=IQFRBA

Maybe we’re all a little autotheistic. We hear an inner voice—no not the voice a schizophrenic hears—that wells up from deep inside, a voice that tells us holistically how to interpret the world and how to accept our own part as makers of reality. It is our self-deification, our apotheosis. You listen to yours daily. It says, “Accept this; deny that; question that; and create a worldview.”
 
From early on we all act as creators. Some choose to create places with endings, universes that are closed, limited, and pressing. Others create openness. Those inner voices fashion the universes in which we live.
 
No, I’m not repeating Milton’s famous lines from “Paradise Lost” that the mind can fashion a Heaven from Hell and a Hell from Heaven. There are external realities with which we all must deal, and mind, regardless of what the virtual reality proponents say, can’t change those realities. You will get sick, and you will die. There’s no mental escape from the latter. The individuals that harbor inner voices—and that’s all of us—dwell in places over which we have only partial control. But minds can control much, such as tolerance to pain and commitment to a goal.
 
Your worldview is your chief creation. It is more important than your character because it is more fundamental. Character, according to Robert A. Burton, is “at best a partial truth; our behavior can be dramatically and involuntarily affected by circumstance…the smell of bakery goods increases one’s likelihood of being generous.”* Burton cites a study of the phenomenon in front of a bakery and a corollary study in front of a neutral-smelling business, where people were less generous. Then there’s the famous Stanley Milgram study of people willing to harm others simply because the circumstance called for them to do so. But worldview underlies even behavioral changes. Worldview can impose, for example, guilt on someone who lets a circumstance change a “moral” to an “immoral” character—but just for that occasion—and impose recognition of the change.
 
Unlike an Infinite Creator who can fashion outside finite situations, you did acquire through situational experience the makings of your worldview. That means that your character itself has undergone change and is subject to the whimsies of the moment, sometimes conforming to and at other times contradicting your worldview.
 
You continue, regardless of character failings, to hear that inner, organizing (or creating) voice. What is the voice telling you about how to understand the world you now encounter? And how is it currently shaping your character? Or, should I ask how your character currently conforms to or contradicts your worldview?
 
*A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us about Ourselves, St. Martin’s Press, NY, p. 208, 209.

No place on the planet is safe from strong winds. Tornadoes can occur anywhere. True, there are some places that are more prone to such storms. Tornado Alley in North America comes to mind. Frequently, conditions favorable to tornadic development lie within that zone where warm moist Gulf of Mexico air meets cooler drier air moving through the continental interior. Those who live outside Tornado Alley might ask themselves why anyone would live in such a zone. Some of those who ask might themselves live in zones with other natural hazards, such as flooding, landslides, wildfires, earthquakes, and even volcanic eruptions. Face it: We all chose to live on a planet of risks. To those natural risks we have added car accidents and murders.
 
Let me guess. You’re thinking, “Holy cow! I’m going to see how much Elon Musk is charging for a trip to elsewhere (moon, Mars, beyond).”
 
Stay put. Space travel, as the deaths of astronauts reveal, is also a risk. Even if you did go into space, you would probably question whether or not you had turned off the coffee pot, the stove, or the hot iron you used to press your spacesuit. The point? Trouble’s sure.
 
“What a negative picture!” Yes, in a way, it is. Then there’s that other side. What we anticipate is rarely a problem. But all anticipation requires attention to detail and effort. You can live in Tornado Alley and by chance never see a tornado, but should one occur in your neighborhood, you might think ahead to have a safe room that affords some protection, even if it is less than 100%. You can drive safely to avoid accidents, but that too is never a 100% guarantee. And you can do your best to move away from area prone to crime if adding crime watch security is beyond your capacity.
 
I don’t live in Tornado Alley, but I do live on Earth. I was writing a blog last week when a strong wind took a two-foot diameter trunk from fifty feet above the ground and broke it, sending it just next to my house and the room in which I was writing. It missed the house by a couple of feet, though some of its branches took out my cable and silenced my Internet connection. A slight shift in the wind’s direction would have brought down the 40-foot long limb on the roof immediately above my head. (You’re thinking, “What a tragedy that would have been; no more intensely interesting blogs to kick start my own wonderful insights”) Luck’s a chance.
 
So, yes, life’s a risk. Some kind of “tornado” is always possible, and we can’t prepare, regardless of all our efforts, for every possible outcome. That was the motivation for my starting this website. Like you, I realized that life’s harsh realities are always potential and often realized. As I have mentioned elsewhere, A. E. Housman cleverly put the whole human circumstance in perspective in his poem “Terence, this is stupid stuff.”* After noting how his character has taken to drink to wallow in his self-pity and escape from reality, Housman tells the tale of Mithridates (a real character, by the way). The ancient king, so the story goes, took a little poison every so often to inure himself. When members of his court tried to poison him, their poisons had no effect—except to get them executed.
 
In the poem, Housman gives this advice:
 
          Therefore, since the world has still

          Much good, but much less good than ill,

          And while the sun and moon endure

          Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,

          I’d face it as a wise man would,

          And train for ill and not for good.

 
Making yourself mentally and physically better prepared for the unexpected? How are you training for “ill”? That doesn’t mean you should take poison like Mithridates. Rather, it means you need to be a bit more self-demanding and a bit less self-excusing.
 
Housman’s last lines put the point across. We need to live lives of anticipation. No, not worry. Worry involves no preparation. Anticipation entails preparation. Housman ends with:
 
           --I tell the tale that I heard told.
                                   
          Mithridates, he died old.
 
*from A Shropshire Lad, 1896, LXII http://www.bartleby.com/123/62.html

There’s a tool for just about everything tucked away in a Swiss Army Knife. But having more tools comes at a price of space. Adding more tools necessitates a wider case to house them. One could imagine a “knife” with tools numerous enough to fill the bed of a pickup truck. Fortunately, we don’t need much space for our life tools. Just a head, some distributed nerves, and the appropriate body structures. And, unlike a Swiss Army Knife so jammed with tools that it becomes unwieldy, our life tool holder doesn’t have to get larger. We pack more into the same space—with some exceptions.
 
One tool that never seems to fit easily into our case is the one that extricates us from philosophical stands we have long held but that we now doubt. Life’s tools never seem to be sufficient for the bind that former assumptions and beliefs impose on us. However, if such a tool exists, it does work better on us than it does on others. Once we associate a philosophical (or religious, political, or social) position with someone, we have difficulty finding in our Mental Swiss Army Knife a tool that works to free that person from the pigeonhole. Our attitude on accepting change in others is typically “Once you’re in, you’re in.” We accept change in ourselves but have difficulty accepting change in others.
 
Are we all too busy playing with the knife’s tools to find the one essential to accepting change in others? Once an alcoholic; always an alcoholic. Once a drug addict; always a drug addict. Once a criminal; always a criminal. Once…; always….
 
It’s time to get a bigger “knife,” to add tools of understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness that we can readily access. And it’s time to use the appropriate tool to extricate others from the little hole of thinking or behavior into which we believe they belong.
 
What’s the sense of owning a Mental Swiss Army Knife if we use it only reluctantly or fail to use its tools to help others?

Life is frequently an exploration of unknowns, and that’s one reason so many hold onto “certainties.” If you get up during the night to get a drink of water, you probably don’t turn on the lights to make your way to the sink. It didn’t move while you slept, and you’re sure of that because you mentally mapped the route many times. The process entails no exploration because you are on familiar ground with its geometry unaffected by opaqueness.
 
You need the certainty provided by many “knowns.” Otherwise, you could not step onto a floor. “Will this floor hold me?” “Will it hold me now?” “Now?” You can’t ask that question every moment if you want to do anything else. Instead, you see a floor, and you step onto it. Inference begets freedom to explore, and map memory takes you to studied points of departure. At every moment you stand at the end of a memory map. The next step down an unknown hallway, however, requires inference. “Let’s see what lies at the end of this corridor” is not a statement you would make if you were unsure of the corridor’s floor. Yes, you need some certainty; we all do.
 
Seeing provides certainty, we think. In a flat universe, we suppose that our line of sight is true, that triangles have the same number of degrees that we learned in math class, and that much of our world is transparent. Uninterrupted lines of sight, a familiar geometry of place, and transparency all provide assurance that the world of today will be similar to the world of yesterday. The “knowns” tie what we have seen to what we expect to see in the “unknowns.” But at times our certainties, both large and small and at unexpected times and places, seem to vanish in an unmapped hallway or room. It’s as though someone moved the sink, and for good measure, made the floor creaky. “Should I step on this? It appears to be solid, but….”   
 
In the light, we all find ourselves in an ironic position. We can see, but are often lost. No, I don’t mean you’re lost in your neighborhood, on the way to work, or around the workplace. Instead, we awake daily to the unknowns of relationships, both new and old, to accidents, both harmless and harmful, and to detours, both minor and major. Most people in relationships expect the sink to be in the same place everyday.
 
In fact, in relationships the “sink” does move, making it difficult to find even in the daytime. Sometimes, the floor creaks, also. You haven’t stayed the same, have you? Why expect those around you to stay the same? Facing unknowns can be difficult, but since everyone faces them at some time or another, isn’t exploring as a team better than bumping into an unexpected wall in the dark or hesitating to step on a creaky floor? Relationships constantly change overtly and subtly. Those you love are also wandering around in the unknown darkness as they look for something that once seemed to be in a familiar location. They will probably welcome your company in their explorations. Now, go find some new place to get a drink together.