Potassium is not an element that you see lying around on the ground or floating in your local stream. It reacts rather violently with air and water, so in nature the element is always bound to another element. As element 19, K (potassium) lies on the left side of the periodic table; it is an element that easily binds to chlorine (Cl), element 17 that lies on the opposite side of the table. Together they make potassium chloride, a compound that is a scotophor.

Scotophors are useful materials: They can change from dark to light and back as incipient light, usually UV, strikes them. Lenses with compositions that include scotophors will darken when sunlight strikes them and return to clear glass when it doesn’t.

Have you noticed the scotophor nature of some people? The sun shines; things seem to be going right for a group of people, and along comes grumpy old Mr. Scotophor.

“So what?” “It’s no big deal.” “It probably won’t last.” “I’ve seen better.” Seems that whenever everyone else is happy, Mr. Scotophor sees the world through darker and darker lenses.

You probably can’t do much to make a Mr. Scotophor happy, but you can learn from him. The success and happiness of others, as long as both are ethically derived, should not produce a darkened lens through which anyone views the world.  

Forget Plato’s Metaphor of the Cave for a moment. Let’s look at my Metaphor of the Cultural Cave. I have a different take on the metaphor.

Caves are typically very stable geologic structures. That stability makes cave tourism possible, so, for example, tens of thousands of visitors have walked through Mammoth Cave in Kentucky not in trepidation, but in wonder. The giant hole in the limestone has even housed religious services, weddings, and, for a brief time, a small village of people suffering from tuberculosis, the last group led there by erroneous and quack medical advice (some got sicker in the cool damp air). The point: A cave like Mammoth Cave doesn’t change much over the course of a century; one can stand inside with little worry about a roof collapse.

Regardless of the stability of any system like a cave, there will be times when instability occurs. Equilibrium is a temporary condition. So, about 2,300 years ago, a Native American was in Mammoth Cave when a small, but personally devastating change took place, a little bit of disequilibrium that pinned him beneath a six-ton boulder that fell from the cave wall. Wrong place, wrong time. Possibly, he contributed to his demise by digging for gypsum or epsomite beneath the rock. More recently, during an Easter holiday, when Mammoth was closed for a day, cold air moved over Kentucky, entered the cave, and contributed to the collapse of the ceiling in the middle of the large room called the Rotunda. The rock fell where Park Rangers had often gathered tourists for an opening lecture on their cave tour.

Equilibrium and stability of place is comforting, but neither is permanent, even in the status of solid rock. Well, back to Plato if only for a moment. Plato has prisoners chained from birth to the inside of a cave, with each facing the interior wall. Behind them, and outside the cave, is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners people walk, casting shadows on the wall of the cave. The shadows, in Plato’s allegory, are the “reality” that the prisoners know. In my take on the allegory, all of us walk around in a Cave of Culture. From our earliest times, we expect the kind of stability the cave appears to offer. Equilibrium is the status. Then, just as in Mammoth Cave, in our Cave of Culture something precipitates an unexpected roof collapse. For some generations, the collapse will be a minor nuisance with no major injuries: The status quo lies solidly in relative equilibrium.

But equilibrium is, as I said above, a temporary condition. Something like a cold front, a force from outside the cave, can cause disequilibrium and change the culture. And sometimes something from within, such as digging for gypsum, can cause disequilibrium and change the culture.

Look up. How stable is your cave’s roof? 

As authors of our lives, we have the potential to revise. Not everyone, however, recognizes the need for revision. Some think their work is done and that revisiting early drafts is unnecessary: “I’m happy with what I have written, and I’m comfortable with the product.”

In some instances, first drafts are probably good. Some are geniuses at the art of writing their lives. Some seem to “get it right” the first time: Fluid sentences in support of a solid plot on a unified theme written coherently. Are you one of those authors?

If you look at any work closely enough, you can see something worthy of revision. Maybe the work has too many complex sentences where simple ones would suffice. Maybe the opposite applies. Well, even if the work seems fluid, unified, and coherent, certainly there is no harm in revisiting it. A tweak here or there, a bit of reorganizing structure, or a plot shift might come from the muse of life. The sources of inspiration change with experience and age just as sure as generations of graffiti artists overwrite old graffiti.

Those who despair to any degree should realize that they can pick up the pen at any time and start rewriting. Even those who are just slightly unhappy can do the same. No author is bound to produce a single edition. Every author can erase the old and rewrite.

Everyone can be a palimpsest. 

So, there was Caesar, standing with his soldiers by a stream, wondering whether or not to cross it. It was, after all, an important boundary of sorts. Crossing that stream with an army meant threatening Rome. Supposedly, an entertainer came along, and, while Caesar, looking for an omen, contemplated crossing the Rubicon, the minstrel played a flute for the troops. Then, seeing a trumpet of one of the soldiers, the entertainer picked it up, started to play, and, as he did, walked across the little bridge. Caesar interpreted the entertainer’s crossing as a sign from the gods and said, “The die is cast.” He signaled his men to march toward Rome. As it turned out, the crossing worked in Caesar’s favor. Pompey and other Romans that opposed Caesar fled the city, and Caesar became Rome’s ruler. 

Everything went well for Julius until the Ides of March, 44 BCE, when Brutus and others stabbed him to death. Such is the ending of many who cast a die or crossed a Rubicon. Caesar’s casting the die of fate and crossing the Rubicon played out on the stage of a great empire.

You are probably not an emperor or empress, but you have cast dice and crossed Rubicons. In most instances, you probably made good decisions, but occasionally, just as you cast the die, you probably said, “Oh!” Or, having crossed a Rubicon, you probably cast not a die, but backward glance of regret.

There’s nothing wrong with second guessing yourself, nothing wrong with casting some doubt on your decisions. Merely thinking about a decision doesn’t mean the decision was wrong. Yes, your universe prevents you from reliving the past and undoing decisions, but it doesn’t prevent you from altering the course of a decision. Every Rubicon lies just a step away from a second, a third, a fourth Rubicon. We live lives of constant decisions, each one capable of altering the effect of an earlier one.

So, cast a die and cross a Rubicon. But do both with the knowledge that every decision precipitates an ensuing decision. Even a “bad” decision might be alterable by the ineluctable ensuing decision, a second or third stream to cross, another die to cast. 

How old is this thought? “If I were a child, I would think like a child.” Okay, maybe it’s been said differently by people like St. Paul, but the idea is the same, and it has been around for at least 2,000 years. I’m an adult, but if I were a teen, I would probably think very much like a modern American teen. Unless.

Unless I had some out-of-the-ordinary circumstances, such as living in a war zone, being captured by brutal people, or suffering from a terrible disease. Thinking like a teen means, under different circumstances, different things. The harsh realities brought about by cruel people and unrelenting natural processes shape minds differently from the soft realities of affluence, peace, and health.

So, now I have to ask myself, “Who is the model for my thinking?” Or, “What is shaping my thoughts?” Whoa! Now, I’m confusing myself. I know I must think a certain way as perceived by others and that my thinking is shaped by circumstances both past and present. Trying to determine how my thinking ranks by level of maturity and experience is difficult. Am I in part just an “older child,” an “older teen,” or a “younger senior”? Am I all at once?

No, I’m going to argue with myself that I am a reasonable adult who thinks in a mature way about important matters. I’m going to defend my way of thinking. But.

But could I be wrong? Now I don’t know what to think.

Earth has wandering magnetic poles and a magnetic field that varies in strength. Those poles (and field) can also “flip,” and a flip between hemispheres has occurred numerous times. Go back about a million years ago to find your compass needle pointing toward “North” in Antarctica. Our planet’s complex geomagnetic field also has a number of fluctuations within the worldwide field, and the major magnetic poles do not line up as though they were a bar magnet; that is, the poles aren’t necessarily found at points directly opposite on Earth’s surface.

What about ethical compasses? Do you think the needles of ethical compasses always point to the same pole, that is, toward a “Good” that every moral compass needle follows? Do you think that the “pole” of your ethical values has remained stable, or has it wandered much like Earth’s magnetic poles? And what about the ethical “field”? Has your ethical “field” weakened or strengthened?

No one can predict exactly when Earth’s magnetic field will flip, and no one can predict exactly how the poles will wander. We can trace their movements historically and make a guess about their future locations, but the field is generated deep within our planet by its nickel-iron inner and outer cores. And the field might be influenced on rare occasions by giant shocks from bolide impacts, such as the one that knocked off the dinosaurs.  

Earth’s magnetic field protects us from onslaughts by masses of charged particles blasted in our direction by the sun. So, we have an analog for protection against outside influences, that is, an internally generated geomagnetic field that wards off particles in the solar wind.

Does your ethical field protect you from analogous moral onslaughts? Have your ethical poles wandered or flipped? Has your ethical field weakened? Has any change been generated by internal or external forces? It’s time to look at your compass to see the needle’s direction.  

Think of something that doesn’t incorporate or belong to a pattern. Tough to do, isn’t it? That’s the reason that we are so geometrically inclined. We see patterns in almost everything. Even a partly cloudy day with puff-ball cumulus clouds wandering in an apparently unconnected and aimless way has an underlying pattern. Prevailing breezes take the clouds in a uniform direction. The clouds themselves are similar in shape and size, and they are identifiable as clouds produced by particular weather conditions. In the macro world of our senses, ostensible randomness in nature overlies an underlying pattern waiting to be discovered.

Mess up the desks in a classroom. Scatter them about as randomly as possible (you will, most likely, choose the “randomness”).  How does someone entering the room know that the desks are random? The chaos is the absence of an expected pattern.

Patterns enable us to understand. A pin oak grows in a species-specific pattern. A reticulated giraffe looks much like another reticulated giraffe. A football team plays a particular defensive strategy; its opponent devises a pattern designed to beat that defense. Wallpaper. Flooring tile. Neighborhoods. Malls. City ordinances. Biology texts. Morning routine. Melodies. Multiplication. We are steeped in pattern, and we are comfortable with patterns. Think not? Go into that “messed up” classroom with desks oriented in many directions to learn about Greco-American-Inuit iced French toast sculptures used for medicinal purposes taught to a student body randomly recruited from a passing bus, the local deli, and an international airport.

Look for the patterns in your life. Recall the disrupted patterns. Now, ask yourself, “When I was uncomfortable with seeming chaos, did I eventually discover or impose order?” 

Chaos made you an explorer at times and a “Creator” at other times. And that’s the way it will be: Whenever you encounter chaos, you will have the ability to discover or create a pattern. Only those who yield to despair fail to find the underlying comfort revealed by personal discovery and creation.  

HThe eye of heaven looks down on the tomb of Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), the first violin virtuoso and teacher of Antonio Vivaldi. The “eye” is a hole at the apex of the Pantheon’s dome. The place of internment honors the great Baroque musician and composer. His tomb intensifies the significance of the place.

The Pantheon is an architectural “wonder” because of its coffered roof. That arcing ceiling is the largest unreinforced cement dome ever built, and it has been a durable structure. The building’s present form is a third-generation Pantheon. The first two were partly destroyed, but this third building is approaching its 2,000th birthday. The entombed Corelli was not as physically durable as his resting place, but he left a monument in his music, the sounds of which can still be heard both directly and indirectly through his famous pupil’s music.

Which of these wonders is a place? The Pantheon stands still, rigid and strong. Corelli’s influence is a shifting monument. One has to go to the Pantheon to touch it. Corelli’s monument reaches out to touch us through electronic media and in concert halls. Close your eyes. Vivaldi is on the radio. Vivaldi is on movie soundtracks. Corelli’s influence is ubiquitous throughout our world.

What about your personal Pantheon? Is it just the place where you are? Is your influence entombed in your house? My guess is that, although probably not as widespread as Corelli’s musical edifice, you have extended what you are through those who, like tourists visiting the Pantheon, have come to see the wonder that you are. You are the person who picked up a dropped package and handed it to the owner, and where you did that the eye of heaven now looks down through the memory of a kindness. The dome over you extends over all your acquaintances and over all your acts of kindness. You are a durable edifice in your actions and words, possibly even in your musical rendition of a nursery rhyme you sang to a happy child. Yes, my guess is that the eye of heaven looks over you. You intensify the significance of every place. 

Geographers call difference in elevations at a location relief. Places that have great differences in elevation, like the Grand Canyon, are said to have high relief. Places with little differences in elevation, like Delaware, have low relief. The average elevation of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim is about 8,000 feet above sea level. In the canyon, the Colorado River flows in a channel that is a little over 2,000 feet above sea level. So, the area’s relief is about one mile. In contrast, the average elevation in Delaware is 60 feet above sea level, and at the ocean Delaware’s elevation is 0.

Earth’s natural constructive and destructive processes determine relief. Volcanic and tectonic mountain-building activity can construct high relief; by destruction, erosion by rivers and glaciers can do the same. So, high relief can be the product of either constructive or destructive processes. But low relief can also occur under contrasting processes: Land can be worn down by erosion or built by the piling of horizontal layers of sediments washed into an area like the Mississippi Delta, where the river constructed “flat” land by the layers of sediments it dropped.   

Surveyors take very accurate readings of elevations and record them on topographic maps that serve a number of purposes, such as determining the potential risk of flooding in a riverside community. Because of the high relief at the Grand Canyon, the river will never flood the rim. By contrast, a storm-driven ocean can flood a large coastal section of coastal Delaware, New Jersey, and Louisiana, as hurricanes Sandy and Katrina demonstrated.

Survey the high points and low points of your life. Survey your current average elevation. Are your “ups” much higher than your “lows”? Or, rather, are your emotional elevations relatively flat? You’ll find relevance in the survey. Is the relief of your life the product of constructive processes or destructive ones? Just what causes changes in your personal elevations? How likely are you to be inundated by a flood of emotion? Are the “low points” flooded by moodiness and depression that make climbing to the next high a seemingly impossible task?

There is no perfect landscape, so residents of the Grand Canyon and of Delaware are accustomed to their local relief. They pattern their lives on the landscape. In a figurative sense high-relief and low-relief areas both offer “uppers” and “downers.” As an “upper,” high-relief can be majestic; just think of the Grand Canyon, the Rockies, and the Himalayas, all places where grand vistas unfold from both lower and higher elevations. But high relief can also be a hazardous “downer”: Steeper hillsides make footing treacherous on unexpected narrow ledges and loose rock, and such precipitous landscapes can lead to serious injuries from falls. Yes, the heights can be majestic, but traversing the relief might mean rapid life-altering or life-threatening surprises.

By contrast, a relatively flat landscape offers few, if any, surprises. For some, low-relief can foster a feeling of security. That security, however, comes with the inclusion of a “downer”: Life on such a landscape seems less majestic than life on high relief. Life on a plain can be, well, just plain plain, and it might even be suffused with ennui.

Now survey your emotional landscape. What is your emotional relief, and how did it form? Were the processes that built your emotional nature constructive or destructive?    

In tricking Michael Cassio to ask Desdemona for help in restoring his place as Othello’s lieutenant, Iago, seemingly driven by a raw desire for destruction, tells Cassio that the queen “holds it as a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested.” In other words, Desdemona is super-charitable.

In Othello, the charity of Desdemona leads to her death by a jealous king, egged on by Iago. It’s a tragedy, of course, so something bad has to happen to someone. In life, too, such super-charitable people suffer. Take the story of Samantha Agins, a 22-year old medic in a Pennsylvania camp for the disabled. Her efforts to revive an autistic woman led to her own death as she overexerted herself in performing CPR. Take Thomas Bennett, a 24-year-old who fell to his death as he tried to prevent a suicidal 19-year-old from jumping off a 14th-floor ledge of a dormitory in Hawaii. Take Tyler Doohan, a 9-year-old who saved six from a trailer fire in New York only to lose his own life in trying to save his disabled uncle trapped in a back room. Take all the stories of those who lost their lives in their efforts to help others. They were all people who held it as a vice in their goodness not to do more than they were requested.

What if, just what if, we held it as a vice in our own goodness not necessarily to do more, but at least to do as much as we are requested by those in need? We don’t have to be super-charitable. Just charitable.