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
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
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