Playing with Fear (#7)

I have an interesting job. My assignment for this evening: taking a group of children into the woods at night and scaring them. Terrifying them. So badly that they trembled, whimpered and eventually screamed.

Believe it or not, all of them signed up for this treatment, and their parents were in favor. They didn't know it, but they were learning a valuable lesson, and perhaps even helping carry out an ancient indigenous tradition.

The scary hike is part of an outdoor education program for fifth and sixth graders, and it's not without controversy. Some members of other outdoor schools have criticized the practice, but by the end of this piece I hope to have you convinced that it is not only safe, but also beneficial.

Only a fraction of the children earn the privilege of signing up for the scary hikes, as a reward for being the first in bed the previous night. Although there are many choices, including such tame options as catching frogs at the pond or playing ga-ga ball, the scary hikes fill up first every single week, and kids are disappointed if they don't get into one. The elective nature of this practice is critical and can't be stressed enough: I would never intentionally scare children without them asking me to do it! (Often kids reconsider or "chicken out" later in the day after signups, and we always take them off the list, no questions asked.)

The hike begins on a light tone: I begin telling them a story that happened decades ago on this land we're on. It runs like a tour of the places where various events of the story took place, starting out innocuous enough and gradually increasing in graphic sensory detail to its shocking conclusion. I pretend to be more and more afraid, trying to remain calm but showing signs of inward panic and impaired judgment, and this heightens the effect because as the tour guide I am their source of security. I get spooked by strange noises (cars in the distance, insects) and sights (rock piles or downed trees that "don't look right" to me), and I talk quickly and with intensity as I ask the kids to stay quiet and in a straight line, and to walk fast. This is method acting: I feel genuine physiological fear responses such as sweating, dry mouth, higher pitched speech, fidgeting, and fast, shallow breathing. The children exhibit similar fear responses.

At a certain moment my cell phone rings - a setup - and I have a fake conversation in front of the children. I say the camp director's name and then, "Yes?... Which hike was she on?... Where was she last seen?... Yes, I'm close to the pond... Ok, I'll take my group up there and check. (Hanging up) Okay, kids, we have a situation here. Please stay calm and follow my instructions, and everything will be fine. (Under my breath) Why? Why now, why me?" At this point, the kids are whimpering and trembling, wondering why they ever signed up for this hike. I've been telling them over and over to stay calm, and that everything is going to be all right. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could talk them down out of their fear at this point. The darkness crowds in around them, and they are visiting dark places inside themselves.

When we arrive at the pond, I pretend I am looking for a child, and at the same time I am positioning my group directly in front of another group of kids hiding silently in the bushes. The leader of that group is with them and has trained them to wait in silence until they hear me say the key word, which is "Kayla." I whisper loudly, "they said she was over this way.... (a bit louder now) Kayla!" And suddenly the bushes erupt with a shrill, piercing scream that would do Edvard Munch proud. My group is so startled, they scream in kind and many jump up or fall over.

Instantly the tension is broken, as kids' friends shout out, "Hah! We got you good!" The response: "Oh, yeah! Good one!" There is a minute or so of joyful mayhem before the two leaders separate the groups again. I go through a short debrief where I tell my group that the whole story was made up, and that everything I've told them since the start has been a lie. They babble all the way back to camp, totally comfortable with the woods and the safety of it all.

Of course the startle effect is critical: it's the only way to break the tension and convince the kids in a visceral way that they are safe, and that the scary story was a lie. If the hike were to end without that climax, then their fear response might remain more active and they'd have a hard time sorting out the truth or calming down enough to go to sleep. I'd have a hard time convincing them to trust me again, I think.

But right before I dismiss them to their cabins, we have a brief discussion about the valuable learning available in this experience.

Children need to test their fear. They need to explore how their fear fits into the world and how their bodies respond to fear. I went through a phase of enjoying horror movies and novels during middle school. Certain Native American tribes used to initiate children at about this age by making them swim across a lake during a moonless night, telling them to be careful of the sharks. Of course there are no sharks, but when those children had crossed the lake safely, they probably felt an inner sense of their own courage and integrity, trusting themselves to examine evidence rather than blindly trusting authority. I argue that this is a critical developmental step for any child age 10-13. My hope is that the bogus scary story teaches my students to examine critically anything presented to them, even from a trusted adult. I hope that they will grow up to be the kind of citizens who critically examine the stories their government presents to them. I hope that when they hear "terror alert level orange today," as I heard last week in the airport, that they think of all my fearmongering antics (the strange rock piles, the fake phone call, the fake panic) and see some parallels. Perhaps the big, scary Oz is really just an old man behind a curtain. Every citizen needs to make this realization, for our cultural stability, and I have observed that as children come of age, most of them crave this experience.

As I dismiss them from the hike, they disperse back to their cabins, buzzing with joy and relief, knowing deeply in their guts that there isn't anything to be afraid of in the woods, beyond the usual common sense about wild animals, food and shelter, getting lost, etc. They are better able to discern legitimate fears from paranoid ones. The lack of blind trust enables them to trust more deeply because that trust is tempered with wise judgment.

The Power of Perception (#6)

Is it more compassionate to give people what they think they want, or what is actually in their best interest? Is a happy illusion preferable to an actual benefit if that benefit is invisible?

In a busy airport, I recently conducted an unwitting social experiment. I was standing in a long security line that was moving along quickly. In an effort to keep the line moving, I decided to get prepared while I waited. I removed all my liquids and gels from my baggage and put them into a zip-lock bag. I also got out my driver's license and put it in my pocket next to my boarding pass. During the 20-30 seconds I was kneeling to unzip my bag, the line progressed ten or fifteen feet, and so there was a big gap in front of me. I told the man behind me that I was almost finished and was about to stand up and close the gap, and he seemed fine with that. Just then, a TSA inspector kindly but firmly shouted at me to keep the line moving.

When the line brought me closer to the guard's position, I responded to him that I was not actually delaying the line at all, because as soon as I was finished, I moved forward and closed the gap again, and that, in fact, I was helping the line eventually move faster, because I was totally prepared and would not have to fumble around when it was my turn. His response: The TSA agents would rather have me fumble around at the front of the line, creating a slight actual delay only visible to a few people near me, rather than leave a gap in line that creates the illusion of a huge delay to everyone in line. The people in back can't see what's going on, so they might think it's just a terribly slow line.

And I understood exactly what he meant. It's disturbing when a line does not move - people get antsy. For everyone's psychological health, it would have been better to do what he requested, even though the net effect of this action would be to delay the line by an additional 30 seconds or so.

I suppose the most compassionate way to handle it would have been to find a bench somewhere and get prepared before taking my place in line, as I would do at a bank. But for the sake of argument, let's say my options were limited to delaying people without them knowing, or giving them the false impression of a delay.

Consider the following ethical thought experiment:

Say there were a mild toxin in the water supply of a certain city, in such a low concentration that the risk of harm to people by ingesting the water is slight but not zero. This toxin has no taste, so it is imperceptible. The water appears to be clean, fresh, and healthy, even with the toxin present.

Now let's say there were another chemical that could be added that would precipitate the toxin into a harmless oxide, making the water 100% safe to drink. The precipitate would add a bit of turbidity (cloudy appearance) to the water, giving the impression that something might be amiss with the water. (All you chemists out there, please suspend disbelief for a moment.)

As mayor of that city, which option would you choose? Would you oxidize the toxin, making the water appear turbid and possibly unsafe, though completely safe, or would you allow people to continue obliviously ingesting the toxin from crystal clear water with the illusion of safety?

I know what I would do. Can you guess already? My integrity would not allow me to leave the toxin and make myself look good. Even though it might cost me re-election, I would add the oxidizer. It would require a lot of press conferences and other educational efforts, and still the people would not understand, and still they would feel anger and fear about the turbidity in the water. They might mistrust me and think that I was lying to them in my press conferences. However, in this situation the moral imperative seems quite clear.

Or is it? Are there situations where integrity requires choosing the illusion? When the perception of harm is actually more harmful than the actual harm? (Or the perception of good actually carries more benefit than the actual good?) The airline security line may be an example of this. When people see a long line that is not moving, maybe their blood pressure and heart rate increase. Maybe their respiration rate increases and their palms start to sweat as they contemplate missing their flights.

We've all heard of the placebo effect: an inert substance given to someone often actually cures them of a disease because of their expectation that it is a "medicine." Similarly, a "nocebo" is an inert substance that a person believes to be harmful, and because of that expectation, studies show that it often actually harms their health.

What if the turbid (but harmless) water in our example created a nocebo effect on some of the residents? Because of the false perception that they were drinking toxic water, the people might exhibit some ill health effects. Is the harm caused by this nocebo effect greater than the harm that might be caused by the actual toxin? This certainly complicates matters.

Do you care what doctors might say about you when you are unconscious from anesthesia? Is there any harm in it? What if your subconscious were to absorb such messages?

The comedian Paula Poundstone said that when she was a waitress, if someone was rude to her, she would go in the back and secretly touch their eggs! Is there any harm in that if the customer never finds out? What if the waitress's hands are as clean as the cook's?

Would you rather have a computer hacker imperceptibly steal $5 per month from your bank account for the rest of your life, or would you rather have a dishonest cashier swipe $100 cash from you just once? Most people would say that they'd prefer the latter, because it amounts to less money, but in reality I think most people would prefer the former because its effect would not be noticed. We'll all survive a small theft like that - the real harm is the emotional stress that such a theft creates, the feelings of violation and powerlessness. These feelings aren't in the picture unless we know about the theft.

Most of us wouldn't choose the happy illusion, because of our pride and our idealistic affinity for truth and honesty. But that isn't reason enough to dismiss it. The power of perception is too important to ignore. The consequences of an illusion (or lack thereof) must be treated as real consequences and factored into the analysis. In many cases, ignorance may be more than just bliss.

Mothers and Fathers (#5)

A few weeks before April, I planned my Mother's Day surprise. It came a couple weeks late.

June 1 was the date scheduled for her hip replacement, and I had a plane ticket ready for a visit to help with her recovery. But no one in the family knew about my visit except my aunt and sister, who helped with scheduling my trip. My sister picked me up at the airport and brought me to mom's church, where I hid around the corner and emerged suddenly and amazingly.

I felt happy to sit with mom yesterday after her surgery and hold her hand and talk with her. I only got to stay for an hour, because there were so many things to do and people to look out for in the household, but it was just as well because she needed to sleep. She was so animated, showing us all the different tubes in her body and what they were for.

Besides helping mom and the family, what is the purpose of this trip for me? Mom created my body inside hers, she held me, and she cared for my every need as a baby. Now as I care for some of her needs and show my love for her by my presence, it awakens a nurturing part of myself. This awakening helps me to serve others, and even myself.

Each of us gets certain good things from our mother and father, and there are inevitably some things any imperfect mother and father cannot give. As we mature into whole and complete (albeit imperfect) adults, we must learn to compensate for these inadequacies. We must learn to give ourselves what our parents were not able to give, and be grateful for all that they were able to give. This visit is a small part of that process for me.

Will I be a good father someday? I've often wondered this, and several relatives think the answer is a resounding "yes!" It's true that I've had a lot more practice than the average person, because of my work with kids and my numerous young siblings and cousins. I've helped children with allergic reactions, cut fingers, skinned knees, flu, fever, bug bites, bedwetting, poison oak, ticks, lice, severe asthma, even broken bones. I've talked kids out of homesickness, helped establish clear boundaries and positive discipline, and shown compassion.

I'm not so sure, though. There have been lots of times when kids seem to run the show, and I just don't know what to do. There are times when I need a break from everything. But I guess any good parent needs a break from things once in a while. And the true measure of any parent is the deep love, sacrifice, and compassion for one's children, and I have all of those hands down.

I'm looking forward to putting all this experience to use with my own children.

A Friend from Long Ago (#4)

A couple of weeks ago, I got a Facebook message out of the blue from my best friend from childhood, someone I hadn't seen in 20 years. "Charles" and I were almost inseparable from age six, then he moved away and we drifted apart. Sure, I visited him two or three times in his new city, but the 300 miles soon came between us and we lost touch. That's really no excuse, because we were both literate enough to write a letter and lick a stamp.

So last week I got this message on Facebook, and Charles said he'd searched for me and still recognized my face even with the addition of 20 years and a beard. Maybe that's what a friend is. Someone who knows me as the deeper me, the part that doesn't change from age 12 to 32.

When we were kids, Charles and I used to hang out with another friend, "Jerry." We played Ewoks out in the redwood trees behind Jerry's house, and it felt like we were in the movie - after all, the film was shot in a nearby redwood forest. Charles and I shared a very close bond, and often Jerry seemed a little like a third wheel. But as we grew and Charles moved away, Jerry became (and remains) my closest and dearest friend.

Charles and I have spent the past couple of weeks catching up little by little via e-mail. He told me a little about his wife and stepdaughter, about his career, and his dreams for the future. I told him about my wonderful job doing science outreach for children, about my recent failed relationship, and about my desire to have a family of my own.

I never really felt the years slip by, but I feel like I'm at a midpoint of my life, (developmentally, if not chronologically). Charles sent me scans of yearbook pages from first grade and third grade: as I look at my own scratchy six-year-old writing, I feel old. At that time, I hadn't lost any teeth yet, and I remember Charles (who was seven months older) telling me, "When you turn seven, you'll lose teeth, too." He seemed so much older and more experienced than I was!

One day when we were seven or eight years old, we went out and had "an adventure." We bush-whacked through the woods behind my house toward the banks of the Mad River. It was a slow and tourtuous path as we braved the thorny bushes, through pungent mud and buzzing insects. I don't think either of us knew where we were, but a feeling of purpose and a vague sense of direction kept us going until we triumphantly arrived at the the rocky, muddy river bank. We scampered along the rocks for maybe a quarter mile until we got to the road to walk back. Our whole route was probably not more than a half mile, but we felt like we'd really done something noteworthy.

A couple of years later, we were racing our bikes and I ran into him, crashing and breaking my left arm. He only had a few scrapes, and he came with me to the hospital while I got x-rayed and put in a cast.

So why does this matter to me now? I'd always wondered where Charles was, all these years. Something was missing, some important part of my life and past. Part of me was afraid that we wouldn't have much in common anymore. But now he chose to take the action of seeking me out. And even though on the surface, our lives seem to be different, we still have a lot in common on the inner levels. It feels good to be connected with him again, and somehow the friendship does not feel like it's been interrupted. Perhaps that's the measure of a true friend.

Art Heals a Broken Heart (#3)

Art always heals a broken heart. It doesn't take the pain away, but in the words of some great musician, "at least you get a good song out of it." I remember after a college girlfriend dumped me, I went out in the woods and played the sax - the vibrations carried my feelings of longing out to all the trees and birds. In a way, this was more beautiful than anything I was able to express in the relationship.

Every time my heart is broken, it spills out love. No destination, no recipient. Sometimes it reaches out to friends; sometimes it becomes a beautiful melody or a poem. I think heartbreak is our most profound emotion as human beings - everyone from Shakespeare to the Beatles wrote about it.

Time heals all, they say. Today it's been four months, and lately I've been feeling like I'm almost over it. One thing that helped me was finding this poem this week. It's from March 2004, when I watched a deep love melt away with the spring snow. It reminded me that I've been through this a few times before.

Tail End of Winter

Tail end of winter
sun baking away the last
patches of snow,
the yellow, mangled grass
still lying twisted, numb, lifeless.
Tail end of winter,
snow disappearing,
but I am still flat and frozen.

Tail end of winter,
and I remember that first fluffy white...
You reached out your window
to touch it, scoop it up,
stuff it down my shirt
shrieking, tackling,
melting into wrestling and kissing.

That powder had come too soon.
Not winter yet...
But we were warm
in that pinewood bed I'd helped you build
last summer.

Now that powder is ice,
hardened
from repeated warming and freezing.

It's not that we could read each other's minds,
but deep in your belly you felt my need,
and your sharp jabs of fear jarred me.
We always knew.
Even before I called you that night, I knew.
A cold blackness ate away my guts.
I called Granny right then to tell her
of the death I would hear later that night
lurking in your sweet words.

Tail end of winter -
In a week or two, the sun and rain
will nurse back the suffering grass.
Maybe the robins
will stand in the bare branches
whistling that song
to lift me from my stupor.

Tail end of winter.
I thought the snow was over -
But through a blinding storm of slippery white
I survive the trip home
to be jolted by your name in my mailbox.
I am too weak tonight -
exhausted, hungry, chilled to the bone.

But the next day...
Flakes still flutter down mostly alone.
My breath slows,
my hand almost steady as I tear in.
Your narrow black line on the page
lifts and falls.

Tail end of winter,
tail end of everything together.
Tail end of those conversations,
those memories,
tail end of the warm glow
when we held each other.
Tail end of the unknown future -
of those dreams of sharing dishes,
daughters and sons,
doctoral dissertations.

Now the sun melts it all,
the snow, dirt and sand
running together.
Sterile, frozen blocks of mud
becoming pungent squish
smelling of life.

The rain came last night.
Not enough.
Just a light pattering on the roof.
When the thunderstorm comes,
I'll run outside
to be washed
by those heavy drops.

For me, the deep medicine is in the last stanza. I'll run outside to be washed by those heavy drops. I intentionally used nature as a metaphor for my inner process, and the thunderstorm is the cleanse I so desperately wanted.

I still remember "that night" when I called. Wednesday, January 14, 2004. At about 3:00 pm, I was walking between buildings at work and got a huge intuitive hit that she was going to leave me. I had to sit on a rock for a moment to regain my equilibrium. At that moment (I found out later), she had a moment of panic while in the shower, and made her decision. I was never to see her again. My guts knew before I even talked to her.

I'll remember January 10, 2009 as well. I didn't write any poems this time, but maybe I didn't need to. Or maybe I haven't gotten around to it yet. So I will write one now:

Finishing

I step into my office
to find my canning jar
and my necklace inside the jar
and on the lid a yellow Post-It
that reads "Aaron" -

Your handwriting.
That same little optimistic lift off the final "n"
which always made me happy before

You've given back the last things
I left at your apartment,
as if to say
all small details are back in place,
all the books balanced
down to the penny.

We both know
only a few weeks ago,
there were no balance sheets.
We shrugged off huge sums, and
I would have given away
most of what I owned
for a life with you.

But now,
now it comes down to
a jar with a yellow note
that says "Aaron" in that familiar script
which no longer comforts me.

I wonder about
all the deep things
we'll never give back.

Well, it's not quite the release I got from the 2004 poem, but not bad for a 30 minute "Rough Sketch." Today it's been four months, and all I can do is be patient with myself and wait for the river's slow current to carry me around the next bend.

Let's Cut Down Trees and Launch Them Into Space to Save the Planet (#2)

Okay, now that I've got your attention, perhaps you'll realize that this suggestion is just as valid, and nonetheless just as absurd, as the timber industry's assertion that younger forests are better for the atmosphere than old growth forests. The difference is that the latter was crafted to profit from people's ignorance of the carbon cycle; the former was intended to stimulate better understanding and creative problem-solving through humor.

My idea for this week's article began a few days ago when my friend Ed, a Ph.D. chemist, suggested a good way to combat global climate change: cutting down massive amounts of trees and launching them into outer space. In principle this will work. His other suggestion was a bit more dubious: making large amounts of plastic and burying it in landfills. Regardless, I have to give Ed credit for thinking outside the box.

Any time a group (such as the six billion inhabitants of the earth) tries to solve a problem, it's a good idea to use a problem-solving model that starts with a generative phase before proceeding to a reductive phase. In the generative phase, we accept and write down all solutions offered, even joke solutions (such as "let's sell all the carbon to aliens"). The hope is that those suggestions will stimulate creativity. Only after completing the generative phase is it appropriate to proceed to the reductive phase and start crossing out the ideas that obviously won't work, and then examining the remaining ideas under a critical lens. A common mistake is to start criticizing and reducing the list before all the ideas have appeared, which can prevent some ideas from ever being born.

Indulge me in a quick real-life example. A power utility was plagued with power line breakages due to ice buildup, and they hired a problem-solving consultant to work with the firm's employees to brainstorm possible solutions. No one had any ideas. The consultant urged the employees to put forth any and all suggestions, no matter how outrageous they sounded. After long minutes of dead silence, the consultant called for a coffee break. One of the employees gestured with his coffee cup, laughing, and said, "Let's just send a bear up there to knock the ice down." The consultant overheard the joke and asked the man to repeat it when they reconvened, which he was reluctant to do. When the man was finally prodded to speak, the whole company broke into laugher and lively discussion. Someone joked, "How will we convince the bear to go up the power pole?" The response came, "Put a giant honey pot up there." "How do we get the honey pot up there?" Asked someone else. "Maybe we could lower it there with a helicopter." Sooner or later, someone realized that the downdraft from the helicopter's rotor might dislodge the ice. This turned out to be the solution that worked. Minus the bear and honey, of course.

The moral of this story: consider absurd suggestions as possible routes toward true solutions.

Back to the question of global climate change. As every sixth-grader in our country learns, when a plant does photosynthesis, it takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, releases the oxygen atoms back to the atmosphere, and keeps the carbon in its biomass. Scientists call this "carbon sequestration." In fact, most of a plant's biomass comes from carbon sequestered from the atmosphere. And what the timber industry says is true: younger forests do sequester more carbon per year than old-growth forests, because they grow faster. (This should be obvious: the faster a tree grows, or accumulates biomass, the more carbon it is removing from the atmosphere to create that biomass.) Does this mean we should combat global warming by chopping down old-growth forests and planting younger forests? Even though it would work, it's probably not the best idea. Old-growth forests have ecological and aesthetic value far in excess of their shortcomings in carbon sequestration. (Here's another example for comparison: standing dead trees, or snags, are slowly releasing their carbon, not sequestering any, but they are habitat to four times as many animals as live trees.)

The problem is, as soon as the plant or tree dies, it starts to decompose, releasing its carbon back to the atmosphere. In order to make the sequestration permanent, the tree must somehow be prevented from decomposing in our atmosphere. The formation of fossil fuels was a great way to prevent this: millions of years ago, the trees and plants were buried and compressed until they metamorphosed into coal and petroleum, keeping that carbon locked up under the earth. Obviously our burning of those fossil fuels is the main reason why the equilibrium has shifted toward more atmospheric carbon.

How else might we keep the sequestered carbon locked away? The timber industry would like us to do it by building using wood. This would work great, of course, and it happens to be something that the timber industry would benefit from. It needs to be done in a way that's sensitive to other ecological concerns such as habitat, erosion, biodiversity, and old growth preservation. Ed thinks we should launch the trees out into space. (I question whether we can get them into space without burning any fossil fuels, directly or indirectly.) I think he just likes the delicious irony of cutting down trees to save the planet.

But what about burying plastic? Well, really that's a zero-sum game again, and I don't think it will help. We make plastic from petroleum from the earth, with carbon sequestered by ancient plants; if the plastic ends up in the landfill, all we've done is put that same carbon back under the earth. We haven't actually sequestered any new carbon from the atmosphere. And in the process we probably burned a lot of fossil fuels.

What if we combined Ed's two ideas with something from Body World's inventor Gunther von Hagens: Plastination. The process is used to stop the decomposition of human flesh after death, by replacing the fluids in the tissue with a polymer that subsequently hardens into plastic. Perhaps we could do the same thing to wood, ensuring that it will never decompose, thus keeping all the carbon locked up not only in the wood, but also in the plastic. No space launch required. Just an expensive and labor-intensive mummification process. (I wonder if millions of people will line up to see the mummified wood.)

For that matter, animals (including humans) are huge carbon liberators. We take in large amounts of carbon by eating plants, and then we release that carbon back into the atmosphere by exhaling. Another solution would be to kill all the animals (including humans) on the planet and launch them into space. Or better yet, Plastinate them. Maybe the trees will line up to see us.

Now Dave Barry might have ended this article with just such a cute, pithy line. If you like his style, just stop reading.

Since you're still reading, I take it you either don't like Dave Barry or you don't follow instructions well.

I hope you all think more clearly if not more humorously about the carbon cycle. As Ed astutely points out, the real solution is to stop burning fossil fuels. It won't be enough just to burn less - we have to stop altogether. And we probably need to promote carbon sequestering if we're going to have a prayer of bringing the carbon equilibrium back to pre-industrial levels. Furthermore, all six billion of us need to ante up with our ideas about how to do that - no matter how crazy they sound. Maybe people will start talking about the carbon cycle, even joking about it. The jokes might take us to a solution that will work.

What's in a Decision? (#1)

The last thing my ex-girlfriend said to me when we broke up was, "You need to find someone who can help you make decisions." Decisions have often been scary and stressful for me. I have a book called "Blink," which I will get around to reading soon - about the power of split-second decision-making and how we usually know all we need to know about a decision very quickly. My choir director says he knows whether someone will pass the audition before they even sing a note - because of how they carry themselves as they walk in. For me, decisions seem to be at the core of my life's difficulties. Why?

I talked to my ex-girlfriend about a month later, and she complained that I make even small decisions seem to carry so much weight. Why do I do this? There are many seemingly small decisions that are full of synchronicities and coincidences. I can relate to the movie "Run, Lola, Run," where a split second difference in Lola's position on the street makes a huge difference in the eventual lives of those she passes by.

I suppose the small choices in our lives resemble the "butterfly effect" of nonlinear dynamics (sometimes referred to as "chaos" theory, a misunderstood term for something that is fully deterministic, simple, understandable and analyzable). The butterfly effect means that a tiny change in some initial condition (such as the flap of a butterfly's wings) can trigger the difference between rain or shine a week or two later, or may even trigger a hurricane. Many people misunderstand the butterfly effect, thinking the tiny creature somehow creates the energy for the storm. The word "trigger" is helpful - the energy in the bullet does not come from the trigger, but rather from the combustion of the gunpowder.

Imagine a golf ball rolling along the knife edge of a ridge: it could roll down one side of the ridge or the other. A butterfly flaps its wings and creates a puff of air so gentle and delicate as to nudge the ball toward one side of the ridge. The energy for rolling the ball came from gravity - the ball's weight - but the influence came from the butterfly. Obviously the hurricane's energy comes from gigantic forces within earth's weather system, but some small influence can change the outcome of that energy in a big way.

Our whole lives are like the golf ball rolling along the ridge. We are always at major turning points. No decision is insignificant.

One day many years ago as I was walking, a hunch told me to walk the "long way" around the block. It didn't make much sense to my mind, but I obeyed the hunch. As I walked the long way, I saw a friend of mine sitting on some steps looking downtrodden and dejected. He was in a huge emotional crisis, and I was able to sleep at his house that night, so he wasn't alone, and comfort him. Years later, he said that I saved his life that night, literally. Who knows what would have happened if I had ignored my hunch and walked the short way around the block.

Recently I decided to give up sweets for Lent. I'm not Catholic, and I don't attend church regularly, but I decided to try it as a personal exercise. Two days before Easter, I was invited to go out for ice cream with some friends. I declined, citing my commitment, and instead went with another friend to hear a band at a local pub. The music ended up being too loud for all of us, but I met a sweet young woman that I have gone out on a subsequent date with. It was actually difficult for me to turn down ice cream that night, but the choice ended up working out well.

I'm sure we all have stories like the two I just told (and I have many more). The decisions we make have huge unintended consequences, and some of them are far-reaching and positive. My fear is that if each small decision carries such weighty consequences, then the implications of bigger decisions are overwhelming. If I put such energy into a decision about where to go on a Friday night, because I may meet my future wife, then bigger decisions such as whether to take a new job or buy a home seem like crippling impossibilities.

I think I may see the way out of my dilemma. I am back to the golf ball rolling along the ridge. Every moment of our lives, every tiny decision we make, we are riding that knife edge of nonlinear dynamics, rain or shine, life or death. I could walk the "wrong way" around the block and be hit by a bus. As soon as I see the huge mystery of it, I know that I can't know enough about any decision, no matter how small. It is impossible for me to know what results a choice will bring. By trying to foresee everything, to control everything, I've been trying to play God. All I can do is laugh, let it go, and do what I feel good about in each moment. I let the mystery of life unfold in front of me.