Post number 211, in which I go from Point A to Point B

Point A: Anton Chekhov's The Student.

* * *

I was driving down to Lee's Summit on I-70 and I came to my favorite part of the trip where this huge valley just opens up out of nowhere. Whenever I drive into that hollow, I look to the crest of the next hill and think to myself, "that is where I am gonna be in about a minute," and then I try to remember to notice when I get there. Usually I forget. Like when you are pumping gas and you say to yourself, "make sure you pay attention as you screw the gas cap on, because otherwise you won't be able to remember if you did it or not." But this time I remembered, and it was cool.

* * *

My grandpa told me something a friend of his had said about music. This friend said that musical sounds are only there for an instant, then they're gone. If they were random and unconnected, you'd not remember them, and not be able to predict them, and it wouldn't be music as you know it. But if each tiny instant has some connection to the one before and the one after, we can entrain ourselves to this string of instants and share in a way of experiencing time. My grandpa then defined music as a way of connecting sound and silence in time.

* * *

My uncle was talking about the pilgrims and how they believed in predetermination as far as who was getting into heaven. But their version of fate had this weird twist where earthly behavior, though it could not have any bearing on one's future after death, could reliably be taken as a reflection of that future. So if you go to church and live a pious life, it must be because you are one of those chosen few to begin with.

* * *

My grandpa told me about how amazed he is that the earth is in just the right place to sustain life. Not too hot, not too cold, enough water, and a good atmosphere. I told him I agreed, sort of, but also that the very basis of our conversation was the life that earth makes possible. The odds seem low, that is, but who could talk about those odds but us lucky few who are on a planet in which atoms can combine into people and not just rocks?

* * *

Point B: Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics.

A lady was aghast at my wagging finger

I wish I could have got a picture. Some lady pulls out in a way that would have caused her car to hit my very visible, very reasonably located bike, if I hadn't foreseen her pulling out without really looking, because she was clearly in an important cell phone conversation and just looked like "the type," if you hear what I'm saying. So I slowed down just enough to make it safe but not enough that she wouldn't see what she'd done, and right as she finally noticed me (a good ten feet or so after when she would have hit me) I gave her a stone-faced finger-wag accompanied by a very subtle "no" motion of the head. Her face was priceless. Agog, aghast, a mixture of ashamed and pissed and shocked. Good thing there wasn't some old lady crossing the street in front of her, because she kept going as she craned her neck around to look at this audacious finger-waggin' guy.

See, when I'm driving a car, I'm a firm believer in using the horn as a behavioral modification device. I'm a peaceful man, but if someone cuts me off, I lay on the horn in that special way that signifies FURIOUSNESS, because how else will they even know? So on a bike I have developed a repertoire ranging from the more subtle finger-wag to the "what the fuck are you doing" shrug to the screaming flip-off. I figure the next time she is at that intersection, she will think twice. And then maybe, just maybe, she will generalize it to other intersections. Maybe somewhere down the line some kid won't get run over because of MY making a total stranger feel shocked/disgusted/ashamed/aghast! I think that is called the "butterfly effect"?

One or more of the following statements might be described as true or false.

• The hardest thing to learn is restraint.
  
• The hardest things to restrain are the learned.
  
• The most learned restrain what is hardest.
  
• The learned make hard that which is restrained.
  
• The most restrained make hard that which is learned.
  
• The restrained learn to harden.
  

(Hint: they are all true)