Confusion has its cost

Autumn clarity
Down Second Avenue, a
Jewish bakery

The conditions of our lives conspire to keep us thinking that our minds are observing the world, that the world has its existence as our minds conceive it yet somehow independently of our minds. Maybe that's been an adaptive trait on balance, but I think it also causes a lot of trouble. (Compare with hemoglobin S, which can protect from malaria but also cause a lifetime of painful sickle cell crises. Ok, now please stop comparing.)

Thoughts are sort of a demanding client. We figure we'd better listen if we want to stay in business, but we also know at some level that we can't meet every unreasonable demand. When birth and death really assert themselves, we drop that phone without so much as an "excuse me." But if we come to see how birth and death never stop asserting themselves, maybe our manners can improve a little.