Nudges from Nature

Imagine walking through a door into a largely empty room. Maybe it's a room under construction in a tall office building.  Plywood floors, unpainted sheet rock, dangling wires, and high ceilings. In the middle of the room is the tallest commercially available stepladder.  It rises to a height of 20 feet. Above the ladder is a hole in the ceiling, perfectly centered above the top step. Let's put the ceiling at 25 feet. Sixty inches above the top set of the ladder are two inviting-looking handles made of rebar. They are perfectly positioned inside the hole, which coincidentally looks just large enough for your body to slip through.  You don't know exactly what's on the floor above, but whatever it is it's filled with fascination, adventure, and yet-to-be-discovered and untold riches. As an aside, and for the sake of clarity, let's agree that the average length of an outstretched two year old is also 60 inches, maxing out at 62 inches when up on their toes. As you

A friend of mine is superhuman. He's up every day at God knows what time. But whatever time that is, he is able to run through his morning routine of meditating, reading, and writing before driving to the next town over to run a fitness class. Not just a fitness class, but a high-intensity workout class. The kind that leaves you feeling like you've got nothing left in the tank. So, he's depleted his body of all of its available glycogen and carbohydrates before the sun has come up. Then, he goes to his job (I believe he teleports) teaching things like grammar and math and history to middle schoolers. He doesn't just teach them about equations, verbs, and the Ottoman Empire -- he teaches them life skills and how to show up in the world. This is not a teacher that phones it in. He's into it.  He's athletic director of the sports program and oversees every single sport the school has to offer. Boys and girls, on-field and on-court, on campus and off. He coaches his

Well, it finally happened and with all the confidence in the world, I casually walked into the local brewery and ordered a beer. It was non-consequential. I had a pilsner and enjoyed it.  In fact, over the past couple months, I've had several beer days. Not a lot. Maybe seven beer days out of the past sixty-five.   I can't say I'm necessary glad that I did, but I do think in the larger scheme of things, they were helpful. It's broken logic to say that because of them, I think I'll drink less. But, somehow it seems like accurate and truthful. Here's what I learned: I don't like drinking as much as I used to. A preference for non-alcoholic beer can develop quickly. Hangovers are coy and have retractable claws. First beer day, no hangover. Seventh beer day...just enough to feel the hankering for a "hair of the dog." The temptation was strong to turn one beer day into two. Alcohol is seductive, at least for me. I didn't immediately fall into a mont