The Possible and the Probable

As I sat there on a rotting pile of hay in the rain and predawn darkness, I once again asked myself what exactly I was doing when I could be sleeping. I told myself, again, that I was waiting for a deer. The odds didn’t seem good. The early evening had produced a semi clear sky with lots of light from a nearly full moon, while in the early morning hours clouds had rolled in and brought a drizzle. This meant that the deer had likely come out early in the evening and had long since nestled in for the day by the time I got out of bed. But, I have yet to get a deer while sleeping. The odds may not have been good, but there was still the possibility of seeing a deer, or even a (pause for dramatic effect) a “big one.” Possibility and probability may be slightly different things but I like to keep both in mind. If one looks far enough into the future, the number of possibilities is infinite, and no one outcome has a very high order of probability. As the future comes closer and closer and approaches the present, the possibilities remain large but get narrowed down considerably and certain outcomes began to take on increasing probabilities of occurring. For instance, given five years one could get a degree or two, build a house or two, or get married and divorced…..twice. All are within the realm of possibility but to try to put odds on any event or sequence of events when the number of potential outcomes is so large is a tough task indeed. Now, shrink the time of question to a day. You could still travel any number of places and interact with any number of people, so the possibilities are still quite quite expansive. But they have narrowed, Rome wasn’t built in a day and if you suddenly want to gain a comprehensive understanding of the hunting habitats of early Americans during the end of the last ice age, well that isn’t going to happen within 24 hours. Bring the future closer to the present, say a minute, the options for events to happen has been sliced down immensely, you can almost comprehend all the possibilities and probabilities. It isn’t likely that I will see a large buck wander through the trees, get into my field of fire, pause as I take aim, squeeze the trigger, the hammer drops, the primer explodes, the gunpowder reacts and explodes into rapidly expanding gasses that project the .2225 inch piece of lead out the barrel of my rifle at over 3000 ft/sec and into the chest cavity of my target. It isn’t likely, but it is within the realm of possibility. You have to be playing cards to win a hand and I had to be out there if I wanted to get my deer, so I sat there and got wet for the next hour.

Welcome to Class

School can be a good place to learn, but we grow up under the impression that it is the only place to learn. You spend the majority of your young life in the educational system and come to view it as the source of knowledge. Knowledge that you will need upon leaving school. In truth, you can learn anywhere and everywhere if you keep your mind open and note what is going on around you. One can learn by avoiding the casual dismissal of common occurrences and trying to understand the underlying causes and structures at work.

Take any event in which you were involved or maybe were only an observer. If you can break down the forces that affected the processes, you can understand what happened and why. Start with simple situations and move up to larger ones. This can involve the interaction of people, or the movement of sediment in a river. Ultimately, you begin to see that everything is somewhat affected by what came before and that it in turn can affect what will happen next. In that sense, the ultimate study may be history. Not just human, but geologic and biologic. It is believing that there is a reason or an explanation for everything that happens, and in attempting to further your understanding, you wish to know the reasons. The broad range of subjects for study out there makes it impossible to even be educated on all of them in a general sense. But when you start getting into the details, the nuances, the intricacies, the whole realization of what is out there expands. It is like seeing a beach or landscape covered with thousands of various rocks of many different sizes and colors. When looking out at the overall group, you think that there are many, but it could be within range for every one to be known. But upon closer inspection, you find each rock to be composed of an infinite number of grains. Suddenly the amount of information that is potentially out there has gone from a vastness that you can understand to an unending expanse that you can’t even begin to comprehend.

The toughest part comes when analyzing your self. What are your motives, hopes, fears, anxieties, and insecurities? Perhaps priority should be place on knowing thy self.