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The Slinky We Live In — Double Helix pg291
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
I had been beating my little boat upwind for some time now, slowly gaining distance from that frightening start-line on the day I stopped drinking long ago. I had rounded the far mark and eased the tension on all the sails. At last I was cruising on smooth water under a sky of gentle clouds. Of course there are always crazy gusts out of nowhere. When you can’t see them coming, the trick is to react with calm sanity and make deft, precise adjustments. This keeps a boat upright and moving forward. Reacting badly crashes the mast against the water. This is inconvenient and embarrassing. People have to rescue you — or not. Why did it take so long to learn that? I was pretty confident I knew this by now.
Just to make sure I was ready to graduate from the University of Overreaction, the Universe gave me a final exam. — From the Epilog
I titled this epilog ‘Double Helix’ because that pattern sums up the ultimate behavior of everything (except architecture).
Straight lines are a human construct; even when they turn corners to become two dimensional. The natural world doesn’t behave that way. Every line in a landscape curves, flows and dog legs… except for buildings (and the edge of the canvas itself). Hard lines in life are great when they protect…
