On--or Over the Edge

Some twenty centuries ago, Epictetus gave us these very modern-sounding sentences: “It needs but a little to overthrow and destroy everything—just a slight aberration from reason. For the helmsman to wreck his vessel, he does not need the same resources as he needs to save it: If he turn it but a little too far to the wind, he is lost; yes, and if he do it not deliberately but from mere want of attention, he is lost all the same. It is very much the same in life, if you doze but a little, all that you have amassed up till now leaves you. Keep awake then and watch your impressions: It is no trifle you have in keeping, but self-respect, honour, constancy, a quiet mind, untouched by distress…”

These sentences suggest several facets of a subject which could be successively considered. But at least one phase of it we should like now to turn to:

Often seemingly, there are only slight differences between success and failure, between solvency and insolvency, between safety and sorrow. We say “seemingly slight” but the differences in results are in fact by no-means “slight,” but gravely serious.

Consider for a moment just the matter of physical motion: In driving down the highway, or in any physical movement, sometimes two feet or one foot, or even the fraction of an inch is the margin between safety and sorrow. Either we hit—or we don’t hit. Either we keep the wheels on or over the edge. Either we keep on the safe side of the shoulder or center line—or we don’t keep on the safe side.

And if two feet, or one foot, or even an inch is the margin of safety, may we unforgettably never forget this shocking but elementary reminder: that a speed of sixty miles an hour means moving eighty-eight feet in a single second! And even at half the sixty-mile mark—even thirty miles an hour—means moving forty-four feet in a single second!

And with movements of many feet in a single second, life comes pretty close, all the time, to being on the brink. And only a little inattention, only a little dozing at the wheel, only a little dulling of the senses, only a little “aberration from reason,” as Epictetus observed—only a little—may be the difference between wholeness and permanent impairment—or between life and death! There is no time for inattention, no time for carelessness or thoughtlessness, or for senses that are less than fully alert, even for a fractional instant.

So much for the physical side of the subject. Admittedly it is shocking and sobering. In matters of physical motion, as well as in many other matters, men cannot become careless in conduct without the ever imminent possibility of paying a very high price.