On -- or Over the Edge

Some twenty centuries or so ago, Epictetus gave us some very modern-sounding sentences: “It needs but a little to overthrow and destroy everything – just a slight [deviation] from reason,” he said, “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, honor, constancy, a quiet mind, untouched by distress….”

These sentences suggest several facets of a subject – one of which is this: Often there are only slight differences between success and failure, between solvency and insolvency, between safety and sorrow. We say “slight” but the differences in results are by no means “slight” but serious.

Consider for a moment just the matter of physical motion: In driving down the highway, or in any physical movement, sometimes a few inches 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 the centerline – or we don’t keep on the safe side.

And if a foot or two, or even an inch is the margin of safety, we should never forget this shocking reminder: that a speed of sixty miles an hour means that we are moving eighty-eight feet in a single second! And even thirty miles an hour – means moving forty-four feet in a single second!

And with movements of so 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 said – only a little – may be the difference between wholeness and permanent impairment – or may be the difference between life and death! There is no time for carelessness or thoughtlessness, no time for inattention, no time for senses that are less than fully alert, not even for an instant. In matters of physical motion, as well as in any other matters, men cannot become careless in conduct without the possibility of paying a very high price.