After a long school-year of Friday night and Saturday morning classes at the Connecticut Office of Higher Education [CTOHE] Alternate Route to Certification [ARC] program, I have graduated with an ED 125 temporary certification which gives me the opportunity to be fully certified (again temporarily for 90 days) once hired. Sound confusing? It is.

It’s a huge step towards joining what I know to be the noblest profession. More soon!

Many years ago, when I was 12 years old, I thought of something. While that in and of itself is certainly not unusual, after all young kids think of all kinds of things all the time, this was a particularly interesting thought, one that led me on a kind of life-long journey.

I should also preface this by saying that I’m aware that the fact that I thought of something independently does not mean I invented it or was the first to think of it. On the contrary I am absolutely certain that many have had this thought before albeit not at the age of 12. I’m also not convinced that all that many of those people have carried this thought to such an extensive conclusion. I tend to call this thought a ‘theory’ even though technically it is not. If one discusses it in mathematical terms perhaps it would be better described as a postulate, in other words something accepted as ‘given’, that cannot be empirically proven. The infinite smallness of a point, the infinite thinness of a line or plane – these are all postulated; stated as fact but inherently unprovable. So it is with my little thought. I call it the Theory Of Infinite Happenstance:

In its simplest form the theory states: Everything that can happen, does happen. All possible eventualities actually occur each and every moment. For instance, each time you step off the curb your foot lands safely on the road and you are hit by a truck and you are splattered by a taxicab hitting a puddle. Additionally at that same moment the most outlandish and or mundane happenstances actually occur to everything else, living or inert, everywhere else. Each occurrence or happenstance splinters off into a separate reality or parallel universe. If you perceive time as a granular series of events, each of which are infinitely small in duration, you realize that this theory implies infinity in every direction and dimension simultaneously.

I maintain that the human mind finds it very difficult to wrap itself around a couple of core concepts like infinity. Even a casual observation of the concept of infinite happenstance reveals immediately that the potential amount of parallel realities that are spawned by each happenstance, exponentially multiplied by every other being and item in the universe’s happenstance, creates a staggering amount of parallel realities, after all, every happenstance generates an infinite series of reactions. Paradoxically I would submit that this presents something of a proof of the theory. In other words: in order for the concept of infinity to exist, the potential amount of generated occurrences and parallel realities not only can be infinite, it must be truly infinite. This means that stepping off our metaphorical curb, there is no limit to the amount of parallel happenstances that are generated. Therefore the fundamental difficulty our minds have in grasping or accepting this concept are moot. Put another way, there is no sense in having a concept of infinity unless that infinity is truly infinite in every sense and direction. Our minds may naturally rebel against such a notion as ridiculous, after all we are so conditioned by existence and culture to regard ourselves as individually important and significant, perceiving only ther reality we are experiencing. This of course is a survival mechanism that is evolutionarily hardwired into our most basic being. The idea of contemplating something as large as true infinity both of space and time run counterintuitive to this. Just because a concept is difficult to accept does not make it any less correct or true.

So the next time you step off a curb, take comfort in the fact that even though you just stepped into an ankle-deep mud puddle, another you just ran headlong into the love of your life.

-McNeil Johnston

Just back from a restorative week with the girls in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware which was capped off by a trip to the Salisbury home of the local Single-A Orioles farm club, the Delmarva Shorebirds. You’ve gotta love a minor league game – the tee-shirt cannons, the mascot, the fireworks (yes, a full-blown professional post-game pyrotechnic display!) the afore-posted Chicken Dance, and a remarkably high level of professionalism and play! It’s there that I learned the remarkable story of Dennis Torres, Shorebirds #37, a pitcher. Cut by his high school teams all four years, he went on to UMASS Amherst in pursuit of an education. Making the team as an on-a-whim walk-on, his coaches were completely amazed that he’d never played ball in high school. Now a professional ball player with bright if not stellar prospects, perhaps Mr. Torres’ career might be looked at as a pretty good object lesson in perspective. Just a thought…

The Wilton High School Warriors Field Hockey team has just won their second consecutive State Championship.

This time last year, they had just won their first of two back-to-back State Championships.

Why the redundancy?  Because this time last year, a group of people were putting the final touches on a secret plan to take over the Youth Division of the Wilton Field Hockey Association.

I wonder what they’re planning now?

1. If you have to think about whether something you’re about to do is right for more than 5 seconds, IT ISN’T.

2. Is that thing you’re obsessing about now going to be important to you in 5 years?  Chances are, IT WON’T.

Tomorrow, November 6, 2012, is Election Day.  I am voting for the presidential candidate who just happens to belong to the party that is NOT making any attempts whatsoever to prohibit, hinder or otherwise obstruct anyone’s exercising their right to vote.

I recently lost some weight.  About 25 pounds of adipose fat. This is a good thing.  It’s so good, in fact, that I have this belt that I’ve worn pretty much every day for a decade, and I had to drill an extra hole in it – to make it TIGHTER!

To assure myself that I’m keeping the weight off, I check every morning when I buckle my belt that I’m using that last hole.  This morning, I realized that in order to see the buckle, the hole, and the belt itself, I was actually having to manually lift my belly fat out of the way.  Salad anyone?

On January 19, 2004, Howard Dean’s presidential campaign was effectively ended because he made a funny sound in a speech.
On September 11, 2012 Mitt Romney…
I just realized I don’t exactly know how to put into words what he did.

Wesleyan University Class of 2016

This past Wednesday was Arrival Day for freshmen and transfer students at Wesleyan University.  Our daughter Nicole, who is on the Wesleyan Field Hockey team was already in her dorm a couple of days prior, and was wearing the white and red tee-shirt that designates her a Wesleyan athlete, and as such gives her the added honor of helping new arrivals get moved in by virtue of her having arrived early.  This made the trip for my wife and I a serene and uplifting experience enhanced by the fact that we were also blessed with one of the top ten weather days of the year – a sunny day in the 70s with beautiful scattered clouds and a light breeze.

As we moved from session to session, all led by brilliant, thoughtful and progressive people who clearly had the very best interests of our children at heart, an indescribable feeling of well-being and satisfaction, coupled with a swelling sense of hope and joy pervaded our beings.  Throughout our beautiful daughter’s young life, we had attempted to instill in her a sense of fairness, of justice even, and faith that if one works hard, is honest, has integrity in all things and above all – is NICE – she would be rewarded.  Not with entitlements of privilege, but with the earned sense of a job well done, a life well-lived, and if she was very fortunate, the earned respect of peers and mentors alike.  I am so happy to report that Nicole has reaped all of these rewards, and am even prouder to report that she richly deserves them.

The day’s activities culminated in the stirring remarks of Michael S. Roth, President of Wesleyan University.  With a style reminiscent of Woody Allen, Garrison Keillor and, well, my Dad all rolled into one,  he enriched us with the sense that Wesleyan was a home, a family, and a stimulating and challenging intellectual environment that was to be, above all, whatever Nicole and her 749 classmates chose to make it.

Then, as we drove off towards home, Lisa checked her messages.

Turns out the youth field hockey group where we live are up to their old tricks.  Having seceded (and that’s an EXTREMELY kind way of putting it) from the legitimate field hockey oversight organization which my wife runs,  they continue to snipe at her and her board members in an effort to undermine their unity and credibility.  While the thoroughly disgusting antics of the youth field hockey group are beyond the scope of this post, when juxtaposed against the idyllic backdrop of Wesleyan and its ideals, the perspective makes their behavior all the more baffling – in fact, pathetically comical.

So here it is:

True integrity is something nobody can ever take away from you.  It frees you to pursue knowledge, understanding, enlightenment and even grace.

If you’re a liar, you may fool a lot of people.  At the end and beginning of every single day of your life though, you’re a liar.  Even if you’re the only one who knows it!  Any attainment, accomplishment or recognition you achieve is perpetually and irrevocably tainted.