“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.”—MT

Our burning house...

Hindsight ain’t worth a damn, unless of course you prefer walking backwards. MT didn’t say that, but he should have. There are some things that, if not noticed in a timely fashion, are not worth noticing at all, such as your house burning down with you in it, or becoming aware that global climate change has moved past the tipping point while you remained unaware. MT said, “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.” Now days, weather is what we don’t expect because we refused to accept climate as it is.

Opportunities are, as MT observes, rarely seen as such. Instead they might be considered annoyances or inconveniences that get in the way of our preconceived agendas. These account for the peculiar human condition known as denial: the inability to face reality as it is rather than as we wish it to be.

A contemporary Japanese writer said, “I’m not afraid to die. What I’m afraid of is having reality get the better of me, of having reality leave me behind.” Nobody wants to be left behind, and all of us prefer to consider ourselves as proactive instead of reactive.

There are different kinds of denial. There are denial of facts, denial of responsibility, denial of impact, denial of cycles, and denial of awareness. Perhaps the most egregious of all is denial of denial—the refusal to admit that we err. On the other hand, “When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”