In the movies, the bad guys just can’t dislodge the good guy. The bad guys are totally implacable too. But the real world, as in my real world, is far different.

I began to realize this in middle school. My first lesson was during a skit that featured me and David Chiles. We had our lines and we did our practice, though I don’t think we ever practiced together. The skit amounted to a humorous dialog between the two of us. For reasons unknown, David skipped a crucial part of the script and when he did, I was focused on his words more than the flow and integrity of the presentation.  My lines followed his because that helped me know what to say. When he skipped a big part of the script, I didn’t even notice. I simply followed what he said with the line meant to come after his line. The skit lost all of its steam and I had no idea why until later when I realized it had been gutted of crucial setup.

Everything wants to evolve.

Years later, I had the same thing happen but manifested in a different way. I was awakened in mid morning by someone with a work question. I stopped them and reminded them that Saturday is the only day I can sleep in. There was a pause. The voice at the other end said, “it’s Thursday.”

Indeed it was.

I’d had a dream. Upon awakening to the call, I glanced at the time, 10:30am. From that moment I was dead certain of the time and date. Dead wrong too.

Today the scenario was more complex but equally compelling. Yesterday a message appeared on my phone from someone who wanted me to host a meeting on Sunday. I began the study to be up to date on the subject around whose discussion I’d be moderating. This person has habitually texted such requests a day prior.

So this morning my brain was set up. I started the day as if it were Sunday, responding no doubt to the pattern this fellow has set of making requests the day prior. I realized I wasn’t fully prepared for the things I do on Sunday so I studied the subject and read scriptures in preparation for the meeting. I got other things ready as if it really were Sunday and even made a call to someone who might have been counting on me to help with a class they were teaching so they would know I was unavailable because of the other obligation. It was, for all I knew, actually Sunday – the most recent version of which wasn’t yet two days in the past!

Thankfully this is a rare thing, but what I marvel over is how it happens at all and how it happens so convincingly. There are other ways it’s manifest, but still it is an unusual event. How easily I get off track!

If I were the good guy in a spy thriller, I think the gig would be up before any of the action scenes. While I wouldn’t cave in matters of integrity, I’d be like the Unicorns and dinosaurs whose scheduling problem is said to have caused them to miss boarding the Ark.

Even with a GPS device I get lost looking for places I’ve never been.

As a child I was fearful of being on the witness stand. My juvenile brain thought that there was no preparation for that experience. You just showed up and someone grilled you out of the blue. “Where were you on the night of August the 6th, 1935 at 6:32 in the evening and who were you with?”

To me it was so random. I was sure I’d get the days mixed up and innocently perjure myself.

It’s too easy to get confused. I still don’t completely trust eye witness reports without some other corroboration. They don’t differentiate between what they saw, or believe, or thought they saw.

Besides, people have strong feelings and they evaluate what they see and hear as well as what they don’t see or hear based on their expectations. It’s easy to go wrong.  It’s easy to assume then confuse assumptions with knowledge.

And then there is associative thinking, which makes a brain like mine connect dots and formulate results. It’s so powerful that today I awakened certain that it was a different day of the week than it is. I proceeded accordingly.

Think about it. How do you know where you are in the day without a combination of time pieces and normal sequences? This makes me sympathetic to the blind, who lose access to some of the evidences of season and timing because they can’t detect light changes. They have to go by other indicators to know the difference between day and night and keep the time of day in mind.

We all rely on some things that tell us where we are with respect to the calendar or the hour. When those markers are subverted, or replaced, or moved then decisions are affected. I have the same issue with art composition. When I am drawing, I have to be on guard not to let one part of the sketch skew the rendering of another, as I recently demonstrated in the sketch of Larissa where her hair  was all fluffed up and I subsequently drew her head too large compared to her body. It was not far off in regard to her hair, but only if her hair were of normal volume. So I drew her head larger than it is.

It is a practice among manipulators to capitalize on such traits in people. Advertisement relies on it also. Negotiators find a good understanding of the same principles to be essential in their craft.

So this is only a problem if I don’t stay on my guard and if I blindly trust assumptions on their own merit.

Some people might characterize my heightened sense of “let me check that out” as a paranoia but no, it’s a matter of trying to make sure I’ve gotten it right in a world that’s hell bent on getting things screwy. The real danger with people is when they think they’re right and bristle at the evidences to the contrary as if those were a personal affront when in fact they’ve got it wrong.

As today reminded me, the most fundamental things are subject to clarification.

This must certainly be an issue with cosmonauts and astronauts who don’t have gravity as a reference or tool. Sneeze in a space capsule and the droplets may be hanging in the air and bouncing off things for hours. Leave your pen hanging in the air and someone else might get it in their eye as they float through the same space.

The problem isn’t with people like me who get off base from time to time. We all do. The problem is when that happens and the one who it happens too stands their ground. Then you have the Kings’s new Suit. Then you have political upheaval inspired by propaganda. Then you have very bad decisions made by seemingly bright people who utterly refuse reason.

Happily, it isn’t Sunday. That’s half a week ahead. Back to work for me!