ALL, OR NOTHING? EITHER WAY IT’S IN YOUR HEAD

We were eighty miles from home, Pedro at the controls and me doing something in the aft cockpit, eyes down. He’d been running straight north along a shearline for several minutes and then abruptly began to circle. I knew where we were within a mile or two without looking, but hadn’t expected him to stop until we reached Boomer Ridge. It was unusually hazy that day with tall clouds casting wide shadows on a landscape I’d always seen brightly lit. When I looked out nothing was recognizable. Turning my head against the direction of our circle intensified disorientation and sudden unreasoned anxiety led to a wave of nausea.It seems eventually there’s a first time, pardon the cliché, for even this.I drew one deep breath and asked Pedro to go straight for a moment, on any heading. Soon, beneath beads of perspiration I found a familiar crossroads and CLICK, like turning the key in a dungeon door, simple recognition transformed cold sweat into cool refreshment and all was well again.What amazed me was how quickly poking only one toe through the fragile deck of a mental footbridge felt like I was falling into the river – and how not falling restored a bone-deep confidence whose complete justification had just been so easily thrown into doubt.So...Ever notice how right it feels to keep your left hand on some firm point in the cockpit, especially when you turn your head? It’s a natural instinct to maintain orientation, like our relatives in the trees. Same thing at the other end of your arm too, up there where converging strands of nerve tissue form a giant fatty cyst that expands to fill the cranium. Without some known reference to proceed from and potentially retreat to, rational belief in your own knowledge and perception can instantly vanish, exactly when you need it most. And that should tell us something…What does it tell us? How should I know? Ask yourself!