While on vacation in The Netherlands last month, I watched my mother-in-law (who lived through World War II) hanging clean clothes out to dry in the fresh Dutch wind, I watched her make applesauce from scratch, fetch milk directly from the cows, and bike to the village to buy fresh bread from the SPAR store (a chain of tiny grocerettes, like ALDI). Everything knowable in humanity's past and future seemed to be embedded in her daily routines. Simple moments adding up.

"...they're interconnected in a complex and subtle pattern..."

The foregoing romantic vignette would not have been possible, though; without a nation like ours standing up to Hitler's aggression in Europe and the Japanese aggression in China. Then, like now, not everyone was in agreement. Somehow the collective will resulted in our winning wars in two theatres. We took risks. Within the complex and subtle pattern that reveals itself only as we are weaving it, we must have the mental discipline to take measured, common-sense, and morally sound risks.

The interconnected, complex and subtle pattern is possible only by breaking FROM the pattern; in other words, by trying something a little different. It must be different. We will fail, but let us fail quickly. Try, try again, until we stop failing. This, too, should be in everyone's historical memory.