A state of being only a few steps away from us.

At the end of the day, I read myself to sleep with Terry Pratchett and and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Earth.  A gift from my son Matthew. he wrote in the front of the book: I hope that the possibility of unlimited worlds will spark your imagination:

‘Earths, untold earths.  More Earths than could be counted, some said.  And all you had to do was walk sideways into them, one after the next, an unending chain …’*

It’s a discovery opening up new frontiers and new beginnings for the characters who see the endless opportunities of starting over.

Yesterday, I was meeting with someone standing on the edge of their known world with new possibilities calling.  As for each of us, they can choose to step ‘re able to step into their own adjacence, made possible by their talents, passions, and life experiences.

It comes, though with the unknown and unfamiliar and for this reason many do not step.

‘The sucker’s trap is when you focus on what you know and others don’t know, rather than the reverse.’**

The Long Earth‘s steppers are mostly nauseous immediately after moving from one reality to another.  K. M. Weiland warns us that ‘a good story should never be an entirely easy experience,’ quoting Franz Kafka’s counsel to only read= stories that ‘bite and sting.’^

Why?  Because then we know we are alive?  Otherwise may we be tempted to engage in some more dangerous or expensive or selfish way of proving our life in not in a rut without ends?

The slow journey into adjacence reminds us there is another way.

‘The first step is the most difficult but luckily it’s over quickly.’^^

(*From Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Earth.)
(**From Nassim Taleb’s The Bed of Procrustes.)
(^Both from K.M. Weiland.)
(^^From Hugh Macleod’s gapingvoid.)