I like to think of myself as a sensible, careful person. I don’t take unnecessary risks as a general rule. I appreciate dangerous tools. I don’t use them in foolish ways. Most of the time.

Today I experienced that 0.1% of the time. I was using a razor blade knife to cut some crumpled tape that had been wrapped around a cord. Cutting at the tape in a more careful manner was not yielding results, so I gripped it a bit more firmly and sliced at it again. A sudden sensation in my finger made me realize I had not only cut the tape.

When one cuts oneself there is always that moment of uncertainty when you cannot tell just how bad it is yet. Would there be a lot of blood or a little? In this case it was more than a little but less than a lot. I had managed to avoid a serious wound. I was, quite frankly, lucky. It could have–perhaps even should have–been much worse. I treated it and, other than realizing how much I require my left pinky in typing, went about my business.

I was a bit shaky the rest of my shift. There may have been some minor shock involved, but I suspect it was primarily from realizing how stupid I’d been and how close I’d come to a trip to the emergency room. I only let down my usual guard of carefulness for a moment, and that had been all it took.

Life is precarious, really. We continue to live as much by accident as by design. Though I suppose a certain amount of safety can be reasonably assumed (if not, quite frankly, it would be most difficult to accomplish much in life), it doesn’t take much to remind oneself that living is as much a failure to die as anything else. It only takes one time of not thinking things through to lose the use of a finger. It only takes one time of trusting another driver too much to become a quadriplegic. It only takes one time of being in the wrong place at the wrong time to become an entry on the obituary page.

I do not intend to be morbid. My purpose is really to remind myself and anyone else who will listen that there is only so much we can do. We should take reasonable precautions. We should be prepared for unwanted outcomes. But ultimately there comes a point where further worry is counterproductive. We could be the most careful, most prepared person on the planet and still get struck by a falling piece of Skylab.

Self reliance includes preparing for unpleasant contingencies, but you simply cannot prepare for everything. There comes a point when all reasonable precautions have been taken and you must simply continue living, primarily on faith. Self reliance helps make that easier, in helping you know that you’ve done what you can. The rest is beyond your control.

“Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each other’s way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another.” – Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”, section on “Solitude”

I’m not quite so cynical of human companionship as Thoreau, but there does seem to be some measure of truth in this. There are, after all, the old sayings “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and “That which we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly.” In the latter case, I think Thomas Paine was speaking of freedom, but I suspect it applies just as well to relationships.

I don’t see Thoreau’s take on things as “the way things must be”, but rather a warning that relationships require effort. There is something to be said for “acquir(ing) any new value for each other.” Certainly anyone can become too familiar with one another, but if this happens too easily or too quickly in the relationship it could be a warning sign. When you spend much of your time together there will often be very little new to talk about.

It is therefore good when you can choose companions (be it friends or spouses or what-have-you) that you find someone whose perspective and thought-processes you find intriguing so that even though you both experience many of the same events, even your individual reactions to and thoughts on those events will be different enough to provide value in the discussion of the same.

That’s why, though far too rare, I have often found great satisfaction in conversing with people whose ideas may differ significantly from my own, but who are not threatened by those differences. People who can calmly disagree with you and respect you just the same are wonderful people who should be treasured. Such relationships can be some of the most rewarding you will ever find.

In any case, while I agree with Thoreau to a point, even I, an introvert, find some human interaction beneficial throughout the day. While I don’t think I would go crazy in Thoreau’s Walden situation of near solitude for days on end, I do find that simply having someone else to bounce my thoughts off of from time to time helps me immensely. I suspect if I were to live like Thoreau for an extended period of time I would begin speaking to myself (at least more loudly and frequently than I already do). I would certainly start speaking to the various flora, fauna, and inanimate objects nearby.

This is one reason why I don’t believe that self-reliance really means complete independence. As it says in Genesis in the Bible, “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone”. Or, to quote from more contemporary bards, “We all need…somebody…to leeeeaan on!”

My series on home document management continues over at The Knot in the Rope. Last installment was identifying potential records. This time I discuss different types of documents, as a prelude to exploring different ways of collecting and storing documents.

How far should one go toward self-reliance? I suppose that’s a question everyone must answer for themselves, but I’ve got a few ideas. For starters, I am not and never will advocate dropping everything and moving into the woods to live off the land. As tempting as that may sound sometimes, I believe you would lose more than you would gain.

But anywhere in between it really becomes a matter of risk management. How much risk can you tolerate? For me, one limit is “where a mistake could cost me life, liberty, or more money than I can afford to lose”. For example, a friend and I have been starting a business. While I’m more than happy to cut corners and do things ourselves whenever we can, when it comes to handling out taxes I don’t feel we know enough yet to tackle that one on our own. The cost of failure is too high.

We did, however, look over all the forms we would need to file and see how much of it we felt comfortable with. Research and practice runs cost you nothing except time. In this case we still didn’t feel comfortable enough to take the risk of doing it ourselves. We’re hiring a professional, at least this time.

On the other hand, we are still looking to do the bookkeeping ourselves. Even though we are a bit befuddled by the software we bought, we believe we can figure it out. The risk of failure there is lower because we are still keeping manual records in the mean time. Yes, it could end up costing us more next tax season if we still haven’t gotten a handle on the software, but it could also save us a fair bit of money as well. It’s a risk worth taking, at least for now. We will revisit this decision in a few months before the pile of records gets to be too high.

So while I will never be able to be 100% self-reliant, technically, I don’t believe that is really the goal. It’s certainly not a realistic goal, in my mind. As long as the tax code and legal code to which I am subject remains inscrutable to me there are risks I just will not take just to be able to say “I can do it ALL myself.” I’d be even less self-reliant in prison.

Twice a year our church has a worldwide conference in which our leaders instruct us through five sessions of two hours each. These conferences are always enjoyable and invigorating, though a bit embarrassing as well. By the mid-point of the conference I’m always feeling excited about the things I’ve been hearing and ready to turn over a new leaf and become a better person. But invariably I come to realize that much of what they’ve been telling us they also told us last conference. Somewhere during the previous six months I let everything slide in spite of my good intentions.

I’ve decided, however, that it’s okay. It’s probably expected that at least some sliding will take place, else why would they schedule the conferences every six months? We are human, and chances are we only really adopt and implement one personal improvement per conference. The rest we need to be reminded of again and again to make sure we get back to working on it again.

I think what I enjoy most about these conferences is how clear my priorities become by the end. I realize that only a few things really matter–work on those and the rest will take care of itself. Whether I like being reminded that I’ve slipped or not, I need that regular realignment. I need to discard much of the dross of life and refocus myself with a clear sense of purpose.

Whatever our priorities and purpose in life may be, it can be quite fulfilling, uplifting, and energizing to step back every once and awhile and refocus ourselves. Mental “junk” accumulates, and requires regular spring cleaning to keep from getting weighed down with distractions. We need to remind ourselves of who we are and what matters most to us.

Who are you, and what should you be doing first and foremost with your life? What’s getting in your way? Refocus yourself. Rediscover your purpose.

I’m making good progress in my study of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”, the supposed seminal work on self reliance. It’s not an easy read, as his prose is full of references, many of which cannot be understood without the help of the editor’s footnotes. I also find his tone a bit too self-righteous and absolute.

Nonetheless, I probably agree with his basic assertions more often than not. We are too interested in the accumulation of things. We can become slaves to our own possessions. We could get by more simply than we do. I’m not sure I’m ready to take it to the level he does, but I’m quite certain my life could be more simple than it is.

But where I really start to agree with him most is his section “Reading”, in which he discusses what literary pursuits are most worthwhile. He recommends the classics (though of course he insists that we must read them in their original language). And though I may disagree with him somewhat on what qualifies as a classic, I do feel that his differentiation between worthy literature and trite, “for entertainment only” literature is valid. I’m not against reading for entertainment, necessarily, but I do feel, especially these days when my time is at a premium, that if I am going to read something it should be something that will either elevate my soul or educate/exercise my mind (no, not exorcise, thank you).

I do not necessarily join Thoreau in his dismissal of children’s books. They may be light and trite, but they are no less full of truth sometimes. There is something to be gained, actually, in remembering how to view the world through a child’s eyes–or at least the eyes of a writer trying to appeal to children. I find books by Cynthia Rylant, for example, to be quite fun–especially her “Mr. Putter and Tabby” books. She has a charming sense of humor that manages to find gentle humor in everyday life, and at the expense of no one. While the characters are often the source of the humor, it is clearly in a spirit of love, not derision, that she elicits laughs.

But I digress. I think that the stories and information we take in helps form who we are in many different ways. We should be more cognizant of what we read and more careful in how we spend our reading time. As the saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.”