Have you had an epiphany lately? I still have them every once and awhile -- which means not often enough. However, when these moments of revelation do come, they are all the more profound. Yes, I know, some people still think these moments are an inspiration from god, but we know that it is more likely the lucky connection of a few neurotransmitters that reveal insights that were lurking in the brain all along.

So what happened today? I had hung out laundry on my solar dryer (what my mother used to call a clothesline) two days ago but a fog swept in and kept everything damp. Then yesterday we had full sun on a very mild October day. But I didn't get around to taking the dry laundry down because of an emergency trip to Hamilton to pick up cousin Michele who had been stranded because of a leaking gas tank. This morning, before dawn, I started to hear the patter of rain on the skylights and, following a few choice expletives, I rescued two baskets of still damp washing.

Loath to put this lot in the dryer, I hung everything on the racks set up in the laundry room to air dry. While I was doing that, I discovered a whole load of laundry already in the dryer, left over from my lovely wife Bonnie who had put it in while I had taken the grand-kids to Niagara Falls a couple of weeks ago.

Which brings me to my epiphany. It occurs to me that some of us survive, even thrive because we have reserves. In terms of laundry, it is obvious we have lots of extra clothes and we could cope for some time with our surplus. Because many of us have reserves of clothes, of food, of money, even housing, we can manage the ups and downs of life far more easily than those who don't. For those who live from meal to meal, from day to day, there is no opportunity for planning, for supporting others, for building their own reserves.

When we are confronted by situations where we need to decide how we can help others, try to remember that we have reserves and they don't. With reserves we can make choices. They can't.

So when you wonder who our thought-leaders are, who the decision-makers in our society are, try to remember that we are they. Don't count on somebody else to take responsibility for societal problems. We are the ones we've been waiting for.

On one of my recent book orders - I buy my books almost exclusively from Amazon.ca because of the deep discounts and the fast service -- I bought a book by Robert K. Cooper entitled "Get Out of Your Own Way". When it arrived I realized that I had a book on my shelf by the same author that I had never finished called "The Other 90%". Thus, I decided to finish that one before embarking on the latest one.

I think I had delayed completing "The Other 90%" because it sounded too much like most self-help guide books that never take you anywhere useful. However, once I got right into it, I found this book quite thought-provoking and an excellent primer for forward planning (sorry, I guess that's a redundancy!). Cooper's premise is that we are barely scratching the surface in terms of optimizing our potential brain power. Brain capacity has been of great interest to Bonnie and me since we have been on the FASD track. Cooper has a deft style of writing which makes for easy reading and the book is structured in a way that allows you to absorb short chunks at intervals so that you can get the most out of his exposition. It will stay close to hand as I expect to refer to it from time-to-time to refresh my enthusiasm for exploiting my own untapped 90%.****