View from the North 40: Driving a narrow, sleepy horizon

Psychologists love, love, love their theories, and the one I find most refreshing is called the horizon of possibilities.

This says that given all the factors in our lives from boring facts like age, physical attributes, finances, location and internal drive, we have a certain number of things we can do or be. It’s a vast number, but it’s not infinite.

For example, I am 50, not in particularly good shape, don’t feel much like putting in the effort to change that shape and I’m a touch claustrophobic, so my odds of being an astronaut are less than nil.

Therefore, future astronaut...