The CORIOLIS EFFECT is a scientific principle describing how one object on Earth can be accurately propelled to meet another object on Earth while both objects, the air around them, and the Earth itself spins at 1000 miles an hour.

The coriolis effect also explains why, even though the Earth is in constant motion beneath us, we can’t just hover in helicopters to travel long distances or jump in the air and land half a mile away. It’s a science of moving objects, similar to the prediction magic involved in shooting a rocket into the sky toward where the moon WILL EVENTUALLY BE.

In practice, the coriolis effect is chiefly important to those whose professions involve ballistic trajectory: cannons, missiles, etc. But I have found this a terrific theory to philosophically explain “What I’m Doing” to my mother, wife, and daughter, reframing what may seem to the untrained eye as “Warner Bros. cartoon madness” into a unique example of logistic strategy.

Or to quote Pee-Wee Herman, “I meant to do that.”

It started at a picnic just after high school graduation. I had an interesting conversation with a kid that I knew that was also heading off to college: he wanted very much to study something called “computers”.

It was 1984. We weren’t even a decade past the pocket calculator and most people still had a TV set with a physical knob that changed the channel. But this kid was SO EXCITED; he had a natural affinity for computers, and loved working with them so much that his science teacher had strongly encouraged him to study “programming”.

But, the young gentleman had been firmly steered away from this field by his family, as computer science was (at the time) a somewhat obscure career choice with no obvious path to employment.

Now, today, perched atop the summit of Hindsight Mountain, one might assume that if the young man had pursued this interest and moved to where his teacher told him all this was happening (California), he would have been on the absolute cutting edge of a worldwide cultural evolution, with the opportunity to buy first round Apple stock from a happy bearded fellow in a San Jose garage.

But back then? This was all crazy-talk. Computers? Bru-ha-ha. Programming? Balderdash. California? Ballyhoo.

A future where all that made sense was pure science fiction. So this young man soberly aimed his life directly at targets well within range. Measured choices. Smart decisions. Good sense. Birds in hands. From here to right over there.

In contrast, my personal trajectory from high school was seen as random, ill-conceived, naive, and somewhat feckless: I was rocketing myself toward a future I couldn’t see, that no-one could see, well understanding that it hadn’t been created yet, since my personal goals were not as clearly defined:

I wanted to be Jerry Lewis in The Bellboy,I wanted to be an orchestral composer for film,I wanted to be an author, and a college professor,and most of all I wanted to be a guest on the TV show Match Game, but I just couldn’t figure out a clear line from completing my math homework with a Bic™ pen on a little bedroom desk in Kansas City to scribbling clever quips on printed blue cards with Sharpie markers, sitting next to Charo™ in L.A..

There wasn’t any major for all that, at any college. My mother was confused but incredibly supportive: she didn’t want me to waste my time or money, so she advised me to cover the basics:

* be empathetic and polite -

* always keep working really hard -

* and learn how to learn.

“Facts change.” she told me, “Every so often we need new globes, new schoolbooks… people keep ‘discovering’ history and inventing incredible new machines. But when you learn how to learn, you’ll be able to add anything new to what you already know and keep up with whatever’s going on.”

Three. Two. One. And liftoff.

How are any of us supposed to have clear paths to the future?

I was launched from the social instability of the 1960’s toward the bullseye-in-a-whirlwind present. From J. Edgar Hoover to Obama. From 8-track tapes to streaming. From pen-pals to FaceTime. Where’s the clear path?

Thus my affinity toward the coriolis effect. Aiming is not as vital as momentum. I’ve always felt that I’ve been headed somewhere (if not exactly somewhere more specific than that), but after a while I realized that who I was became more important than where I was going.

And after decades moving at breakneck speed, I still don’t feel that I’ve arrived at the future yet. It’s such a lovely trip, I’ve taken tons of pictures, but I’d appreciate a chance to clean out the cupholders and top off the wiper fluid.

And now there’s a new generation; how best to pass on the maps we’re plotted and the cautionary tales we’ve survived? What would we have studied in college if we knew that laptops were coming? the internet was coming? cell phones were coming? Can I offer ANY valid advice to a teenager growing up in a world of posts, stories, and edits? What is she supposed to wear if I can’t predict the weather?

I’ve given up on predictions. She’ll just have to make do with

be empathetic and polite, work hard, and learn how to learn.

That way, no matter where she flies, she’ll be the steadiest arrow in the sky.

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