Musings From the Road, or The Perils of Giving Me Too Much Time To Think...

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone who's read any of my back posts that giving me too much time to think can have some... unpredictable results. After all, that's where the whole camera eyes and streets named after Clue and Scooby Doo characters thing came from. Lately I've been having way too much time to think as a result of my travels for work. So, I took off way earlier than any normal person should be traveling this morning, and, as is totally possible (really), got to thinking. The thought for today was this: What if it were possible to look at something and see the potential in it? For an easy example, let's say you could look at a dying tree and see it at full strength, blossoming, swaying in the breeze, whatever it is that healthy trees do. Let's make it a little harder - what if you could look at a kid in high school who, although smart enough, got hooked on drugs and has no ambition and see them graduating from college/tech school/whatever and successful in their life? Would that be the most awesome thing ever, or the saddest, to be able to see the potential there but not be able to do anything about it? Would optimists see the positive potential, and pessimists see the negative, i.e. see the tree fully dead and the kid on welfare, just looking to score his/her next fix? I think that having an ability like that would be beautiful and heartbreaking, in that the world you see would be wonderful, but you would have to go through life knowing that none of it was real. What do you think?