(This is the introduction to a longer essay.)
A child fears death like an ant fears Raid, a tuna fears nets, a dog fears a national treatmakers’ strike: why fret over something you can’t understand? A bully at school or a werewolf in the basement may keep a child awake at night, but at least she won’t spend those hours contemplating how she’ll one day cease to exist. It’s one of the world’s minor mercies, and one of its cruelest: the sense of safety that shields children from worry also steers them into danger.
Once, during a spring early in my life, just before one of my baseball games was to start, I wandered away from my team and over to the nearby street. There I noticed the coolest thing — not far from me, right next to the crosswalk, a person pressed a button on a pole that turned the streetlight red. Traffic came to a stop, and he crossed with the confidence of a man who knows he has just inconvenienced a handful of people. Soon the light reverted to green, the cars accelerated, and the moment vanished. I shrugged, turned around, and walked back to my team, eager to hit five or six balls right out of the park and put my discovery behind me.
Just kidding. I was a curious, sometimes mischievous child who couldn’t resist a good button. Also, I sucked at baseball. Instead of hitting those home runs and carrying my team to glory, I went up to that pole and pressed the button. Again the light turned red. Traffic ceased. I made my way along the crosswalk as a dozen or so cars patiently regarded my progress — cars that I had forced into stillness. At last I knew what it was to be God.