Helmet Rule

Helmet Rule is the sort of rule a grandfather gives you on a veranda — short, plain, and annoyingly correct.

Notice what the rule really does: it converts a daily negotiation into a settled fact. Settled facts are restful. A mind with enough settled facts can spend itself on things that matter.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Every colony has a notice board and a gossip channel. The notice board informs; the channel decides. Wise residents read the first and audit the second.

Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. The name is new; the wisdom stood at bus stops long before either of us.