Queuing Theory

A theory is a map somebody drew after walking the terrain. Queuing Theory is a useful map, provided you remember it is not the terrain.

The theory's gift is vocabulary. Once you have the word, you can see the thing — in your office, in your family, in the news. Before the word, it was only a vague discomfort after dinner.

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.

Consider the railway porter who has carried ten thousand suitcases. He knows what nobody packs: a plan for what happens after arrival.

In the end, life asks only whether we were awake while it happened. That is all. A small tool, honestly kept, beats a large one admired.