You might think that not becoming a super villain is simple common sense.

You might be right, I suppose.  I seem to be among the people most uncertain about what common sense is.  

The examples I can first recall just now of decisions that I have heard people describe as "just common sense", are "Don't touch things that are hot enough to burn you," "Wear shoes when you go outside in the snow," "Don't break the law," and "Only eat when you are hungry ". 

Each of these examples has a tree of exceptions and gray areas that leap immediately to my mind.  

Having accurate judgement of "...hot enough to burn you..." requires a wide range of levels and kinds of experience in different circumstances.  How long does a plate have to be out of the oven before the waiter can carry it safely using the specific towels or tools they have available to them?  How long does a piece of iron need to be in the quenching water or air cooled after it has been red hot to be touched safely?  These questions are meant to show that using this example of Common Sense requires some uncommon knowledge in order to practice it.  So is calling it "common" just casual hyperbole?

That objection, or others, seem like crippling weaknesses to all the tenets I have considered as candidates for Common Sense, including "Don't be a supervillain."

"Really?", you might think.

Yeah, it isn't really a moment by moment thing, for me; deciding not to be a super villain. You are right to be thinking that.  It is, as you no doubt expect, more complicated than that.

The key question involved in my mind is about where the boundaries of villainy, and super-villainy are, and whether or not I am dealing with pressures and ideas that move me closer to them.

I try to hold that question as the subject of daily meditation (or at least consideration).

So maybe "day by day" is more accurate, and only on the worst days are there a series of moments of decision.

Moment by moment, deciding not to become a super villain

This is a moment in which the decision not to become a super villain has a special weight in my mind.  My partner and I are socially distancing ourselves from everyone else to do our part to protect each other and everyone else from the fast natural spread of the first global wave of SARS-CoV-2.

The chief example of community identified evil in this moment, perhaps worldwide, is the selfish refusal of individuals or groups to take action and change behavior to help the community, local to wherever you are, to protect their weakest members.

Not an inspiring example.

Freefalling through time

I have understood the theory of relativity in a fragmented way at best, without grasping any core unifying concepts very firmly.

One part of my mental model, based on what I think I understand to be one of those slippery core concepts it this;  we are free-falling through time.  I felt connected to that core concept as I walked through the huge parking lot and then drove away on the last day of my first career.

I had numerous reasons for deciding when to retire.  I distrust the resilience of a plan shaped by a only a small set of reasons.

• TL;DR - I retired because I wanted feed the flash-fires of my passions and see what happened. It was time to try time sky-diving.
• I had a desire to be more available to help people that I know and people similar to the people I know, and the people that I don’t know yet. 
• I wanted to chase down some of the many streams of fiction and nonfiction content that had zipped past me as I tried to stay in the “heads down” posture that was essential to earning a living.
• I wanted to free fall through immersive electronic games, including MMORPGs, 4X games, and surreal puzzlers that my sons and friends had enjoyed. 
• I could see in myself and men I am related to a tendency toward becoming a hermit and then a weird hermit.  If I waited too late to develop social skills that were useful outside of the work environment, I might be at greater risk for that.
• The electrical and computer engineering degree I had achieved many years before seemed neglected like a set of favorite toys on a dusty shelf.  I wanted to use the parts of those skills that my employer didn’t care to fund.
• I felt that my apparent lack of career ambitions, even after 35 years (other than “not become a super villain”, of course) didn’t completely describe me.  I had actually too many ambitions to count but they were flash fires of interest.  They had been distractions in the context of keeping the financial health that I had stumbled into achieving.  Now I very much wanted to watch some of those develop.  To watch the flames and see what happened if they were fueled by the time and resources I might choose to invest in them.