The middle controls the ends

Today, I was listening to an interview with a woman who was talking about having her baby die 2 days after birth. She said that the happiest moment of her life was at start of her relationship with her husband, and the saddest moment was when her baby died. Her observation was that although those two moments were the high and low of her life, her actual life is lived in the middle.

My (admittedly boring and conservative) opinion is there is a bit more to it.

Everyone has highs and lows in their lives. Some people's high points destroy them. The high passion at the start of a love relationship can lead to a lot of problems: getting pregnant when it is not the right timing, being unable to recognize that the object of your infatuation is treating you like dirt, the plot of Romeo and Juliet. Quickly reaching the high point of a career, which should be wonderful, can also ruin your life: too many celebrities to mention, as well as very successful business people who end their career through drug overdose. While the high points of life don't lead people to intentionally commit suicide, then can lead people to make irrational decisions which do lead to their deaths.

Likewise, the low points in life can lead to depression and suicide. That's fairly obvious.

So, why do the high points and low points destroy some people, but not others?

I think it's the middle. The way you live your life in the 99.9% of the time when you aren't at an emotional extreme decides what happens to you when you do reach those extremes.

That's my very incomplete theory. Now all I need to add is some details on exactly how the middle will affect your reaction to those rare high points, and maybe how to live the middle of your life to be prepared for the edges.

Floating man-made island home

I've seen some very complicated and ambitious engineering plans for a
floating city to deal with overpopulation. It is all very futuristic, and so complicated that it has very little chance of actually happening.

On the other hand, here's a simpler and less futuristic version.

I don't quite know what to think of this, but I do know it's cool.