by Nina Reflections of Autumn Leaves by Brad Gibson When a man has mastered himself,
 he is perfectly at ease in cold,
 in heat, in pleasure or pain,
 in honor or in disgrace. The mature man, fulfilled in wisdom,
 resolute, looks with equal
 detachment at a lump of dirt, 
a rock, or a piece of pure gold. He looks impartially on all:
 those who love him or hate him,
 his kinsmen, his enemies, his friends,
 the good, and also the wicked. — trans. by Stephen Mitchell I woke up this morning thinking about this passage from The Bhagavad Gita . Later this week, I’ll be going on a trip to Europe, including a short trip to Cologne, Germany (Brad was invited to give a talk at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing). To be honest, as a Jew with family members who were murdered in the Holocaust, I never wanted to visit Germany. And I’m nervous now about going. Of course, I’m not worried about being unsafe there. I’m mainly concerned about my emotional reactions to things like...