You may have never heard of a Canadian person of facial hair named Chris Hadfield. But he is a hero to people of Mustached American heritage, the weaker Canadian species, and people of Delaware.

At what I thought was a routine appointment in 2004, I met my little white blob face-to-face for the first time: A golf ball-sized brain tumor had lodged itself behind my right inner ear, intertwined with the delicate, wet-tissue-paper strands of my hearing, balance and facial nerves for what the doctors guessed was five years before it was found.

We often mistake the artificial chemical and psychological thrill of fake edges for the real. In fact we often seek them out as a substitute for the reality of change, growth and exploration. Our minds and bodies help us in this, as they react much the same to this simulations as to the real world. Thus we scream in horror movies or amusement park rides and get a rush from blowing up the bad guys in video games.