There is a distinction between the so-called epistemic verbal mode and the deontic mode. The epistemic mode deals with alternative worlds which could exist instead of a given world at a given point in time (what may be). The deontic mode also deals with alternative worlds but they are ones which could develop out of a given world (what should be).

The world we act in is a ninuscule fraction of the eddy of possible alternatives that flurry around us. The shoulds, the woulds, the mights. Our doing world is a small thing, a tiny nucleus around which spins the realm of not doing, intending to do, fantasising abouit doing, fearing to do, forgetting to do. And perhaps, the more conscious and sensitive we are, the less the doing world impinges.

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