It seems sound advice to focus on what we can control and to let what we can’t control take care of itself.

But the volatile market for gasoline demonstrates that it’s far better for Americans to find ways to gain control of what they can’t control now.

That’s not to say that the United States should subjugate oil-rich countries. We’ve learned painful lessons about why that strategy just doesn’t work — recently in Iraq, decades ago during the Arab oil embargo, and at many points in between. We will never control the oil reserves that we need — by force or by diplomacy. It’s just not going to happen.

We simply need too much of it. The U.S. consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil every day. That’s 14 million more daily than the country (Japan or China, according to various sources) with the next highest consumption. Twenty-million is a mind-boggling number that’s easier to grasp — but equally stunning — when you reduce it to per capita consumption. For every man, woman and child in the United States, we consume 25 barrels of oil a year. And the supply is running out.

In today’s paper, the special section, 20 Burning Questions, explains the concept of peak oil. It refers to the time after which the oil that’s being pumped out of the ground can no longer rise to meet the needs of an increasingly industrialized, congested and demanding world.

The situation is out of control, but we don’t notice until prices at the gasoline pump spike. Presently, gas at $2.79 a gallon seems like a bargain. That speaks eloquently to how high prices have risen in the matter of just a few months. We all would have been squawking “price gouging!” three years ago if gasoline had exceeded even $2 a gallon. But the reality is that it’s still a relatively cheap fuel source.

And that’s good and bad. Good, because it makes the freedom of travel attainable for most Americans. Bad, because the affordability of gas lulls us into a false comfort and saps our motivation to gain control of the situation.

Ultimately, that control won’t come from the discovery of new oil reserves or from our influence in the Middle East. It can come only from good old American ingenuity. With our combination of natural resources, scientific inquiry and technical know-how — combined with a healthy dose of financial motivation — we can put alternative fuel development on the fast track.

In the short run, that means ethanol and biodiesel and hybrid cars. In the long run, it means cars powered by pure electricity or hydrogen or solar power or fuel sources that we haven’t even thought of yet.

And make no mistake about it, oil crises and high gasoline prices are not going away. We’re all in this together for the long run.