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Don’t Make It Worse

August 14, 2025 //
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How long can you sit on hold before you feel angry? Once that point comes, when the person on the other end finally gets to your conversation, how do you feel? How do you behave? What is that experience like for you? Okay… and what is that experience like for them?

…It is a Wednesday afternoon, and a busy work day. I’m on hold as I write this…

…I’m scheduling – or trying to – an important appointment for my Traveling Partner. I’ve been on hold for awhile now (22+ minutes), following our initial exploration of available dates/times. When the Scheduler returns to the call, she’s identified an available care provider in a good timeslot, on a day we can make work. I’m grateful. Is it aggravating to wait on hold for 23 minutes to complete this task? I guess, sure, (especially considering the dreadful hold music). On the other hand, not being a dick about it and just doing the needful in a pleasant (and accepting) way resulted in a better outcome – the appointment is made, and it fits in with other scheduled plans, and isn’t at some ridiculously inconvenient time, and the person on the phone was happily willing to help me (likely in part because I wasn’t penalizing that person for the circumstances). That’s as nearly ideal as scheduling an appointment can get, is it not? Why bother being angry over it? The time it took? The fact that it was necessary at all? That seems both ridiculous and petty. (Things take the time they take.)

…Patience is sometimes easier said than done, I know…

So many healthcare providers are trying to meet too much need with too few resources. Raising patient costs doesn’t close the gap created by too few doctors, nurses, technicians, specialists, or administrative and domestic staff needed to meet the need for care in a community. Anywhere. Lashing out at someone whose job is to be helpful is not the shortest path to the desired outcome, for sure. So, I generally try to do better than that when I have to be on the phone with someone (in spite of my dislike of being on the phone, generally).

…Or in slow checkout lines…

…Or queued for some event…

…Or trying to find parking in a busy area…

…Or when I’m frustrated by something but having to also deal with another human being about something else altogether unrelated…

…Or when I’m feeling anxious and other unrelated shit seems to be going wrong “for no reason”…

I guess I’m saying that when we make room to feel our feelings, then also make a committed (mindful)(self-aware)(disciplined) effort to also behave in accordance with our understanding of our “best self”, and treat others with kindness and patience, and take steps to manage the potential volatility of our emotional experience of the moment, everything that flows from that skillfully managed moment turns out better than it would have if we’d lashed out angrily, gone to pieces, or punished the people around us for the experience we are having. Long sentence, but it is what I was hoping to communicate as a single idea. It takes practice. I know my own results vary – so I am assuming yours likely will as well. Still, we do become what we practice.

…When I practice patience, I become more patient, in a broader variety of interactions…

I took those notes while I waited on hold. I made the appointment, and moved on with my day with very little aggravation. Turned out to be a pleasant afternoon. I woke up this morning, a little early, head kind of stuffy, but generally merry and feeling okay. It’s a new day. A new opportunity to practice the practices that create a good life and healthy interactions with the people in my life. A new cup of coffee.

Ah, but how to “practice” such things could be a question, eh? I’ve got good and bad news – and it’s the same news – the “how to” is “easy”, inasmuch as it is not complicated, but it is also quite “hard”, because there is a measure of trial and error, repetition, studious self-reflection, and failures that precede new attempts, involved in practicing such things. The tl;dr is that I’ve simply got to do the thing I wish to practice in the fashion I’d like to see myself handle such things – and if I fall short, I’ve got to recognize that, acknowledge it, accept it (and any consequences), understand that failure, and keep working on it – through all the unsuccessful well-meaning attempts, and the likely lack of consistant positive reinforcement from others (because, of course, they are having their own experience). Doing better than my current best is reliably always a “work in progress”, and it’s a process of incremental change over time, which can be somewhat unsatisfying. If you change what you practice though, change itself is inevitable.

We have so many opportunities to do better. We also have a bunch of opportunities to do worse – to escalate interactions that start going wrong, to inflame emotions beyond what is appropriate, to create conflict where none existed, to hurt each other when we could be lifting each other up. We have choices. Making an effort to choose wisely in each interaction, each day, is itself a choice. What are you really going for? Where does your path lead? How do you want to be remembered?

Sometimes it’s hard to wait in line (or, to wait at all) – but the payoff is the thing we’re waiting for, the wait time itself is largely irrelevant. Sometimes it’s hard to be patient in the face of silly questions or constant interruptions when we’re trying to get something done – but the quality of those interactions are often far more important in our lives that the thing we’re focused on doing. Sometimes it’s hard to listen considerately while someone is talking – even though we asked the question being answered, and wanted the information. These are all moments that could use our best self (and more practice). I sip my coffee and think about the many times I’ve made shit so much worse than it had to be. Being entirely human, I’m likely to do that again in the future at some point – but that isn’t going to stop me from doing my best each day to be the best version of the woman in the mirror I can imagine, with what I know now. I’ll simply keep practicing. We become what we practice.

Stick with the basics – it’s a great place to start.

Make it as difficult as you want, I guess. Complicate things as much as you think you must. Telling yourself it “wasn’t your fault” or that you “couldn’t help it” when things go awry doesn’t change the fact that you had (and made) choices. I personally think it is generally a poor choice to willfully make shit worse than it has to be. It’s worthwhile to practice doing better than that. I think back to the abrupt and very final end of my second long-term relationship (and one that felt, at that time, truly committed and “forever”) – it was over circumstances that spiraled around “making things worse”, until the last thread of my affection was stretched to a breaking point, and suddenly snapped. In mere hours I went from needing to “take a minute” to calm myself, to wanting to have “a couple days alone” to think things over, to “we’re done, I’m out of here”. It probably didn’t have to go like that, but it definitely did – and it was a choice. I sit reflecting on that for some minutes, and comparing that to the way my Traveling Partner and I typically work things out together (it’s very different, and I am grateful for the effort we both put into talking and listening).

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details, 2012

Choosing not to make things worse is both a choice and also a practice (if you make it one). I look out into the cloudy sky and think about emotional storms, and emotional choices, and how significant emotion is in this human experience. We are creatures of both emotion and reason, and we tend to lead with emotion, and respond to emotion before reason ever joins the conversation. That’s not a character flaw, it’s what we are. Our emotional intelligence is probably pretty critical to our success (and survival), overall (depending on how you define success, sure; my definition includes a reliable feeling of well-being and contentment).

…When I practice calm, I become a calmer person across a broader variety of experiences…

Developing one’s emotional intelligence is not as easy as saying it is an important detail. I get it. We don’t typically include such things in K-12 education (when it is most needed) in a structured informative way. Few of us grow up in families with even one emotionally intelligent adult in the household, based on my limited experience and casual observation. We don’t put much time (and probably no funding) into developing tools that can be shared with people who are seeking to do this work themselves. Like a lot of things, it’s complicated by various hidden agendas and resource limitations. When I began down this path, myself, the help I needed was sometimes not easy to find. I was fortunate to find a good therapist whose expertise was a good fit for my needs (and fortunate to be able to afford it at the time I needed it most). My reading list has some items specific to emotional intelligence (although we don’t all learn through reading). It is unfortunate that some of the best work on the topic is sometimes a bit of a slog to get through, requiring what feels like “real work”. (If I were pressed to make specific recommendations, I’d probably point to Buddha’s Brain, and Emotional Intimacy for the studious, and The Four Agreements for those looking for a quick introduction with illuminating allegories.)

…You’ll have to walk your own path, and do your own work, this is not a negotiable detail…

It’s a journey with a lot of stairs to climb…

I sit with my coffee and my thoughts awhile longer. How did I even get to this place, this morning? Oh, right, reflecting on the importance of being patient (and pleasant) while on hold trying to make an appointment for my beloved. I chuckle to myself, aware how valuable those skills are in so many day-to-day interactions. My results vary. I keep practicing. I glance at the time – it’s already time to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Lighting Up The New Dark Age

August 11, 2025 //
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I’m sipping my coffee on a routine (for most values of “routine”) Monday. I consider checking the news feed for whatever might be genuinely newsworthy, but decide against it; I don’t feel like wading through the bullshit sponsored content, partisan lies and ill-intentioned spin, and clickbait intended to grab my attention while some unknown other grabs my data. None of that shit rises to the level of “news”, and I definitely don’t need to be told (again) that billionaires are self-serving, or that “the government” is corrupt.

There’s a “heat warning” for this area, over the next day or two. This is a type of weather warning that did not exist when I was a kid. This kind of heat, in a lot of places around the country (and the world) did not exist when I was a kid. For me, personally, this defines “climate change” – the heat. Hotter summer days and more of them, in an area that once laughed about summer’s lack of warmth in “June-uary” and enjoyed fairly frequent drenching rain, even in summertime; there’s a lot less laughter about that, now, and a lot less summer rain.

I’m finding the outcomes of the terrible (and cruel) decision-making of the current US administration pretty disheartening, and thoroughly objectionable. From refusing to regulate AI or protect creator IP, from censorships to tariffs, this government is succeeding… in bringing about a new dark age. What to do about that, though? I sip my coffee and think about how to bring the light of the world to the dark future unfolding right now… I probably sound overly dramatic. Still, here we all are, eh? So…what to do? I have some thoughts…

  1. Read (and buy) actual bound books written exclusively by human authors. Talk about them.
  2. Consume content (while the internet is still available at all) created by human creators. Share that.
  3. Enjoy, support, and buy real (original) art created by living human artists – and buy it, where you can, directly from the artist(s).
  4. Learn practical skills and buy the tools required to do the things. Especially skills that don’t rely entirely on electricity, internet connectivity, and the existence of the power grid – people with useful skills always have a place within their community. Learn to make things.
  5. Be curious and seek information (ideally from vetted sources with reliably recognized expertise).
  6. If you have land (even enough for a small garden, or containers on a patio) grow food – particularly heirloom varieties unburdened by patents, or reproductive restrictions.
  7. Connect with other real human beings in IRL places as frequently as you can – and have real conversations about real world concerns and circumstances, and current events and find common ground together. Yes, even with strangers.
  8. Practice good self-care – for yourself – and practice kindness and compassion – for the rest of the world.
  9. Spend your limited financial resources in your local community on goods and services made by local people, wherever/whenever you are able (or can afford) to do so.
  10. Explicitly communicate your expectations, your “wishlist”, and your “demands” or dissatisfaction to your elected representatives – even if they are not of your party or don’t share your beliefs. Do it often.
  11. Lift each other up. (There are already more than too many people and agencies out there in the world tearing people down.)

Don’t let your voice be silenced. Consider your options, and do your best to make choices that will tend to create the world you wish to see. Don’t let your fears or insecurities, or your petty biases or hostility to this or that cause or belief system cause you to become a monster that you can’t face in the mirror each morning (or, you know, don’t become a monster at all). Choose, each day, to be the person you most want to be, regardless of how vile and terrible the world around you seems to be becoming. Who you are is about you, not them. Do you – for you.

I guess the tl;dr is… don’t just bitch about the shit going on around you, make choices that are different than that, and speak truth to power. (I say that like it’s easy – it is not; it requires constant effort and practice.)

I breathe, exhale, and relax. The landscapers are already mowing this morning, likely due to the extreme heat expected later. If ICE showed up right now and started hassling those landscapers… would I take any action? Would you? It’s a worthwhile thought exercise. You should probably know what your values really are, there. What would you want of bystanders if ICE came for you? (Because, you know, at some point they may – we’re living in dark times.)

Where do you really stand in this new dark age? Here’s a test of your values and ethics that you may find interesting… a simple thought exercise. If you were offered a job (just a salaried job, no guarantees for continued employment) for millions of dollars in annual salary, with the explicit understanding that the results of your work would be directly responsible for putting thousands of people in poverty, reducing the quality of life of many millions of others, and likely result in a notable number of actual deaths…but you would be lifted out of poverty (for as long as you held that job) and live in comfort with your family, debt free with the world’s goods at your fingertips – would you take that job? I don’t need to know your answer – but you do. Are you one of the good guys, or just another self-serving asshole prepared to destroy the world so you can have a [fucking yacht, or Lamborghini, or whatever your symbol of fantastic wealth happens to be]? It’s an important question, and whether you answer it in words or not, the consequences of your actions and choices will tell the world what your values really are.

Yeesh. So grim and grounded this morning. lol I sip my coffee grateful to have a moment of time to explore thought exercises, and questions of ethics and values. The whole picture of my own adult life has not been characterized by wise ethical decision-making, or consistently living my values well. It’s been a very human journey, and when I set off down this path I not only didn’t know where it was leading me, I didn’t have a clear understanding of who is this “woman I most want to be”, in the first place. I suffered from a lack of honest self-reflection, and a lack of useful questions to light my way. Sometimes I still find myself “wandering in the dark” – and there are certainly those among us who would greatly prefer that we all “wander in the dark” without finding a sense of ourselves or understanding what we value, and what we want to see in the world. It is sometimes possible to vanquish those monsters simply by shining a light on the path.

I finish my coffee hoping to succeed in being my best self today. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to do my best on another day. It’s time to begin again…

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, art and the artist, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Gratitude Wins Over Anger

July 29, 2025 //
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My morning has had a difficult beginning. I dislike driving while crying, and it frankly isn’t safe. I’m doing my best in this moment to put the difficult start to the day behind me, and maybe figure out a new beginning, or some kind of reset to turn things around. For the moment, I’m very human, and seem to be mostly made of tears and disappointment, which is annoying (and predictably temporary).

Stop. Breathe. Begin again.

This morning’s sunrise was lovely, I guess. I didn’t really see it with my eyes and my whole attention; I was mired in emotional bullshit and the sorrows and drama of humans being human. This morning that whole mess sources within my own home and relationships, so no opportunity to wax philosophically about perspective and blah blah blah – just this personal struggle to deal with it as skillfully as I am able, which, right now, seems like “not very”.

…I’m pretty reliably saddened and hurt by my Traveling Partner being angry with me, and even more so when it seems like something I have little control over at all ( in this case, his allergies) as with this morning…

Emotion and reason; it’s a complicated balance.

I sigh quietly, and try to get my tears under control because it is a work day, and I have meetings to attend like “a proper grown-up”. (It’s hard to care, frankly; these tears, and my partner’s feelings, matter so much more in this moment, and that is the truth of emotion and reason; emotion matters more.) It sucks that my Traveling Partner woke choking with allergies and struggling to breathe. I wish I knew how to help with that in some truly effective way. Subjectively, I feel that I’m doing all I can, already. If I knew more to do, I’d do it. Every time the thought of his discomfort, and his subsequent angry words as I left for work, surfaces in my consciousness again the tears well up. Not helpful. I reflect on the unpleasant moment we shared. I could have done things differently. Feeling provoked to anger, myself, by “the unfairness of it all” on top of his angry words led to me leaving the house angry and crying, and to slamming the door on my way out. Childish and neither helpful nor necessary. I feel foolish over my loss of patience and kindness. I could definitely have done better. I don’t respond well to angry words or raised voices, most especially when I’ve just woken up. I don’t say that to excuse bad behavior – there is no real excuse – I’m just putting things in context and working to cut myself (and my Traveling Partner) some slack. Emotions are sometimes difficult to manage skillfully (for anyone), and this is true whether I’m being snarled at first thing in the morning, or whether my partner is struggling to breathe, and as a result short-tempered and easily provoked, himself. It all just sucks very much.

…I miss living alone sometimes, it seems “easier” (for some values of “easy”, under some circumstances)…

A bumblebee and a rose; they need each other.

The tears come and go. I’d rather not deal with this shit all day, but if I’m going to get past it, I’ll have to do the work to restore my lost perspective, myself. My Traveling Partner’s anger reliably hurts so much. Fuck, I hope he’s able to get his breath back – more than anything else, I want him to be comfortable and content and able to do the things he wants to do, whether that’s work or rest or whatever. Fuck my feelings! In context they are not the bigger deal. In spite of my tears and hurt feelings, I wish him only well, and suddenly I find myself wondering if I should have stayed? Did he need to go to the ER? I reacted to his frustration and anger so quickly, that I didn’t take time to assess the situation with greater care. I feel a little ashamed by that, then recall the messages he DM’d me after I’d left the house. I guess if he had needed to go to the ER, he’d have said something then.

Work. Shit. I struggle with regaining perspective on the day and getting my head into my work. Very human. The emotions “matter” more, at least for now. I breathe, and try to let the morning’s difficult beginning fall away, to focus on work. I’ll get there at some point. For now it’s hard, and I keep practicing. My head is stuffy from crying, making it tougher to breathe, and I’m reminded of what my Traveling Partner was – may still be – going through, himself. I wish I could help, somehow. My coffee is insipid, and my head aches. My tinnitus is loud in my ears. My eyes feel puffy. I sigh again, and keep working on “pulling myself together”. I hope my partner is doing better than I am, right now. What a shitty start to the day, for both of us.

…”This too will pass”, I remind myself…

“Orange Honey” – just a picture of a lovely rose blooming in my garden. I try to distract myself from the moment, to begin again.

It sometimes takes more work than I expect, to be the person I most want to be. My temper sometimes catches me by surprise. I can do better. I need more practice, I guess. Certainly there’s no point taking my Traveling Partner’s anger over struggling to breathe “personally” – we all need to be able to breathe, and being deprived of that ability is (from my limited experience) quite terrifying. It’s a short step to anger from there. I’m also certain that in a more rational moment (when he can breathe comfortably), he likely wouldn’t put the blame for his allergies on me personally, and recognizes that I would not ever deliberately do anything that could prevent him from breathing – at least, I hope so. I wish I could do more to bring him comfort and ease his suffering, though. Right now, I mean. I’m vexed by feeling so helpless.

I sigh again. I’m glad I have the office to myself at this hour; no one sees me crying. I have a chance to get my shit together and my emotions under control. There’s work to do, and a full calendar of meetings. My results may vary, but it is definitely time to begin again. I begin with gratitude; it’s hard to hold onto anger when I feel grateful, and I am grateful (very) for the many things my Traveling Partner does for me (and us). Just looking around at my desk, there are so many signs of his affection… this is not “hopeless”, it’s just a moment. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I can only do my best, and the path isn’t always an easy one, but it is mine. I have choices. I can begin again like a sunrise on a new day – it’s enough. We become what we practice.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

The Juice, the Sauce, the Tea

July 18, 2025 //
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Moments in life are worth savoring. We don’t know when some occasion will be the last of such things. Being present in each experience tends to make a more detailed, more lasting memory, and a stronger impression on our implicit sense of the quality of our life. That’s been my own experience, at least. Falling headlong through experiences without consideration, thought, choice, or awareness, doomscrolling through the days, shortens our time and gives us little to recall later. I sip my coffee and think on that. I also think about how precious and meaningful it is to me that my beloved Traveling Partner reads my blog. I feel “heard” when he comments on something I have written.

Last night my partner recommended a video, we watched it together. He was inspired to share it because he found that it connected with some of my recent writing. I am moved and grateful that he cares so much, and gives such thought to my reflections in these moments when we are not together. I will say, if you’re prone to existential dread, this video may provoke it. It is, however, interesting and definitely does connect to some of my thoughts on this fragile mortal experience, and what remains behind once we’ve moved on.

The point though, really, is that wandering about with our device in our hands, relying on our GPS to get anywhere, counting on calendar reminders to remember anything we plan, seeking guidance through prompts in an LLM, doomscrolling endlessly through timeless hours of eye candy, click-bait, memes, and what passes for “news” in the age of modern media, and generally behaving as if we are puppets without agency is almost certainly a very poor choice for the survival of humanity long-term, in addition to being just a shit way to live life. As poor a choice as that run-on sentence you just finished reading.

Did you know there are already people who feel they are losing their ability to think and reason because of their use of “AI” (it isn’t actually artificial intelligence, at all). Brain rot is a real thing happening to real people. Did you know there are people who have begun actually worshiping “AI” (LLMs) as gods? No kidding, this is a thing people are doing. I mean, certainly an LLM has demonstrable reality in our worldly existence, and certainly we do create our gods, but this seems like potentially a very bad idea likely to do real world harms, doesn’t it? What a world. Maybe do at least some of your own thinking? Your literal survival may depend on those skills at some point (almost certainly). Read a book. Hell, read a book about AI if you’re so interested. Read several. Go outside, you know – on your own, out in the actual world, seeing sights, listening to the sound of birdsong and breezes, and see where your path may take you. Look at an actual paper map. Study it and gain understanding of how the symbols represent the world. Take in the information without voice-over narration. Look at a flower up close. Watch wildlife exist in actual outdoor spaces – real creatures, alive, and aware. Breathe fresh air. Feel the sunshine or the rain on your skin. Have a conversation with a random live human being. Try out your social skills before they erode completely, leaving you unable to ask simple directions to a known location or unable to enjoy a party.

…Remember parties?..

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I had arrived home last night feeling pretty okay. The commute wasn’t all that bad (I took a route that, although busier, had no construction and thus less stress). I was feeling sort of cross fairly quickly, though. No fault of anyone else in the household, and I did my best to keep my bullshit in check (with good success). I just needed some quiet alone time; it’s been a ridiculously busy “people-filled” week, full of conversations, meetings, and interactions, and I had started to have that “everyone wants a piece of me” feeling. I felt a bit overwhelmed and encroached upon, which seriously conflicted with my desire to enjoy my Traveling Partner’s companionship at the end of a long (busy) day. He gently suggested maybe a nice shower, and I had been thinking maybe some video games – but the idea of either honestly just felt like “more work”, at least initially. He was right about the shower; it did a lot to put me in a better frame of mind, and after preparing dinner (cold sesame noodles with chicken) I felt more like playing video games for a little while. The evening ended well and I got over my bullshit and enjoyed the time with my partner. Self-care is an important and worthwhile practice.

Life being lived. Did you notice? Not one word about the news. My device mostly sat idle. We listened to music. Watched a couple videos. Hung out in the quiet good-natured merry vibe of a happy family at home. Dinner was yummy, though I think I could have done some things a little differently and gotten a better result. I didn’t use a device or an “AI” – the recipe is in an actual bound cookbook. I wrote notes in the margin while I was cleaning up dinner, so next time I have my own thoughts waiting for me when I make this again, some other time. Pen and paper – my vote for humanity’s greatest invention. (Reading and writing would likely be my opinion for the most valuable skills not directly related to survival.) Later in the evening a friend who lives on our street stopped by to visit awhile. All very human, life being lived. Awake. Aware. Present.

I’m just going to say it; ChatGPT not only is not a god, it’s not even your friend. (Neither are the tech bros who developed it on stolen intellectual property with personal profit as their primary goal.) This is true of any LLM currently in existence. The 2025 version of “AI” is not intelligent, has no cognition, does not reason, can not feel emotions or sensations, and is 100% dependent on the content it is trained on by human beings capable of actually doing, feeling, understanding, thinking, imagining, extrapolating, and really experiencing life. Why bother asking ChatGPT to do for you what you could do for yourself? Short-term efficiency? What about the long-term consequences of allowing your own skills to atrophy (or never allowing them to develop through use and practice and effort)?

Gudetama – the lazy egg. A meme, a character, a metaphor.

Life is sweet. Suck the juice out of every delicious fruitful moment! Choose your path. Choose your adventure. Try your skills (and your luck). Live. Isn’t having your own experience – and your own thoughts about it – more worthy of your human potential than relying on some predigested homogenous content built primarily on out-of-date information, provided to you in response to a prompt that you potentially took from someone else?? Be you. No LLM can do that for you. No response to a ChatGPT prompt can guide you as well as you can guide yourself through study, practice, and endless curiosity.

Are you still reading? I’m impressed. 😀 Thank you for indulging me. Sometimes I feel like an “old man yelling at clouds” or as if I am “screaming into the void“, when I rant about this stuff. Life is so precious and short, and our abilities need practice to maintain them. We’re pretty fancy primates – but we are primates, and some of what makes us so special is very much a “use it or lose it” proposition. Don’t diminish yourself through dependency on AI. Please. You are so much more than that. We become what we practice. What are you practicing?

It’s your choice. The journey is the destination; choose your path wisely. Isn’t it time to begin again?

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

On the Matter of Opinion

July 14, 2025 //
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People can be so matter-of-fact about their opinions. We treat them as facts. We get so spun up over differences between our own opinion and the opinion of others, we forget that relationships and people matter more. Many of us express opinions – strongly – for which we have limited actual knowledge or data with which to support some opinion that is often little better than a sound-bite we snatched from a social media feed, and become pushy when people we value disagree, in spite of our lack of any actual knowledge. It’s messy. Humans are complicated, and we regularly over-simplify what is happening around us, seeking to reduce every discussion to a very basic either/or dilemma, instead of embracing uncertainty and nuance and approaching the world with curiosity – and compassion.

Why am I on about this, this morning? Because the media and big corporate advertisers and our own elected officials are constantly trying to manipulate our opinions, not to get at “the truth”, but primarily for profit. Are you being bamboozled by bullshit? I saw a headline in my feed this morning that read “we asked 5 chefs what their favorite vanilla ice cream is, and they all said this” and laughed out loud. In what way is a sample size of 5 at all significant? It isn’t. That wasn’t news – it was barely sponsored content (and almost certainly AI generated) – it’s just an unoriginal narrative intended to sell a particular brand of ice cream, nothing more. Five people think it’s the best vanilla ice cream? Out of how many people who eat ice cream? Insignificant. This isn’t even the most ridiculous example of the mockery of truth on display for everyone to see (and potentially be mislead by).

If you want to see an example of massive manipulation of public opinion, I suggest the ongoing saga of the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, which more and more looks (to me) like a very direct actual no-foolin’ cover-up of possible past crimes of our current president. No kidding – why else would he fight so very hard to redirect our attention? Ghislaine Maxwell went to prison for 20 years for “enticement of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls” – for Jeffrey Epstein and his friends. Doesn’t look like anyone but Ghislaine is going to see a conviction for their part in the crimes against Epstein’s victims. I promise you, he wasn’t the only person abusing those girls – there are too many photos of too many parties, and too many people, and too many stories. Trump himself is in too many pictures with Epstein, friendly, partying, laughing together, for him to be immune from scrutiny. They had history together socially. So. Here we all are, being lied to and mislead. (My opinion.)What are you going to do about it? Anything at all? Or is it just easier to allow the rapist-in-chief to redirect your attention?

Hollyhocks blooming. This is not an opinion.

I sip my coffee and let it go. People are what they are. We excuse and justify the bad acts of people we favor, but seek to harshly penalize anyone we “other” and look on with disdain. I don’t get how rapists get a pass, but immigrants willing to work hard seeking a better life for their families are criminalized. It’s a very peculiar thing, in my opinion. Our justice system and our government are broken and we don’t seem competent to fix them. Hell, we can’t even take care of the planet we live on, or our own sick or poor or elderly. We’re too busy chasing some illusion of happiness and scapegoating anyone we think may be in our way, while we disagree over who deserves what amount of pay for what sorts of labor and pretending that billionaires “earned” what they have.

I breath, exhale, and relax, and let it go – again. I’ve got my opinions. Clearly. You’ve got yours. That’s a certainty. Maybe humanity will eventually figure this shit out – or go extinct, another failed species, too stupid to survive. Wow. That sounds grim. I look out the window at the clear blue summer sky and sigh. I’m human, too. I’ve got my opinions, some of them suck and are wildly ill-informed, others demonstrate my potential as a human being in a more positive way. Sharing them is mostly pretty fucking pointless; most of humanity is standing around waiting to talk – or to be told what their opinion is by someone they assume knows more than they do, themselves. I’m not even in a bad mood this morning… I’m just annoyed by a headline that suggests a sample size of 5 matters at all, and I’m disappointed by the painful awareness that many people won’t even give that a second thought; they’ll just go buy the ice cream.

Potted geranium blooming. Also not an opinion.

My coffee is pleasant, well-made, icy. I slept well and deeply and woke feeling rested. Hell, I’m not in any pain right at the moment, none at all – not even my almost-ever-present headache! I take a moment to be present in this moment, aware of my lack of pain, savoring this experience long enough to really enjoy it. I don’t doubt it will pass, at some point, that’s the way moments work – but here, now, in this moment? I feel pretty good. It’s a lovely day. There are no bombs dropping here. No annoying voices in the background. The workday ahead looks routine and the work in front of me manageable. The bills are paid. The pantry is stocked. I’ve got a full tank of gas. I’ve got a Traveling Partner who loves me dearly and does a lot to make feel feel appreciated and wrapped in this enduring love we share. He makes all sorts of little things to delight me and make life better. I’ve got a nice little house. My stepson does everything he knows how to do, most days, to be helpful, to deepen his emotional intelligence, and to improve his “life skills” such that he’s a valued family member in our household – no small thing. My commute was pleasant and easy, in spite of there being much more traffic (due to timing). The office AC is working efficiently.

It is a better experience to appreciate the view than to be angry about the traffic.

There’s much to be grateful for, and I sit with those thoughts awhile. It’s unhealthy to stew in aggravation, bitterness, disappointment, and vexation with “humanity” – and it is a corrosive practice, generally, that never got me anywhere good. We become what we practice. Practice bitterness and cynicism, and life becomes characterized by the terrible things going on in the world, chronically disappointing, and we lose hope. Practice gratitude – authentically – and we become appreciative of the good things in our lives, and more easily able to be resilient in the face of terrible times, and potentially more able to find solutions, because we are clear-headed, and grounded in the things we know work. Or something. It works for me. I share these thoughts with you, because maybe you’ll find value here (for some values of “value”)… or be inspired to do more/better, or simply to begin again and make some small change for the better in your life. I smile to myself at the thought; these are my experiences, and also my opinions. Maybe they’re worth something, maybe they aren’t. I don’t even know that it matters to anyone but me…but I can hope.

I glance at the time. The clock is ticking. Are you ready to begin again? I am.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, breathe, Despair, Fiction, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, turning 60, War and News of War, Words
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