Write or Wrong. Or...

       There is much going on in the world today, and more and more of us (it seems) are beginning to voice our opinions, whether it's at dinner tables, town halls, or national protests.  Often the conversation remains civil, unless you're one of those GOP Congress folk now taking their meetings virtual simply to avoid confrontations with their constituents (wait, isn't that their job?).  And the question remains, what makes you upset?  Is it the plummeting markets and that fading hope of retirement; or the debacle that was Signal Gate, or Netanyahu's IDF bombing and burying aide and ambulance workers and their vehicles to hide evidence (wrote The Guardian; videos of the incident and more at The Rocket Medic), or the tariffs increasing the prices of goods, or that despite nearly a million people taking part in the Hands Off protests around the world a few days ago, Trump was in Florida playing golf?  And nobody in Congress seems to care as if anything Trump says is to be followed without question.  Perhaps it's time to change the party name from RePUBLICans to ReTRUMPicans.  The point of all this is to ask yourself, how does this make you feel?  Some of my more conservative anti-left friends feel that all is quite right in the world as they watch Fox News and read the Epoch Times; while friends of mine on the other side feel increasingly frustrated as their 401k balances wipe out 2 years of gains while zealously watching NPR and MSNBC.  Emotions are high on both sides, and bubbling higher even for those in the middle ground who many be looking for a way to express their angst...so what better time than now to write down what you're feeling!

Protesters down NY's 5th Avenue; photo: Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

      A few people have said that they're now thinking of starting a blog or a journal, or maybe even writing a book.  And in fact, a few of them have actually done so, including my grand-nephew* (truth be told, he's been quite prolific, writing posts every 4 days or so, and often from the viewpoint of a veteran but adding much historical background).  But wait, blogging is dead say the pundits, falling into history's dust pile along with print magazines and daily newspapers (although I was surprised to read that cassette tapes were making a comeback, sort of like hearing that bell-bottom "flared" pants may once again be the newest fashion trend, but please say it ain't so).  But with so much going on, who cares what "they" (whoever "they" are) think?   As the classic anthropologist of black history, Zora Neale Hurston wrote in her book, Dust Tracks On A Road: Like the dead-seeming cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me.  Time and place have had their say.  So you will have to know something about the time and place where I came from, in order that you may interpret the incidents and directions of my life.  What I try to convey to those who ask is that whatever you're feeling now, especially if they're strong emotions --anger, grief, joy, excitement-- will not be the same in a day, or a week, or a month.  Those feelings now are real, and sometimes it helps to just get them down on paper (or digitally).  As poet and author James Crews wrote in his book, Unlocking the Heart, we're in: ...those days when simply opening the door and exposing yourself to other people feels painful, almost impossible.  We are bound to feel overwhelmed at times by this noisy, demanding world of ours...slow down and step out of anxiety for at least a few minutes...I never feel worse after journaling or writing down my experience, getting the dark thoughts out of my head and onto the page, creating something new, whether out of joy or pain...Sometimes writing becomes a kind of prayer in and of itself, and whether we know it or not, our minds and bodies are slowly altered by the attentive act of letting words flow through us...when we can't engage in our own self-care, when we can't lift ourselves out of despair, sometimes the world will do it for us. 

      One of my friends used to volunteer his surgical skills at Doctors Without Borders, often doing so in dangerous areas just outside of war zones.  Nightmares apparently haunt him, perhaps the memories of seeing the injury and death that happened to what are more often than not, young children.  He sails alone on the ocean for weeks and months, perhaps to clear his head (if possible).  My grand/great nephew, the one now expressing his own feelings about things, is an instructor for paramedics but still roams the streets saving lives.  For both of them, I often wonder how many stories and thoughts and horrors must swirl away in their heads every day, having witnessed or having seen sights that most of us are fortunate enough to never be exposed to.  As a retired police friend used to tell me about his job, "We are the garbage collectors of society, cleaning up the streets at night so you never have to see them."  Police, soldiers, victims of abuse, hospital workers...or outer space.  Here's how author Samantha Harvey pictured it in her book, Orbital:  Sometimes they wish for a cold stiff wind, blustery rain, autumn leaves, reddened fingers, muddy legs, a curious dog, a startled rabbit,...They cling to their twenty-four-hour clock because it's all the feeble little time-bound body knows -- sleep and bowels and all that is leashed to it.  But the mind goes free within the first week.  The mind is in a dayless freak zone, surfing earth's hurtling horizon.  Day is here, and then they see night come upon them like the shadow of a cloud racing over a wheat field.  Forty-five minutes later here comes day again, stampeding across the Pacific...At first on their missions they each miss their families, sometimes so much that it seems to scrape out their insides; now, out of necessity, they've come to see that their family is this one here, these others who know the things they know and see the things they see, with whom they need no words of explanation.  When they get back how will they even begin to say what happened to them, who and what they were?

Alfred E (lon) Neuman/MAD Magazine

      If you're in those and many other positions --and for those many others tossed into the pile, from rape victims to those involved in a serious accident or stroke that may leave them paralyzed-- how do you relate to anyone not in your line of work, or has not got through what you did?  Or do you?  I continue to feel that one way to empty some of those thoughts is to write them down, for this would be you telling your story, your feelings and what you feel matters, whether from your past or from your view of the world today.  A form of therapy.  Here is how David Brooks put it: Therapists are essentially story editors.  People come to therapy because their stories are not working, often because they get causation wrong.  They blame themselves for things that are not their fault, or they blame others for things that are.  By going over life stories again and again, therapists can help people climb out of the deceptive rumination spirals they have been using to narrate themselves.  They can help patients begin to imaginative reconstruction of their lives.  Frequently the goal of therapy is to help the patient tell a more accurate story, a story in which the patient is seen to have power over their own life.  They craft a new story in which they can see themselves exercising control.

      Thomas L. Friedman wrote about meeting a parking lot attendant who asked Friedman for help with his blog, which got Friedman --a noted author of best-selling books-- wondering: ...I kept thinking about this guy.  How did he get into blogging?  What did it say about our world that such an obviously educated man works as a parking cashier by day but has his own blog by night.  The attendant answered back: ...there are a good number of issues that bother me back home in my country of origin, Ethiopia, on which I would like to reflect my personal perspective...All my effort is geared towards making it possible for all peoples of Ethiopia to be proud of whatever nationality they belong to...I feel like I am a little bit empowered at this time.  I have a deep satisfaction from what I am doing.  I am doing something positive that helps my country.  Added Friedman as an aside to himself: Maybe you have to be a foreigner from a divided land working in an underground parking garage to see today's America as a country where arguments are bringing people closer, but I loved his optimism.  Then he wrote back to the attendant: Every column or blog has to either turn on a lightbulb in your reader's head --illuminate an issue in a way that will inspire them to look at it anew-- or stoke an emotion in your reader's heart that prompts them to feel or act more intensely or differently about an issue. 

Editorial cartoon by Matt Davies/Newsday

              Editorial cartoon by Matt Davies/Newsday

     Only you know what talents and fears and emotions lie within you so first ask yourself: who would you be writing this for?  Is it just for you to see, or perhaps for only a few friends or family members?  Or are you on social sites such as Facebook and NextDoor and feel that you want a larger audience?  Whatever your goal, each and every one of you should start bringing out your talents and give your deepest thoughts a voice.  Getting online is easy and painless, and for the most part, free.  And who knows, you may find that beyond the political or emotional or editorial, that people are indeed interested in learning more about something, anything: how to "milk" poisonous snakes, or how to make a dandelion casserole (just look at how many subjects are covered on YouTube).  Or maybe you're seriously depressed and introspective and shy and yet have SO much you want to say, even if you feel so, so alone (and unfortunately, Trump's budget cuts have eliminated many "help" lines, even for veterans although many psychologists are stepping up and offering low cost or free help**).  Maybe there's another person or an entire population out there that feels exactly the same, even if they would never write back (in all of my years of writing these posts, I have received a grand total of 28 comments).  At the very least you'd see that number of "views" pop up, a 1 or perhaps an 11, people who peeked at what you wrote.  Maybe it would take a day or a week, or a month; and maybe that view was a mistake or a typo.  But maybe, just maybe, your words would hit them so hard that you would have saved their life for another day.  You'll never know.  But bit by bit, you will have shed a small piece of that thing inside of you, that tiny splinter or speck of mental dust that blocked other thoughts from coming in.  And little by little you may just find that more and more of that part of you wants to both get out and to come in, and that it will grow easier and easier.  Who knows, you may have a book in there...or just a few scribblings to throw in a campfire.  It doesn't matter.  You got it out, whatever it was.  Random thoughts, harbored jealousies, wishes, dreams, painful truths or wild fantasies.  It's now there, as much or as little as you wanted to expose or exclude.  It may give you a sense of renewal, or expectation, or excitement, or fear.  In other words, whatever you jot down may be terrific, or it may be nonsense or junk.  But at least it'll be out of there, gone from your head, dispensed with, and now physically visible in front of you, something which you could return to instead of thinking, "what was that idea, or that melody?"  As Mr. Rogers noted:  Some days, doing "the best we can" may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect --on any front-- and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.

     I'll emphasize again what you already know, that what you're feeling now you may never feel again.  Maybe you've been made a CEO, or have become homeless; maybe you've just had a baby, or just lost a baby; maybe you're in the best shape of your life, or have suffered your first heart attack; maybe you're so happy that everything is going right, or that everything is going wrong.  There are a million things, and a million places in between in how you're feeling.  But those emotions are here now, unfiltered, raw, itching to get out.  Maybe you feel that you're the only person in the world to feel this way, and maybe you are...but maybe you're not.  I have no idea what it feels like to be severely depressed, or to be paralyzed, or to fly a fighter jet, or to dance to exhaustion in a nightclub.  Tell me, and others.  How can a book or a song or a movie touch one person so deeply and yet not stir anything in another?  Who knows, but they keep coming.  Books and films and songs and plays and paintings and pictures and blogs keep appearing, each made by a person or persons wanting to reach out and touch something inside of us, to let the world know that this is what they felt was worth taking their time for, and that maybe you'd want a peek at what that was.  There is stuff IN there, in your head.  As University of Michigan psycholgist and author Ethan Kross wrote in his book, Chatter: Humans weren't made to hold fast to the present all the time.  That's just not what our brains evolved to do...As naturally as we breathe, we "decouple" from the here and now, our brains transporting us to past events, imagined scenarios, and other internal musings.  This tendency is so fundamental it has a name: our "default state."  It is the activity our brain automatically reverts to when not otherwise engaged, and often even when we are otherwise engaged.  You've no doubt noticed your own mind wander, as if of its own volition, when you were supposed to be focusing on a task.  We are perpetually slipping away from the present into the parallel, nonlinear world of our minds, involuntarily sucked back "inside" on a minute-to-minute basis.  In light of this, the expression "the life of the mind" takes on new meaning: Much of our life is the mind.  So, what often happens when we slip away?  We talk to ourselves.  And we listen to what we say...

     Author Alice Oseman, who wrote a story at age 17, got an agent the next year, and was published by age 19, wrote this in The Children's Writers' Yearbook 2025: Finding the confidence to try is not easy, especially now.  We are living in an age of information but also of convenience, a time where it is so much easier to look outwards and find distraction rather than look within our own hopes and dreams.  Acting upon these hopes and dreams requires grit, tenacity, perseverance and usually some boring admin, but it is ultimately an act of self-love.  Going for your dreams and trying your best is just powerful, no matter the outcome.  If there's one thing that I'd love for you to take away from my tale of teenage authordom, it's this: when it comes to dreaming of creative success, the only person who can make that happen is you.  You must take the first step, and then the steps that follow.  You must fight for your work, advocate for your talent, educate yourself and never give up.  Do not bow to self-doubt, to comparison, to distraction or to 'what-ifs.'  You can make it happen.  But only if you try.  Author Katherine Arden best-selling story of WW I, noted that: ...it is worth mentioning that the largest American military cemetery abroad does not overlook the landing beaches at Normandy.  Rather, that dubious distinction goes to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, France.  This vast stretch of graves contains American dead from the First World War.  Who would know that --other than those who survived to have relatives-- unless someone wrote about it?  Or this from sixth-grader Grady Kunce, who started his own post on Substack: My name is Grady Kunce and I'm in the sixth grade.  On my Substack, I will talk about politics, but in a different way than you may see them.  I’ll be talking about them through the eyes of me and my friends, the eyes of middle schoolers...I want my voice to be heard and people to understand what it is like to be a kid while these events occur.  I also want people to look at these things from a kid’s point of view, which may help you understand what your child is going through and maybe just make you look at it differently.  Think of the variety of ages and genders and nationalities feeling strong enough to get their feelings out there...and maybe you may be another person ready to bring equally impactful words to the world. 

     So why do I keep writing?  I find that I am fortunate enough to have a variety of friends: some who abhor having a gun in the home to those who have so many guns they have lost count; some who are either so far right or so far left that even hinting at politics is verboten; some who are glued to the news and others (like me) who briefly glimpse at a line or two (no energy vampires for this lad); and some who are devout Christians, Mormons, Jews while others are Buddhists or atheists.  Good people all.  They are friends, and remain friends.  I have to look at them, their differences, their actions, their beliefs, as I do myself...with wonder.  Again from James Crews: ...there remain so many mysteries we can't quite put into words.  What is the force that animates us...We may never understand the machinery that keeps us alive for as long as possible, conducting this unseen symphony of signals, these bright freeways that conduct so much traffic through us, though we often don't feel a thing.  Yet we can keep holding this one imperfect body we are given as a never-ending source of wonder.  Underneath it all, I continue to believe that good wins out, even as history's pendulum appears to be swinging us back into darker times (don't even touch that third-rail of nukes).  So I keep searching for more writings, more words, more voices, including the compilation of writings from the group Upworthy: At Upworthy, we're on a mission to share the joy, beauty, and depth of the human experience with every person on the planet.  Every day, we amplify stories proving there's good in the world: you just need to know where to look...To us, this means bringing people together, being vulnerable, lifting one another up, reflecting love, seeing the best in humankind, standing up for what's right, and making people smile, laugh, and cry.  Upworthy is a gathering place, online and off, for all those who champion the core belief that people are inherently good, and that we have more in common than not.  Founded in 2012, it reaches 100 million people a month.  After reading that, what better incentive than for you to start writing...     

P.S.  And if you simply want to drift off into a fantastical world for a bit, watch the 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with a lineup of stars, many of whom were just making their way into the world of showbiz: Andrew Garfield, Johnny Depp, Colin Ferrell, Jude Law, Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Lily Cole, and Heath Ledger (he would not live to see the finished film).  Depp donated his entire earnings to Ledger's then-2-month old daughter (others contributed their profits).  Wrote Virgin Radio UK: Reports claimed at the time that Ledger hadn't updated his will to include the little girl, so the actors' combined effort was a kind-hearted gesture to help ease some pressure on Matilda’s mother, fellow actor Michelle Williams.  Speaking about the late Aussie star, Pirates of the Caribbean icon Depp called him a “thundering and ungovernable", and added that he was "the only player out there breathing heavy down the back of every established actor’s neck”.  Matilda is now 18 years old and lives in Brooklyn with her mother.  When asked about the film's implication to not take the easy road in life, creator Terry Gilliam told his fan-zine: Funny that, isn’t it.  I think so, there’s something about an easy life.  I think we’re here for a brief period, and I think we should all be a bit active while we are here.  That doesn’t make it easy.  It doesn’t mean that life is a misery, but it should be a pretty active, involved life, it seems to me.  

*Have you ever wondered why we say "grand" mother and not "great" mother?  But then we DO say great grandmother.  What??  So when I got to wondering about the proper label for my nephew's son, it got me to thinking about those "great" and "grand" designations.  Wrote Reference: “Grand” is usually used when talking about a person who is one generation away from a relative.  Since your grandniece or grandnephew is one generation beneath you, you use “grand” when talking about them.  Technically, you are supposed to use “great” when talking about people who are more than one generation away from you.  Your parent’s grandparents are your great-grandparents and your grandnephew’s children are your great-grand-niece or great-grand-nephew.  Got that?  Me neither, but then it was yet another feather in my cap, or bee in my bonnet.  Wait, how many feathers or bees are on a bonnet anyway?  And what ever happened to bonnets?  Did they all "lie over the ocean?" (a tip of the hat to Prince Charlie)...and in case you're wondering, here's one official definition of bonnet, or, capot, or toque, or béguin, or chapeau à brides (what??): ...a type of hat that covers the ears and is tied under the chin, worn by babies or, especially in the past, by women; a cowl, hood, or wind cap for a fireplace or chimney, to stabilize the draft.  Did I mention that the "hood" of a car in the US is called the bonnet in the UK ..but those Brits call the trunk the "boot."  So with that, I think I'll give the entire Bonnie Prince Charlie, "the boot."  

**Trump's cuts have eliminated or substantially diminished help lines for veterans, suicide, and maternal mothers; Axios noted that groups of psychologists are joining forces and offering free or low-cost help to federal workers dealing with such swift and massive cuts...