advice

November 23, 2025

A Balanced Life?

When I think of a balanced life, I imagine going to the circus. There, you find someone walking the high wire. The pole they hold horizontally helps to keep them aloft as they walk from one platform to another. 

Yes, people have traversed the tightrope for over a mile, but most settle for much less. 

On or off the high wire, it is hard to maintain equilibrium.

Those who talk or write about balance focus on work and life. They add friends, hobbies, religious observance, a partner, raising children, exercise, vacations, meditation, continuing education, and a satisfying home life.

What they don’t mention is death, and they may wonder why it is worth contemplating:

Why should I? I’m trying to have a full life while I am alive, not dead. The thought of my death depresses me.

What is there to fear in your death? Pain, yes, but many encounter severe discomfort well before their demise and live with it for years. Moreover, medical and hospice care near the end of life can often treat and reduce suffering. 

A death that ends anguish may be welcome.

I agree that a loss of a life, in full bloom or before, is a tragedy. Existence robs one of a host of opportunities, the possibility of joy, love, achievement, song, excitement, and more.

Those who do not ponder the brevity of life may, without intention, rob themselves of discovering what might fulfill them. An endless life would not. Infinite survival could well be tiresome, boring, routine, and disappointing, without the chance of escape.

Seneca said, “Life, it is thanks to death that you are precious in my eyes.”

Failing to remind oneself of the end of one’s time, there is less urgency to make the most of the time he has. Awareness of the ticking clock encourages homo sapiens to live more in the moment.

Thinking the unthinkable can create some comfort with the idea of one’s ultimate expiration. Those who take this position, however, should be prepared if the subject alienates others.

Many superb books nonetheless touch on death. They tend to be thoughtful and enlightening, helping you discover where authenticity and growth lie in your season under the sun. 

Somerset Maugham wrote this in The Razor’s Edge: 

“Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.”

Maugham’s principal character in the novel is Larry Darrell, whose best friend in WWI died saving him. He returned home transformed, preoccupied with all the essential questions. Who am I? Why am I living and not my friend? What is the value of life? How can I best find the answers? 

He refuses jobs that would lead to conventional success and wealth. Darrell lives modestly, is put off by social climbing, and instead associates with people of more humble means than his old friends do. 

Larry chooses to work in a coal mine, later lives with Benedictine monks, and travels to India to discover the wisdom of Hinduism. His homecoming to the United States continues his rejection of money, power, and high station in a materialistic society.

This man is fearless and curious about the ways of the world. He does not know all the answers, but he knows the questions and what he must pursue to learn more.  

Ancient philosophers came to terms with the idea of the end of our being, something more immediate in a time when life expectancy was short. According to the Daily Stoic, Socrates said philosophy is “about nothing else but dying and being dead.”

The practice of bringing death to the forefront is called Memento Mori (Remember you must die). Buddhists and Sufis also have long histories in this approach to living.

It would not surprise me if you remain unconvinced of the value of more attention to your departure from the planet. In that event, you might take the words of Oscar Wilde as a model of how to approach the question: 

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go.

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All of the paintings are sourced from Wikart.org/ The first is Paul Klee’s 1923 Rope Dancer. It is followed by August Macke’s 1914 Tightrope Walker. The final image is Remedios Varo’s 1944 Tightrope Walkers.

November 16, 2025

How Happiness and Perspective Change as We Age

We take many things for granted. Healthy young people don’t think of their bodies as an enormous gift. They take their physical capabilities as they are, with little thought.

Vision, walking, listening, and talking fall into the same category.

I understand a bit about hearing loss via accident. Six years ago, an ENT (ear, nose, and throat specialist) tried to remove wax from my left ear using a suction machine. The device made a screech (her word), impairing my ability to enjoy music without distortion thereafter.

Within six months, I’d come to accept my circumstances and bounce back to my baseline level of happiness. This year, I obtained new AI hearing aids that mitigate the damage to a degree I never expected.

A remarkable gift.

Humans tend not to anticipate the loss of others until they are gone, unless the relationship is already strained or heavily dependent on continuing support. One of the first experiences of such heartbreak in a child’s life occurs when a friend and her parents move away.

A possibly apocryphal story involves the famous baseball player Mickey Mantle, who had nightmares after his retirement. The dream found him attempting to crawl under a fence to return to playing at Yankee Stadium.

The slugger never made it onto the field in his sleeping fantasy. He got stuck beneath the imaginary barrier.

Some of those who were upset by the November 2024 election have discovered how much they assumed the republican form of democracy would last, as it had for almost 250 years.

When something is lost or we live with dread about the possibility, the value we place on the person or skill often increases. In cases where the prize remains retrievable, the individual may make an effort to prevent its disappearance.

Think of getting a new doctor to save a life, trying a painful or experimental treatment, or taking political action to defend a nation,

There are limits. Mickey Mantle never got back to his old ballpark except in a non-playing capacity. Performers on stage cannot retrieve the gifts of their youth and sometimes make the mistake of continuing their professional appearances to the point of embarrassment or worse.

Applause is like an addiction.

Arturo Toscanini, the famous symphony conductor, made his final appearance as leader of his NBC Orchestra in 1954, at the age of 87. In the next-to-last composition on the program, he froze. The maestro was later thought to have suffered a TIA (a mini-stroke).

Changes in attractiveness call up the issue of human vanity. The Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs did not accept it when her stepdaughter began to outshine her in beauty. Rather than be less than “the fairest of them all,” as her magic mirror had always told her, she decided to murder her young competitor.

Humanity’s challenge is to adapt, from the beginning to the end of life. That said, the youthful can’t comprehend how much they will be changed by the hand of time. The future alterations of their qualities and the people they care about must be lived through to be understood.

Too often, appreciation of health and good fortune comes late.

A few are wise about this, however.

Sandy Koufax, the legendary Los Angeles Dodger pitcher, retired at age 30 due to chronic elbow pain, not wishing to cause permanent damage to his arm. The lefthander did not look back with regret, having achieved the top of his profession.

I’ve got a lot of years to live after baseball and I would like to live them with the complete use of my body. I don’t regret one minute of the last twelve years, but I think I would regret one year that was too many.[

As a consequence, Koufax, now 89, is remembered for his glorious final seasons, escaping the decline many performers experience in their last days on the field.

From the outside, the audience has an easier time adjusting to such things.

I attended numerous recitals by the pianist Rudolf Serkin. When age caught up to him, I decided not to attend any more of his performances. I wished to remember him as he was at the peak of his artistic technique and imagination, not as a man who should have left earlier.

Mother Nature has her way, with some surgical exceptions. Cosmetic surgery is a prime example of the value placed on appearance.

Losses also confer unexpected benefits. Research reveals that men and women tend to be happier in old age than in youth and midlife.

Loren Olsen notes in Psychology Today that improvements in perspective and attitude can be associated with aging, despite the unwanted physical and mental changes that aging entails. His list includes:

  • Acceptance of self and others
  • The desire for a deeper connection
  • Wisdom and empathy
  • Capacity for forgiveness
  • Gratitude
  • Resilience
  • Less emotional volatility and impulsivity

Urgency due to the shortness of time ahead need not cause anxiety and terror. Many make the most of their remaining time instead of wasting it. The value of time increases when Mother Nature does not compromise the body and brain excessively.

I don’t imagine you want to become old, but you might be surprised at how much pleasure you take when you are.

As WFMT radio’s Studs Terkel used to say, “Take it easy, but take it.”

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The list quoted from Loren Olsen was obtained from the online version of Psychology Today, July 21, 2023: To Be Happier, Start Thinking Like an Old Person: The Paradoxes of Aging, Mental Health, and Positivity.

The photos, in order, are of Mickey Mantle in 1956, Mantle hitting a home run in the 1952 World Series on YouTube, Sandy Koufax in 1964, Arturo Toscanini, and Rudolf Serkin.

November 9, 2025

Making the Best of Life in a Time of Uncertainty

Play along with me.

Imagine things have not gone well. In fact, you are serving a life sentence in a strange, outdoor prison, alone with no escape possible.

You perform the one job required of you. Push an enormous boulder up to the top of the hill, from which it will fall back to where you began.

Repeat, repeat, repeat without end.

You may recall the character so condemned is named Sisyphus. In Greek myth, this man alienated Zeus and was assigned the pointless, eternal task as punishment.

Yet there is another take on the poor fellow’s desperate state. It is the perspective of Albert Camus, a French writer, philosopher, journalist, and political activist.

Camus believed life to be absurd, absent certainty of its meaning. To him, faith, by itself, was not enough to still the trepidation of the human heart.

Since the universe offers no answer to the question, what remains is our instinctive desire to live and create a life worthy of living.

The Frenchman encourages us to revolt against routine. Given the absurdity and meaninglessness, a human’s best adaptation is to embrace life creatively, striving for authenticity despite all else.

Thus, Camus’s view of Sisyphus is that he must rebel in opposition to the intended aimless and soul-killing routine of his punishment. In doing so, he may yet overcome internally that which cannot be overcome.

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

We are encouraged to seek our own purpose and joy, as this prisoner might have. Our task is to set aside the quest for direction from above, as well as the misguided pursuits we sometimes impose on ourselves.

One could stop consideration of Sisyphus right here, but another person offers a different perspective. Woody Allen, whose interviews and movies often explore the question of life’s meaning, didn’t think Camus’s solution to Sisyphus’s dilemma was sufficient.

Woody wondered what the rock-roller would do if somehow, the imposing boulder reached the top of the hill and got stuck.

To Allen, Sisyphus would then face the same conditions we all do. To find a way through the thicket of life in the hope of giving each day value.

Allen believes each of us faces the Sisyphian challenge, but without the massive stone. For him, the question of meaning and animating our lives to defeat routine is always present.

Thus, we search for fulfillment, making of life what we will. The unanswered questions remain.

Why, for what, to what end?

These questions offer us a blank slate we might think of as an opportunity.

For reasons we cannot be sure of, we have been dropped into the thing called life. Our only certainty is that it will terminate, but its ending urges us to make the very best of it every day.

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The painting at the top, Yellow, Red, Blue (1925), is by Wassily Kandinsky. It is followed by Sisyphus by Titian (1548-1549). Both are sourced from Wikiart.org.

November 2, 2025

The Heartache of Breaking up with Lifelong Friends

Heartbreak is not limited to romance. The departures of pets and people are not so different in triggering the sadness of lost love.

A break with living, lifelong friends, too, weighs heavily upon the soul.

The best childhood companions, akin to brothers and sisters, know you better than anyone else. They live in the same neighborhood, at the exact moment in history. Buddies visit the selfsame stores, walk the worn streets, and play on the gravel, asphalt, and dirt fields, which soon vanish and turn into shared memories.

Spending so much time together brings young men close. Each one spoke to the other’s parents and bathed in their goodwill, eating at their table.

Chums of half a lifetime or more remember teachers, recall the jokes heard in the hallways, and endure the tests of growing up, getting grades, and making a life.

Trust grows with time if the companions are well-matched. Like lovers who rub each other raw upon occasion, you break up and you make up. Your spouse hears about your past and your secrets, but can never witness yesterday’s events as they unfold.

She interprets your description of who you were, sharing a life with who you are.

And then? Time can splinter the old gang and the ones you are closest to. The spouse might not approve of your pal or your mate’s girlfriend. Moving away, changes in status and wealth, the need to attend to one’s children, and the business of life stretch the rubber band of affection.

Differences arise. Hurt feelings enter from words and actions as if dropping from the sky. If they repeat, temporary reconciliation might reach a breaking point. Yet, out there somewhere, the person who remembers your parents and your siblings when they were young still exists.

Apologies require courage and hope. When endings happen, the comrade lives as part of you, sometimes preoccupying you as much as a first love you never get over.

As long as there is life in two people, the possibility of reunion may also live on. When one of the pair has grieved the loss and realizes reconciliation will not work, then the end of closeness precedes a different kind of departure.

I have treated such heartbreak as a therapist, and lived it, as well. Some things can be healed, others cannot. Gratitude for the grand times past remains a blessing if you can manage it.

My advice? Make as many friends as you can and show all the kindness of which you are capable.

AI tells us this:

A long-term Harvard study found that strong relationships are the most important factor in a happy and long life, more so than money or fame.

The best direction?

Always look for love.

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The top picture is Friendship Bond as created by Kwesi2002. The photo below is of Red Breaks by John Fowler, from Placitas, NM, USA. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

October 26, 2025

Finding a Morality to Live With

When we talk about morality, we tend to call out who is moral or not, without defining what is moral or not. Consider two examples of how to be virtuous.

  1. Do not do to another what you do not wish to be done to you. (The Golden Rule).
  2. Injure no one; on the contrary, help everyone as much as you can.

Let’s compare these. Both advise against causing harm, but the first considers only what we don’t like, not what our counterpart doesn’t want done to himself.

When employing this behavioral direction, our opinion is the only one that matters. The standard we choose doesn’t account for differences in likes and dislikes between ourselves and another person.

Each of us decides how to behave by assuming the other person is like us. We determine which interactions with the stranger are permissible. Another individual might disagree.

The second example presents an alternative. We aren’t instructed to define what is satisfactory conduct toward our fellow man. The statement requires no judgment. It simply tells us to injure no one and assist everyone instead.

The Categorical Imperative is a third approach to ethical behavior. “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” (Immanuel Kant).

The words tell us to live by rules we believe ought to apply to the entirety of humanity.

There is no wiggle room here. Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) believed such requirements don’t arise from lived experience but are inherent in all rational beings.

Kant, of course, never encountered the work of Jonathan Haidt, a still active social psychologist. His research demonstrates that we are all, to a significant extent, influenced by emotions when making moral judgments.

The preceding three examples are suggestions, not demands. Nothing about them compels us to follow their direction, unless we are required by law or have taken a religious oath.

Why do we need guidance at all?

Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century English philosopher, didn’t think we would manage well on our own. He described human existence without laws and penalties as subject to continual fear and the danger of violent death. He conceived of the life of a man as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Yikes!

Arthur Schopenhauer, the 19th-century German philosopher, added to our understanding of morality. He reminded us that motives are essential to our grasp of what constitutes a genuine moral act.

For example, we sometimes display extraordinary kindness to others in the hope of gaining a particular privilege.

In cases of this sort, the behavior of the men or women would fail the test of virtuous intention. They seek something for themselves.

Schopenhauer also points to the power of the forces of ego, passion, and desire within each of us. If we are to lead a righteous life, resisting temptation, we will need considerable willpower and self-discipline to restrain our wants.

You shall decide whether any of the views of morality offered here are valuable. Add any other one you favor or dismiss them as you like.

Before you do, you might ponder the advice provided by religion. Some ancient holy documents encourage fidelity and morality, promising prosperity on earth and in the afterlife, while threatening consignment to hell if you fail.

Google reports this:

While there are around 10,000 distinct religions in the world, over three-quarters of the global population adheres to one of these four – Christianity (31%), Islam (24%), Hinduism (15%), and Buddhism (7%).

All of them offer their own view of what an upright life is and isn’t.

Clearly, the definition of morality depends on many factors.

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The first image is of a Woman Being Rescued from the Ruins of Her House After It Was Struck by a V-2 Rocket in 1944 London. The photo is the work of George Roger and sourced from History Daily.

The second photo shows a Rescue in Africa from Drowning, taken by GiftedLydia.

Finally, A Young Child and Mother Watch as their Aircraft Takes off from St. Maarten to San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the Aftermath of Hurricane Irma in 2017.

The last two were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

October 19, 2025

Laughing to Normalize Our Lives

The sky is gray today. A dash of dirt fouls the perfect blue of days long past.

I remember when jets were rare, propeller planes dominated the atmosphere, and skywriters created their art overhead before dropping it into our astonished eyes.

Don’t worry, I’m about to scrub the air clean and make you laugh a bit.

Things have changed. While they always do, many of these alterations have caught us off guard.

What do we do about it? I don’t mean improve the climate or our politics, but manage our attention, emotion, and the focus of our thoughts.

Humor is essential.

With that in mind, here are some suggestions:

Distraction, for example, takes several forms.

Travel to new places where the skies are still blue, art museums flourish, the food is delicious, and buildings withstand the test of time.

All you need are some air traffic controllers who are getting paid.

Alcohol and drugs are staples of self-distraction and self-destruction diets. An intoxicating choice.

Dance until you drop.

Memorize Edgar Allen Poe’s old poetry, like The Raven and The Conqueror Worm. These will make you think life today is far more delightful.

Persuade yourself that climate change is fake, God will save you because you are faithful, and those who suffer when The Iceman Cometh deserve what they get.

I’m not referring to the 1939 Eugene O’Neill play of the same name.

Meditate, of course, and watch sitcoms, too, perhaps simultaneously.

Refrain from reading newspapers, even online, and let the algorithms take you to calming, amusing, optimistic topics only.

Stay away from friends and relatives who want to talk about the dark side of life. If you can’t avoid them, carry a lantern to lighten and illuminate your mood.

Forget about Diogenes, an ancient Greek founder of cynicism. He carried a lamp during the daytime to help find an honest man.

Have sex at least three times a day. Partners not required.

Wear a blindfold so you exchange the metaphorical darkness for some real dark. Adopt a seeing-eye dog, who will give lots of love without the evening news report.

Prepare to move to the South Pole. Start by getting a top-flight air conditioner and wearing heavy clothes and jackets. Practice building snowmen to provide social contact.

Hallucinatory conversations will take care of themselves.

Recall the worst date you ever endured. Phone the person and invite them out for another try. This will distract you from the state of the world.

Bring aspirin anyway.

If you haven’t called your mother for a while, do so and receive the well-deserved guilt-trip. You will feel better once the berating ends.

Eat your favorite ice cream as rendered by its best manufacturer. As an alternative, buy superb chocolate and enjoy yourself.

When the administration defunds something you need, like health insurance or food assistance, remember there is fun in defunding, just not for you.

To close, the ultimate solution to living in our times.

Imagine you are Sisyphus, the ancient Greek punished by Zeus. The poor fellow had to push a giant boulder up a hill for eternity. He continued without end because the weighty rock always rolled down.

If you compare that to every job you have had, including your time of unemployment, it will be a step up.

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The top image is Diogenes by Bert-olgun, sourced from tonpool.com.

Beneath that is Sisyphus. It is the work of Hasanisawi and sourced from Wikimedia.org.

October 16, 2025

What We Sometimes Learn in School

Teachers sometimes have a gift. It involves more than just lecturing, questioning, or preaching. The instructor brings the lessons alive.

Here is one brief example, which is troublesome due to the way the lesson is delivered.

Nonetheless, it is powerful and relevant to the student in all of us.

About Justice.












			

	
	



			
				


		

		

			October 12, 2025

			
					


		
Hot Pursuit: When You Scare Potential Lovers

	


		

		
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/Blindfold_%28PSF%29.png/256px-Blindfold_%28PSF%29.png


I can’t wait. Three words that get us into a lot of trouble. Especially in the hot pursuit of love.


Waiting is difficult. Think of the doctor’s waiting room, or an unchanging traffic light. Or perhaps marking time for a job interview or hoped-for movement in the grocery store.


Zen practitioners remind us that these situations offer opportunities to learn patience, not evoke annoyance. Indeed, there is something worthwhile in their point of view if you are trying to win a potential lover.


Timing counts (pun intended). Lots of questions to answer: how often to call or text, when to display affection, and how to express feelings for the other.




Where is your heart?




I’m not talking about how soon to make love. As difficult as such decisions can be, many people are not troubled by outward physical acts. Instead, the issues I’m raising have to do with showing you care, a thing beyond sexuality.


Extremes of behavior tend to be dangerous. The anxious young admirer either holds back or rushes to reveal that the beloved is his starlit night sky and morning’s birdsong. Sometimes it causes the desired one to run screaming into a less magical night, as far from you as possible.


She is right to be scared if you betray her importance to you after spending two evenings with her! Pedestals are expensive, and your love may have a fear of heights! The faster you dash after her, the speedier she will sprint, without discovering anything worthwhile about you.


When the flood and drama of urgency begin, the full-throttle pressure to chase your freshly anointed favorite is almost unbearable.


It is hard to withhold what is oozing from your veins or betraying your emotions in some other way: candy, flowers, poetry, and endless compliments—all with a perpetually melting gaze, the type puppy dogs offer their mistresses.


You become so enamored of the other that your soul aches upon hearing her voice, and her smile at you makes you want to cheer.


Get a grip if you can—a big if, my friend. Some restraint might be necessary to give the relationship and mutual feelings time to develop.


How will you select the moment or manner of disclosing your desire? Sometimes, signs signal she shares your sentiments, at least a little, and wants you to proceed.


Unfortunately, green and red work perfectly only on traffic lights.


Confused?




If you are inclined to verbalize the premature “I adore you,” it is almost impossible to stop yourself.


Second, the intimations can be indecipherable without a lot of experience (and, on occasion, with it).


One needs practice in figuring out another person. Making a fool of yourself and having your heart broken are a part of growing up. When you are in love, your soul makes you do things your brain thinks unwise.


If you keep taking the first step and it always falls flat, it’s time to pursue therapy. The same would be true if you never take the risk. A bruised ego is part of your instruction.


Our hearts are not unbreakable. Romance can be a train wreck, but a dangerous ride is the only transport to a destination we long for. As Bart Giamatti wrote:




It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.




Giamatti wrote this about baseball, but he might as well have been writing about falling in love or anything about which we care deeply.


Anything in which the dream of winning is unfulfilled.




We are such stuff as dreams are made on.




So voiced the redoubtable William Shakespeare.


Dreams of love are like flowers—they need planting and watering; some good weather and time to cultivate. Do not pick the just-opened bud too soon.


Do your best, but don’t expect to remake yourself. We humans are less than ideal at seeing into the soul of another. As terrible as it is, we all need some heartbreak—it helps you grow in maturity, understanding, and compassion.


Remember, almost everyone recovers.


Try again. Somewhere, somehow—someone may be waiting.


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The top image is called Blindfolded Boy Chasing Another, courtesy of Pearson Scott Foresman. It is followed by Holi: A Sacred Ancient Tradition of Hindus, by Shohrab Hossain Titu. Both pictures are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

			

	
	



			
				


		

		

			September 28, 2025

			
					


		
Of Innocence and Hard Experience

	


		

		


I called a man I didn’t know. The reason doesn’t matter. When no one answered, I left a message, but not before hearing the cleverest recorded invitation I’ve ever encountered. It ended with the words:


You leave it, I’ll retrieve it.


I did connect with the fellow a day later,  but he said that a meeting between us would have to wait until he returned from Europe. He died soon after his trip home. The six-word sentence had transformed into a non-sequitur, an illogical request given his demise.


He could no longer “retrieve it.” He had “left” the message and all else. Whatever remained would have to be retrieved by someone other than this person, divided among his heirs, or thrown away. One hopes those words were not his last for those he cared about.


The stranger had a prolonged bout with cancer and defeated it, or at least knocked it to the ground for a long while. Some cancers enter remission, partial or complete. These multi-formed monsters can be tricky devils, pushed to the mat and unconscious after they have been drugged out or cut out. Time passes. If they spring up with renewed strength, the disease has been known to take no prisoners, sweeping a life away as if it were a breadcrumb on the dinner table.


I have lost friends and relatives in this way, but have dodged the menace myself. It remains unimaginable to me. Of course, I can try to imagine it, but there must be a difference between thinking of it from the outside and living the invasion from the inside.


We don’t own complete awareness, not even those who have overcome it. I have suffered close to unendurable physical pain for other reasons, but I lack the words, the memory, and the feelings to describe those episodes even to myself. The capacity to retrieve past agonies in visceral form would ruin most futures. Recreating them in full would poison time.


I do know the fear of its return remains for many who have survived cancer. A different thing from anguish, but by itself, terrifying.


We all watch children whose joy is without such concerns. Those with loving parents, good health, and food on the table live in innocence, free of life’s terrible possibilities. The kids are like Adam and Eve before they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Their bodies flip, leap, bounce, spin, laugh, and smile.


God bless them.


If I could, I would wave a magic wand and make this simple purity permanent.


I helped adults and teens achieve better lives, but magic was not my specialty then and is not now. If it were, two boys — my grandchildren — would be first in line to benefit from my prestidigitation.


Love is a wonderful experience, but innocence — the opposite of nightmarish disease — cannot be rendered in words or memory. We watch the wonder of our children’s joy and are filled with gladness.


Perhaps that is what remains of innocence past childhood.


A gift for us, too.


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A Small Car For Kids by ekstrazabawki.pl, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

			

	
	



			
				


		

		

			September 21, 2025

			
					


		
Where Did All the Bullies Go?

	


		

		



When I was a kid, like all the boys who came before and after me, I learned to deal with bullies. Some fellows fled, others took them on.


One young man-mountain, who was tall and overweight, sat on me once. Another, whose fiery red hair matched the impression that I should stay away, had a beautiful girlfriend whose mother abused her.


She was drawn to such people.


No matter, I stood my ground in defense of one of my brothers and discovered it was worse to be a coward than to take a licking. A few lickings.


At my pugilistic best, I knocked the air out of a classmate named Ernie. It was terrifying to watch him on the ground, writhing and gasping for breath. There is no satisfaction in doing harm, no matter the justification.


As I got older, I discovered that I did better with words than fists. I didn’t always prevail, but I became the person I wanted to be over the course of years.


Matching wits in cross-examination as an expert witness is exhilarating and exhausting, but informs you who you are if you don’t already know. I excelled at it, though it wasn’t a large part of my practice.


Bullies are still present in the world, even though I am well past the point of a street brawl. And while I am not a joiner, you will find me at some rallies and marches. The cause is just, and the exhilaration of a courtroom joust is not so different than joining others for a worthy cause.


The photo above is somewhat like a man in an empty suit. He tries to scare you, but there is really not much to him.


Life is full of tough guys, and we all encounter frauds like the Wizard of Oz, but when you check behind the screen, the loud boasting reminds you of the kids who used to push you around if you let them.


I am old, and I got tired of being afraid some time ago.


As the Stoics of antiquity remind us, tests offer opportunities. Seneca wrote: 




Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.




Only then do we discover who we are. 


I am not very pleased to take on such contests. I wasn’t, either, as a kid, but it was necessary then, and it is needed now.


I have grandchildren, you know.


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The “Ghost Sculpture” was sourced from James Lucas on Substack.