anxiety

September 13, 2026

They Failed, but We Shall Not

I will not name their names because they had lots of company. Or maybe, somehow, they didn’t know the history they didn’t teach us. But it was not hidden from them. Our teachers were all old enough to have heard about the treatment of the Native Americans.

They were history instructors, after all. Did they lack curiosity? Were they afraid of breaking from the expected public school curriculum? They never mentioned the unsavory, tarnished America absent from our textbooks.

Surely they realized that West Coast American citizens were taken from their homes and incarcerated because they were of Japanese descent. It happened during the lifetimes of the male and female educators at Mather High School in Chicago.

There was no evidence that the Japanese betrayed their country, the USA. Nothing justified FDR’s decision to intern 120,000 people in 1942, of whom two-thirds were citizens. Fear and suspicion drove it.

Whose responsibility is it to inform young people of the world’s dark side? I did some of this with my children, but that information was about half a century old at the time. And most of it happened elsewhere: in Germany during World War II and in other occupied countries. The land of genocide, and what most of us thought was over there, somewhere else.

It couldn’t happen here, right?

Well, that’s complicated. When I was just about to enter my teens, I recall seeing a newsreel film about the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as Hitler’s Nazis. I watched and heard Hitler ranting at one of his many rallies. In German, of course. But I wondered to myself, what if he spoke English?

Another thought followed. If he spoke English and delivered it in a way that made his followers enthusiastic acolytes, maybe it could happen here.

Why not?

Were people here so different from those 4000 miles away in central Europe? Didn’t Germans of the first half of the 20th century pride themselves on their technology, scientists, visual artists, writers, and musicians?

I knew two German families who immigrated to the USA. They were more than kind to me. Just regular people.

But didn’t the United States have a pro-Nazi organization during the 1930s? It was called the German American Bund. 

Later I learned that Hitler took notice of the Jim-Crow American South before he launched a world of evils on the Romani and the Jews. His attention focused on the South’s racial laws and segregation, after which he modeled his own regime, applying much of what our country had done to blacks. The Jews, in particular, were targeted by Hitler in ways similar to those that happened here first.

The answer to the question then changed. To those who wondered whether it could happen here, one could state, of course! It already did!

What do we do with this knowledge? Again, it is complicated.

We do not want to think that our friends, relatives, or children might be steered toward an authoritarian dictator. But we also know that many of our countrymen have been. Nor can we comfortably fix our minds on the awfulness around us, on TV, in the news, in podcasts, in the streets, and the endless commercials that praise one candidate, disparage the next, and remind us of Orwell’s Big Brother, a leader not easily escaped.

Who will educate children about the real U.S. history, including the history of our time? The texts? The school teachers? Ourselves? At what age? To what extent?

Under what conditions?

It seems to me that we should hope, make certain, and pray that their history books include something like this.

It happened here once, during which there were terrible injustices visited upon people of color and the Native Americans who lived here before we took their land and many of their lives.

And it was almost here when the country was 250 years old.

But decent people rose up and did everything they could to make sure the USA’s founders vision of our country wasn’t lost again.

Those people, the ones who lived here in 2026 were brave.

As your textbooks will tell you, 2026 was a long time ago, before you were born.

Now, really, finally, we live ‘in the land of the free and the home of the brave.’

God bless America.

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The top photo is of “Dr. Kier Klepzig is a Research Entomologist at the Department of Agriculture Forest Service Southern Research Station. He is teaching 5th graders about town ants at Phoenix Magnet School in Alexandria, LA.” It was sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

Next comes Julie Mehretu’s  — “Retopistics: A Renegade Excavation, 2001.”

August 2, 2026

The Value of Denial and Distraction: Where Therapists Can Go Wrong

Big Eyes

One of my mentors (TE) was a psychiatrist of immense intellect and a laser’s capacity to cut to a psychiatric diagnosis. His brilliance as a diagnostician, however, did not extend to gently bringing his well-defended patients down the therapeutic path.

This man was a surgeon of the mind.

Surgeons leave scars.

Think of psychotherapy’s beginning as a kind of dance, with the patient in motion like Salome, covered with seven veils. Her wraps and shifting movement are for protection, not seduction. The client, female or male, is wary, and the covering — any covering — guards against invasion.

Should a doctor rip the gauzy garments away, he does an injury. Without a shield, the individual is exposed, terrified, and likely to flee treatment.

Too much too soon.

A thoughtful mental health professional doesn’t drain a protective moat until the client develops the courage to take on the scary world outside his castle (or inside his head). The counselor must avoid retraumatizing the sufferer, in effect flooding him with emotions he is unprepared for.

The irony of hurting when you mean to help could not be more poignant or more terrible.

Young therapists can miss this. So do managed care companies when they want you to push treatment as fast as possible (to cut its cost) or medicate the insured party for the identical reason. TE was guilty of ignoring the same therapeutic speed bump.

The challenge of focusing on life’s dark side was understood by the mathematical genius Blaise Pascal, who died just before the age of 40 in 1662. The Frenchman recognized the need to divert oneself from contemplation of the human condition. Students of clinical psychology might still benefit from his words. For example:

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

Or this:

I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

In short, the world can overwhelm creatures as small and vulnerable as ourselves. Those in most need of distraction are among the least inclined to make use of this necessary method in the pursuit of equanimity.

Pascal again:

However sad a man may be, if you can persuade him to take up some diversion he will be happy while it lasts, and however happy a man may be, if he lacks diversion and has no absorbing passion or entertainment to keep boredom away, he will soon be depressed and unhappy. Without diversion there is no joy; with diversion there is no sadness.

I’d say Pascal goes too far, but his point is a worthy one. I can name many people who seem content (at least for the moment) because they don’t think about the shadow following them down the street. Perhaps trouble at work or home, with children, or the big concern:

Death.

A memorable patient of mine found escape in distraction and denial, eating enough carbohydrates to push her well into obesity and diabetes. Yet, while feeding, she felt at peace. During stressful moments, this lady believed she deserved a treat as compensation for her upset.

The therapist seeks a balance between accepting the other’s ever-ready psychological defenses and gradually helping them to recognize the long-term damage they are doing to themselves by not facing problems. With the sizable woman in question, it was quite a tightrope walk.

I find myself on both sides of the balance beam.

Socrates was right when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” So, however, was Pascal, by implying the deleterious effects of too much examination, rumination, and painful memory. The truth is hard to swallow, as the kid in the top photo is about to discover.

Were I to create my own mantra, I’d alter the inscription on the Temple of Apollo, which reads: “Know Thyself.”

A less pithy version would be:

“Know thyself, but not all in one bite. 

“Remember: Your potential for self-awareness is bigger than your stomach for it.”

May 10, 2026

Where Do We Find Intensity?

Boredom is not just a word but a state of being. The condition is amplified by the world’s various forms of entertainment and by all the watching we do.

Intensity requires preparing ourselves inside, ready for action. Often, we peer at what is outside more passively.

Gawking, we are bored. Not much fun and not necessary.

Think television, radio, YouTube, theater, concerts, and attending sports contests. Computer games, too, but especially time in front of the desktop. Add sitting with your phone in your hand and your eyes riveted to the screen.

Yes, all these can provide excitement, but we often sit and see, and sit and respond, or sit and listen. Passivity leads to passivity.

I have been excited by those experiences and the venues I have listed. All can be wonderful, but a full basket of beheld events or sounds overheard can be an addictive trap without participation.

The weariness of working life, unless your job excites you and charges your mental batteries, makes the snare desirable. Too much routine back home pushes us in the same direction. 

We move less than our ancestors. Their lives included walking, running, lifting, pushing, and climbing, not sitting and steering a car.

For most of human history, labor meant working under the sun, creating and using implements, and planting and harvesting crops like wheat and tomatoes. 

Yes, alcohol, distracting and addicting, claimed many of our predecessors. Still, their entertainment involved dancing, playing card games, target practice, acting in community theater, drawing, writing letters, interacting within inches of another person, and playing sports.

People made music together in their homes. In Germany, friends and family joined for Hausmusik—music at home.

Kids still show the way to a life of intensity. They run like crazy,  live for a ball game, tackle each other, dig in the mud, jump on a trampoline, push their siblings, and ride bikes. They build, with or without the encouragement of toys.

Youngsters are active, and their actions overflow with inner churning, demonstrable ups and downs, laughter, and tears. They act out the videos they see and pour imagination like sweet syrup onto everyday play.

One of my grad school professors, Lee Secrest, used to say, “Don’t dress up because the event is exceptional; you dress up to make it exceptional.”

Put another way, we can alter the emotions and skills sleeping inside of us, and change the way we experience life.

Kids won’t tell us, but there are times we would do well to become more like them. Artful teachers, too, can make learning exciting and fun. Intense in the most joyous way.

Children learn every day. Do we?

Somewhere, for many but not all of us, the passing days become a march without much delight.

Here’s something different if it fits the space of your life and your needs.

  • Test yourself. Do the things you have never tried or have given up. Sometimes this means school, with regular testing as a part of formal education.
  • Perhaps it’s time for a career change.
  • Try word games and unfamiliar expressions. Practice a speech and deliver it to yourself in the audience of your mirror. Record it, listen to it, and study the tempo, variation of soft and loud, humor, and how to build up to a climax.
  • Terrified? Repeat. Watch, hear, and scrutinize commanding speakers on YouTube or TED Talks. Attempt it in front of a few people or a crowd.
  • Consider joining Toastmasters International. It helps participants speak with confidence and wit.
  • Memorize a favorite poem.
  • Sing alone or in a group.
  • Learn to play chess.
  • Dance.
  • Enjoy sex with someone you love and with whom you are in love.
  • As you walk along a peopled street, spend time moving your eyes away from your phone. Survey your fellow men and women with care. How are they dressed? What is their mood?
  • One of the faces might be a future lover if you act in the moment. Another might be a waiting soul hoping for someone’s hello.
  • Notice the clouds overhead and, one hopes, the deep blue in the sky. If the sky is gray, travel elsewhere to find the color of yesteryear.
  • Bathe in the architectural differences of buildings, recent and old, and find the beauty and graceful lines in the best of them. Seek the trees, birds, and flowers.
  • Plant something and make it beautiful and lasting.
  • Visit an unfamiliar neighborhood, museum, part of your country, or another land.
  • Read books you don’t tend to choose. Better to pore over the classics before 65, the age at which their old world became new to me.
  • Swim.
  • If you suffer from skin hunger, purchase a pet. Dogs want to be touched and love to lick. We return the favor except for the licking. At least, I hope so.
  • Again, do what is hard, scary, risky, challenging, in small steps or leviathan leaps. A Stoic philosopher offered this observation:

I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you. — Seneca, On Providence.

Do you view life as a performance and fear the crowd’s judgment? Then consider this. Most forget your miscues within hours or days. They are busy thinking about their own lives, not so much about yours.

Regarding tests, the oral exams of a graduate education might be more amusing than you think.

Laughter isn’t typical, I admit. Rather, it can be a grueling process of grilling questions by three professors who evaluate you and your written work, offer possible criticisms, and demand major changes to your thesis.

Oral exams tend to generate much anxiety in the examinee, and I was no exception to this. 

The examining committee first meets by themselves, then calls you into the room to join them. After exchanging greetings, the chairman (your advisor) opens the gathering to queries from the other participants.

And so eyes turned to Dr. Philip Brickman, who asked me the first question in my defense of my Master’s Thesis:

There is a very serious problem with this thesis.

Dead silence ensued. My anxiety level went up 400%. I began to imagine my future taking a wrong turn into three lanes of oncoming traffic.

Then, after a pause that lasted for ages, Dr. Brickman pointed to the Acknowledgments section of the thesis and said:

Philip is spelled with one “L.”

I had spelled his name Phillip, with two Ls. The memory of what happened next is gone, except for the relief.

Soon, I received a Master’s Degree, and later a Ph.D., after another oral exam.

Think of this as one item out of your own catalog of difficult moments—a leap you believe is beyond your talent. You anticipate an Olympic high-hurdle competition.

Reality is different. Once you are over and past the barriers, they shrink. 

The hard stuff now in front of you gets easier. Looking back, if the event required courage, you recognize a change in who you are.

You have enlarged yourself within yourself. A life of wider possibility awaits. 

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Disney World, the work of KlipschFan, is the top photo. Next is Haus der Musik Vienna, Austria, which is attributed to Joseolgon. Finally, In the Box by Mary Cassatt, 1879. The first two are sourced from Wikimedia Commons, the last from Wikiart.org/

January 11, 2026

Unconfusing Our Confusion

I am confused some of the time. If I hear an idea that belongs to someone else, I am slow to say whether I agree or disagree. At least more hesitant than I used to be.

Why? I consider the thought or opinion from multiple angles. Perhaps from the point of religion, or my lived experience, or all the other thoughtful people I know. I ask the other to tell me how he arrived at his point of view. Have other intelligent public intellectuals taken the same position?

Where is the evidence?

When I offer my slant on a problem, if it is well organized and reasonable, my counterpart might react with, “That makes sense.”

Such acknowledgements are affirming. Still, I prefer it if my interlocutor asked a question rather than accepting my position without taking a moment to think through the concept or dig deeper. Challenges are desirable because they help me learn.

Information rains down on us at a level unknown to everyone who lived here before us. Even during the first years of television, most of us had access to three major stations; the networks signed off at midnight and returned to broadcasting the next morning.

Today, depending on the source, the news may be mere idiocy or deceit. We can be fooled without extraordinary effort. Moreover, many people find the ideas, reports, and news painful to listen to. They turn away because the full blast fire hose of disaster, unhappiness, and unfairness is too much to bear. The deluge feels like punishment, a form of battery and inundation.

It is easier to reach a quick conclusion about what is right and what is wrong than to gather information and inform ourselves. Instead, we choose to believe we have learned enough. Since we cannot tolerate more, we decide our knowledge is adequate.

In my way of living, I tend to take in more reportage and analysis than most, including different frames of reference.

Nor am I easily driven by emotions such as anger and hate. I have found that by gathering information, reading, and listening to multiple sources, I can reach a sober conclusion.

So I think.

Of course, I am not God, the Pope, or the Dalai Lama.

Yes, I have many concerns about the future of the world and the lives of my loved ones on this planet.

But.

Somehow, I sleep at night, believing I understand what I think is happening.

I have long been asking myself questions. Soon after I reached the age of double digits, I watched newsreel films about World War II on TV or in school. There he was, Chancellor of the Third Reich, wearing a toothbrush mustache—also called the Führer und Reichskanzler—ranting.

The typical response was “It can’t happen here!” Yet I found myself unsettled. What if the dark presence spoke English?

I’d reached 11 or so. Over time, I came to understand that under pressure, much of humanity is not at its best.

Part of our dilemma comes from our appreciation, enjoyment, and vulnerability to stories. Our ancient predecessors needed to be persuaded by a leader who hoped to protect their group of 20 or 30 from dangers, whether from natural disasters or enemies. Similarly, access to healthful food and avoidance of sickening or poisonous substances were essential.

Somebody would tell a story, and if the group survived, the information would spread.

We have long encountered secular, religious, and political tales, sometimes forthright, sometimes not. Their self-interested spin and opportunistic motives might influence others through storytelling.

Each country has its own history and mythology. Widely accepted origins, part legends, bind millions of people who will never meet into a community of trust, shared ideals, and cooperation.

The American history I learned in the middle of the last century made little mention of discrimination against religious minorities among early American settlers. Those books didn’t touch on how white male property owners alone possessed voting rights, or a woman’s lack of standing on numerous issues.

Neither were the brutality, unfairness, and intolerance experienced by the Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, and Japanese citizens of the West Coast a part of the story presented.

Ours was the land of the free and the home of the brave. Not of the Ku Klux Klan and the lynchings of black men.

The confusion of so many of us is exacerbated by algorithms designed to stir us up and drive us to return to the sources we visit.

We are no longer the children of devoted parents who make up stories at bedtime, as I did for my kids—a new one every night to amuse my daughters.

Now, as adults, we are left to ferret out which accounts are accurate and which play us for fools. Beware those who make us think that the other, who lives in another part of the nation, has darker skin, speaks with an accent or a twang, is our enemy.

How shall we reduce our confusion and not be overwhelmed? Take a break from the avalanche of supposed information every so often. Find joy in friendship and love. Eat well and exercise.

Talk about the turmoil, too, and find a connection so that you are not alone.

Learn new non-political things, new games that will keep your brain in shape, and remember what you can be grateful for. Then get back to a part of the news cycle you can manage, be careful of your chosen sources, and do your part to repair the world.

Yes, we are all confused, at least a bit, but there is goodness to be found in our land if we seek it and work to sustain it.

It is the work for all time and for our time.

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All the images above are sourced from Wikimedia Commons. At the top is a Confused Man by Notas de prense. Next comes Confused Young Woman by CollegeDegree360 on Flickr. Finally, Confused User Icon Red by OERDESIGN.

December 21, 2025

Finding the Light in the Darkness

 

I don’t like November. Only later, well past the shock, did I figure out why. Not just the accumulating darkness of the fall winning the war with light.

I’ve always rooted for the forces of the winter solstice to claim their slow-moving victory. But, early on, I found the autumn gloom more personal than that. 

My father, Milton Stein, always left early for his 7:00 am shift as a postal supervisor downtown. His only weeknight recreation was bowling in a league. On Wednesday nights, I think. Since I would still be asleep when he went to work, I asked him to write down the scores he got the night before. 

I took them in as I sat down for breakfast and opened the daily newspaper to the sports section. School followed.

My dad was my hero, as almost all dads are. Funny, I’ve never said that before, even to myself. He’s been gone for 25 years.

But I was talking about autumn, wasn’t I? About November 1958. 

Someone from the office knocked on the door of my seventh-grade class at Jamieson School on a Thursday afternoon that year. The teacher called my name. I left the room and entered the hallway as requested. 

Mom was waiting for me. 

She shouldn’t have been there. 

Something was wrong. 

We drove home, and she told me when we arrived. Dad was in the hospital. He suffered a heart attack. She broke down as she delivered the news. I remember the place we were standing. 

Much later, I learned that he had been afflicted at least twice. Once at the bowling league and once on his way from the downtown Chicago Post Office the next day. He described a crushing pain, unlike anything he had ever experienced. Dad rested against a building until it passed.

My father didn’t exaggerate. He had survived the Great Depression and World War II. He had survived his father leaving the family apartment to live with another woman. What had it been like to endure such things? And now this.

When I returned to school the next day, a group of girls in my class surrounded me. “What happened?’ My voice cracked as I told them the story.

I was not yet 12.

Dad was sentenced to six weeks in Michael Reese Hospital, typical of heart disease treatment in the ’50s. It felt like a prison term to me and for me, a long one.

Kids couldn’t visit. Nor do I remember any phone calls. Just waiting. We wrote letters. I still have one telling Milton Stein that my brothers and I had saved some money to buy him a present. 

It must have meant something to him, because he saved it.

It was formal, though. I stuffed down my feelings.

Dad was a funny guy. He joked with his three sons—me, Ed, and Jack—about his alleged baseball career and imaginary time playing for the Chicago Cubs. 

Dad claimed he was so dependable that his nickname became “Rain or Shine Milt Stein,” a man who could compete for the team, pitching every day, no matter what. 

My brothers and I share the joke and much else. Dependability, keeping promises, and working hard. That was the creed of our father and his sons.

He returned to our house. At least someone who looked like him came back home, but I wondered. I needed to ask. He’d become like a Christmas gift in a dented box, portending something disappointing if you tore it open.

Dad and I were in the front room when I raised the question. I faced the street, and he sat on the couch with his back to Talman Avenue.

I was direct. 

I wanted to understand why he wasn’t himself. 

“I’m afraid,” he said.

Of that quotation, I am sure. Of the wisdom of honesty in that moment, I am less sure.

He offered more. Dad was scared of another heart attack. Scared of dying. He said this matter-of-factly, but the message carried doom, like a guided missile headed for the heart of his firstborn. Heart disease, the real kind, killed, and men his age all but piled up on the street. At least that was my sense of it.

From then on, mom started reading magazines on diet and disease prevention. From then on, my dad took nitroglycerin pills every day.

The Stein boys did neither, but took their fear to school with them. Every day. 

When “Rain or Shine” walked upstairs for the Western Avenue elevated train arrival, he stopped long enough to take a nitroglycerin tablet. With time, I wondered whether it continued to serve a purpose beyond mere reassurance.

Nonetheless, we all—sort of—tried to forget about pop’s vulnerability to heart disease: put it in a box that opened, but not as often as it had. Medical science learned a few things, too, and the death rate from the ailment declined. 

Still, when you love an aging parent, something I have become myself, there is the internal whisper reminding you of the Grim Reaper. This strange creature, a personification of death, has been a recurring subject in painting since the 14th century.

The dangerous fellow is out there, always waiting, his scythe ready to perform its inescapable task. In Dad’s case, the news came from my brother Eddie, who announced to Jack and me that the irreplaceable one was gone. 

The patriarch of our family made it to 88, a long life he defined as happy when he and I created his four-hour videotaped oral history at 75.

A friend who celebrates Hanukkah tells me that lighting the menorah (candelabrum) candles during the current Jewish holiday, as well as lighting candles before every Sabbath, is both a commandment and a good deed.

On the same day as the Bondi Beach massacre, December 14, people came to the village hall in her town on a cold night to celebrate the holiday, but carrying the heartbreak.

The rabbi acknowledged the crowd’s pain while reminding them that they must never give in to despondency. He told the assemblage that the reason for lighting the menorah for eight nights—by adding another flame each evening—was to reinforce its message: never give in to the darkness. Increase the light instead.

When Milton Stein died, I had a tough period of about six months. My malaise prompted my kids to ask my wife, “When will dad be himself again?
 
My sire got over his fear long before he died, and I returned to my best self after he departed. Life went on without him, but his memory is never far away. 
 
What must we do with such things?
 
As Elizabeth Barrett Browning advised, “Light tomorrow with today.”

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The first image includes my parents. The second photo from the left, first row: Jack, Gerry, and Eddie. Second row, from the left, my parents, again.

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.

July 20, 2025

The Things We Fear, the Things We Overcome

If I Knew the World Ended Tomorrow, I Would Plant an Apple Tree Today by Herakut in Berlin.

—

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.” John Lewis 2/21/40 — 7/17/20

The fears listed below can be overcome. Not always, but with time, patience, effort, and a helping hand. Not always, but with hope, courage, resilience, and an awareness of your previous triumphs over adversity.

Here are some of the usual suspects:

A broken heart.

Failure.

Revealing ourselves to ourselves.

Opening up.

Breaking down.

Watching our parents age.

Incapacity.

Fear of abandonment.

Nakedness.

Speaking in public.

Confronting change.

Change in those to whom we are close.

Mortality.

The death of those we love.

Friends who move away.

Fear of being thought of as too sensitive.

Others who take us for granted.

Ingratitude.

The unknown.

The Great Challenge by Nicholas Lavarenne at Antibes on the French Riviera, sourced from James Lucas on Substack

What others say about us.

Not having enough money.

The weight of responsibility.

Those who expect too much.

Being forgotten.

Fear of fascism.

Being remembered for our moments of humiliation.

Those who see through the masks we wear.

Being thought of as fake.

Being alone.

Being with others.

Groups.

As children, the slowness of time.

As adults, the speed of time.

Holding the gaze of another.

Being unseen.

Silence in conversation.

Speechlessness.

Signs (like the other yawning) that you interpret as your fault.

Having others visit your home.

Believing you are a coward.

Making phone calls.

Regret, especially in old age, or when the regretful action can no longer be remedied.

Fear of losing your job.

Triple Play by Fan Ho.

Fear of staying in your job.

Fear of looking for a job.

The criticism of a parent or a boss.

Taking a public position, in speech or writing, in a politically challenging moment.

Fear for the well-being of your children and grandchildren.

Being shamed.

Commitment.

Fear of doing nothing.

Loneliness.

Fear of going to a therapist for the first time.

Fear that we don’t know what or who to believe.

You fear you are not

strong enough to do

the hardest thing

only because you don’t

yet know that doing

the hardest thing

is exactly what will help

you know your strength.

Andrea Gibson 8/13/75 — 7/14/25

If you appreciated Gibson’s poem, try watching them perform “Ode to the Public Panic Attack.”

May 4, 2025

Finding Your Voice

Many struggle to fathom why they fail to act when it would benefit them. They might recognize the pattern, but do not understand where it originated. “That’s just me,” they think, or “That’s for someone else to try, not I.”

Thus, self-assertion takes the shape of a mountain in the distance, intimidating to the point of premature defeat.

Such a life is fear-based, explained in the language of rationalization.

The composer John Cage created a piece entitled “4’33.” It consists of a performer coming on stage, sitting down, and waiting four and a half minutes without making a sound, though he holds his instrument. 

Only then does he bow and depart. As Cage wrote in a poem, “I have nothing to say, and I’m saying it.”

“4’33” is one thing. Letting your lifetime pass is another. This is the time to speak, as it always is, as it always has been.

Be careful of small talk when it becomes too small. People are increasingly afraid of mentioning anything controversial. If you want to be interesting, you might have to say something worth considering, perhaps after some study.

You can view this as a threat or an opportunity. Individuals with worthwhile and well-expressed ideas may not be invited to the next party, but could be the show’s star.

If you see the world as a place full of adult-version playground bullies, you have a problem. It’s not that they don’t exist, but that we assign them unwarranted credit.

Would-be bullies think of themselves as the Big Bad Wolf, able to blow down any home. The reverse can be true. Most of the blowhards can’t take a blow.

Practice saying no. No is a complete sentence, not requiring explanation. Learn to repeat it and take back your life. If you want some reinforcements, find the growing number of people who realize fighting back is the antidote for anxiety.

Walking together is enlivening. Sometimes, around disagreeable or threatening people, prepare to walk away. Again, no words are required, but try to have transportation nearby.

Living in dread of a repetition of what has happened, what is happening, or what might yet happen offers unhappiness and a self-fulfilling prophecy. Past, present, and future are compromised thereby.

The anticipatory anxiety squeezes out all room for joy. Make friends, collaborate with both the nervous and the unafraid. Some will be buddies with whom you laugh a lot.

You have been here before. Do you wish to be subservient the rest of your life? Part of life involves taking things on. The only question is which ones and when.

Hiding is no escape from worry. Those who seek shelter from our chaotic world discover unkind bosses, dismissive parents, unfair competitors, teachers who are petty dictators, and abusive mates who still invade their path.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ — Eleanor Roosevelt

Consider being scary periodically. It is another antidote for terror.

The point here is to take control of something, however small or intimidating, and find agency within. Do not wear a “Kick Me” sign on your back.

Remember what you have told your children.

Imperfect action takes you anywhere you want faster than perfect inaction.

The old saying tells us, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

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The top image is Norman Rockwell’s Freedom of Speech from The Four Freedoms. Below it follows Eleanor Roosevelt, from 1949. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

April 24, 2025

A Simpler, Slower Life

But I have a surprise for you. Being unremarkable isn’t a sin. You don’t have to be a success to find joy. One needn’t pack the weekend full of excitement to impress others. Nor do you need to follow the crowd and meet their every demand.

One more thing. If you are thoughtful and don’t run from understanding why you are anxious or sad, you can grow beyond those who see the days as some sort of competition. 

I came across the following note about existence on Substack. It is by David Keeler and was posted on March 25, 2025.

April 20, 2025

I Worried a Lot!

As teens, my buddy Steve and I shared a subscription to Mad magazine. It was an off-beat comic book that was ironic and funny—just the thing for two boys trying to figure out the world and their place in it.

The cover-boy hero (above) was a young man named Alfred E. Neuman. “What, me worry?” was his take on existence. The combination of his words and his face implied a serene idiocy, a kid who approached his life without a thought about the road ahead.

Steven and I are a bit older now—say, more than half a century. Though I can’t speak for him, we have changed a bit. We learned Alfred E. Neuman wasn’t an idiot after all. He realized that time is always short and one must make the best possible use without letting trepidation get in the way.

Beyond periods of productive consideration of his world and his life, Alfred might have also recognized that worry should be replaced by action. Wringing one’s hands, sweating in the face of a challenge, and losing sleep night after night are unproductive. Taking steps toward changing your circumstances offers at least a partial sense of control.

If he was troubled, I imagine Al chose to address what lay ahead, do his best, and not look back in regret. Despite this, I’m guessing no reader of Mad recognized him as a visionary and guide to how best to live.

We missed something.

Worry and the anxiety that follows from it are like glue. We walk along, step on the sticky spot, and get stuck. Distraction sometimes works to undo the spiraling cycle of dread; a favorite TV show might free us, shopping can provide the same service, but the sticky spot is still there, waiting patiently for us to return to its grip.

The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) offers this worksheet on mastering Worry. Small steps help reduce apprehension and anguish and make them manageable.

Robert Wu, a Chinese researcher based in Shanghai, wrote this for the April 19, 2025, New York Times: 

Recurring periods of hardship in Chinese history have embedded in the nation’s psyche a capacity for endurance and fortitude. The phrase for this is “chi ku” or “eat bitterness.”

I prefer something sweet. Take a breath and remember all you have already triumphed over and everything you feared that never occurred. Your survival proves you have much of the “right stuff.”

Some self-distraction is necessary to enhance one’s life. Then, take those baby steps that will help dissolve your worry and make a difference when possible.

I hope Helena Bonham Carter’s funny reading of Mary Oliver’s poem “I Worried a Lot” boosts you.

Consider it a momentary antidote for the strange time in which we live.