love

June 14, 2026

What We are Looking For

I cannot explain it. I cannot recreate it. I can only tell you that I didn’t know what I was looking for, but, nonetheless, it was what I found.

Twice?

I found it first in silence, at college. The young woman I loved, after an evening of affection, sat a few feet apart from me as we looked at each other in silence. Neither of us averted our eyes during an hour in the stillness. There was no plan or agreement. It just happened.

I could say we created a sacred space, the space around us and between us. I might offer that, but I am not sure what it means. It seemed that something more was there, more than what could be defined, transcendence from one state to another, floating and ethereal.

Together, but innocent.

Much later, in a relationship at a distance with a different woman, the two of us unconsciously erased the miles by creating a bridge of words, and sometimes a beam of voices. We lived for this tightrope and met each other there when geography separated us.

Not so easy, you say? You are right. But we came to see each other without sight, understanding each other beyond knowledge and surfaces. We were vulnerable, missed our missing fathers, and honest to the point of painfulness.

The words do not do the relationship justice. They never do.

I retain friends from fifth grade and later, as well as from high school. I retain buddies, period, you might say, and have platonic love for some of them. With many, there is atypical openness. It helps to be a clinical psychologist.

I am lucky to have my children and grandchildren close by, the former after years away, mostly at school.

If heaven awaits as good as advertised, I will welcome it. In the meantime, in an uneasy world, I look for friendship, silent communion, ways to repair the world, spontaneous laughter, and the chance to say “I love you.”

I laugh with physical therapists and MDs, too. Sometimes one can make necessities into opportunities, at least a bit. In life, there is no free lunch. Lives must be shaped, reshaped, and adapted. We must live and love “despite.”

Do as much as you can in the time you have.

Join the club if you can. No requirements.

It is spring, after all.

============

The image is Alphonse Mucha’s Spring,1896, sourced from Wikiart.org/

May 31, 2026

Who Lives Inside of Us?

Who lives inside of us?

Those we love, for sure.

The ones who supervised us and taught us, and those we trained and took under our wing.

Those we dislike? Some, for a time or for years. It would be best if we could vanquish the fire within ourselves and place the disliked inhabitants in a safer, quieter location.

To do otherwise means to hold anger and burn away the days of our lives. We are distracted and sleepless, and think of how to return the hate in kind.

The old saying goes that if you want revenge, dig two graves. The second will be your own, since the wrath leaves a scorched earth and continual unhappiness. The flames rob us of the world’s beauty, a chance to grow, and the emotional room for fraternity and love.

One other group of those who live inside.

The departed, some living, others not. They include the recalled faces of youth and the years past. Add the corner grocer, the third-grade friend who moved away (Joel Lee), the neighbors who offered kindness, and our favorite teachers.

I am thinking of myself in this and those around me a while ago.

Not least, relatives played a part in my life. The way they hugged, put an arm on my shoulder, and smiled or winked, as if the two of us had a secret.

Include the grandmother who gave me a coin each time she came to our house. Add Steve Henikoff’s mom, too. Mrs. H. introduced me to Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies. They were so delicious, I wouldn’t have traded them for a trip to heaven!

Nor have I forgotten the neighborhood cutie (Susie D.) who always smiled at me, as if waiting for me to wake up and spend time with her. 

She died too soon.

A 5th-grade girl named Marilyn lost a parent. Heart disease felled the breadwinners in family after family in those days. So it appeared to me.

Polio terrified parents, too, until Jonas Salk developed a vaccine in the mid-50s. Few recall that Dr. Salk tried the vaccine on himself during his experiments.

Think of it.

In fifth grade, I discovered girls. Female classmates had been masquerading as males, but wearing long hair and dresses, until the day everything changed. 

My eyes, on their own, traveled to Sharon’s underpinnings. Limbs, my eyes reported, didn’t just prop you up and help you to walk.

Sharon and I were invited to a boys’ and girls’ party and participated in a game of Spin the Bottle. A minute later, she and I found ourselves in a dark room alone. 

“Gerry, do you know that the most beautiful girl in the world is deaf?”

No, I answered. 

“What did you say?”

Good legs and funny!

That was many years ago. I wonder if the charmer is still alive. A witty young woman.

I remember Bob Hanel’s father, a tall man with a small dog—chatty and kind. The man, not the dog.

Mrs. Schallmoser emigrated from Germany and babysat for my brothers and me. One day, sometime later, I asked her about Hitler. The family left Germany before he took over, she said. A gentle woman.

Mr. Sharon, no relation to my girlfriend, owned a candy store. The kind man called me “son.” He and I talked about the Chicago Cubs, our favorite, hometown team.

Jerry S. moved into the neighborhood as a seventh grader, a year older than me. Jerry and I attached a long string to two empty cans and kept the string straight across and above the alley separating his house from mine. Of course, we didn’t displace Thomas Edison’s work, but we talked a bit about our creation.

Kenny Shively, another friend who lived nearby, played the accordion. Johnny Costea, a year or two ahead in school, introduced me to swearing instead of Ken’s squeeze boxes.

Johnny was a fan of Batman, the comic book hero who later made it to the movies. To John, Batman’s town wasn’t Gotham City but “Goddamn City.” 

Imagine a time when the brazenness of those words packed a whallop.

Much of what I am talking about happened in the alley between Washtenaw and Talman, the 5700 block, in Chicago. The city’s residential blocks are full of those alleys, about 90% of them. Along with empty lots, the alleys were like a second home for boys who lived for softball in the summertime.

These concrete playing fields included garbage cans, telephone poles, and the malodorous deposits left by the dogs their owners walked.

The poet Carl Sandburg called Chicago the “City of the Big Shoulders.” Bruised one’s, too, if you ran into the closed garage doors that governed each side of your alley or lost your balance and said a hard hello to the concrete beneath you.

Please allow me to leave you with this.

Let me start with an old saying about memories and the people we recall. The words take many forms, but the essence is this. We don’t die until the last time someone who remembers us mentions our name.

But here is a sunnier version of the importance of carrying another with us and in us. The punctuation below the YouTube reading is the poet’s:

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

By E. E. Cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
 
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
 
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
===========
The top photo includes Materials Used During the “Claiming Our Memories” Session at GLAM Wikii in Montevideo, Uruguay by Pribellini. The second photo is Election Night in Barcelona by Marc Lozano. Both were sourced from Wikimedia Commons. 
February 15, 2026

A Few Added Words on the Subject of Living

For some, the Christian Bible is enough, or the Koran, or the Shreemad Bhagavad Gita. Include the Torah, the Talmud, and the Agamas. Perhaps all the guidance and wisdom in the world is to be found amid them and the other holy books.

But I suspect that the legendary philosophers of history might have a useful and additional word or two, men like Seneca, Socrates, and Spinoza. I would add several novelists, including British writers Julian Barnes and Virginia Wolff.

What is more, sometimes your mom or dad, or your third-grade teacher, offers enlightenment.

If truth is present in any of those possibilities, there also should be value in a few words not always or easily found among the sometimes contradictory messages that sacred books, among others, send our way.

Here are a few for you to accept or ignore.

Life is hard, but it offers a balm not found in a tube of calamine lotion at the pharmacy. It is discovering something or someone to love. The conventional wisdom suggests you must find a lover, but there are many others. A friend, a sibling, your parents, or a pet can offer affection and gratitude in receiving it.

More?

I have an old buddy who enjoys and even treasures his work and might win the Nobel Prize someday. I have cheered athletes who are in love with the game they play. I’ve also run into more than a few self-involved folks. On occasion, they are self-sufficient in the practice of their genius.

Think about writers, artists, sculptors, musicians, and composers. Add to the list, if you like, women and men who seek more than entertainment in the arts, entranced in discoveries of intensity, joy, and moments of ecstasy. If you’re lucky, you can find more than a single such passion.

The point is to be attached to, devoted to, involved in, and touched by what you love.

And, if you are thoughtful, you can return the endearment and the attention. You give back to the game, whether it’s a contest, a person, the adoration of Mozart, or the game of life.

Erin, of the Existential Ergonomics blog, wrote a wonderful post the other day that speaks to those who recognize that life and full reign over your existence are in opposition, much as we wish otherwise:

I am learning the difficult grace of release. I once believed I could map every turn of this story, determine when and how love would appear. But life, patient and persistent, keeps prying my fingers open.

Each time I loosen my hold—on plans, on control, on what I thought I needed—something softer finds its way in. I’m beginning to see that undoing isn’t failure; it’s invitation. It’s the space where breath returns, where grace has room to enter and rebuild.

My response to her statement was this:

Well said, wise, and beautifully expressed, Erin. We never have full control, but for seconds or days at a time, and even that is an illusion. These are the terms on a contract we never signed. Acceptance and managing the cracks that form in our painting is the art we must keep creating—to find love in the cracks.

I should have added more than shared adoration to what saves us, including whatever is useful and whatever can compensate for the blows of fate; if they can.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking feature of our lifelong but imperfect bargain is the loss of people. Then we learn to grieve and endure, cherishing their memory, and desiring a reunion in the afterlife. It is an outcome that is part inclination, belief, and hope, as well as a certainty in select minds and hearts.

A written guarantee? Hard to find on any day or on eBay, but hope often takes its place.

We live in a difficult time. Life moves faster and faster; lasting work is uncertain; residences double as offices where a screen and a phone substitute for a meeting place, a handshake, a kiss, and a hug. Meanwhile, skin hunger grows like ivy on the wall.

George Orwell, a visionary author, described our dilemma as he contemplated it more than 75 years ago:

All we have done is to advance to a point at which we could make a real change in human life, but we shall not do it without the recognition that common decency is necessary.

Surely decency is a step toward love. To love one’s neighbor and the stranger. To provide for the starving and homeless. To call the other by their name, with honor. To recognize our shared humanity.

And not to take arms, but to hold the other in our arms and let her know that she matters.

==========

The first image is Meanna. It is an album cover from Tales of Loneliness, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Below it is An Elephant at Sunset in Amboseli, Kenya, 2024, by the superb photographer, Laura Hedien, presented with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

November 30, 2025

George Altman and the Art of Living

george_altman_autograph

Some men are great, but not good. Only a few are both good and great. Such a man was George Altman, who died at 92 on November 24.

His story goes beyond being a sports hero for a moment in time. It is about the way he lived his life.

Nineteen-sixty-one began well for George Lee Altman. The year also looked positive for Jack Randolph Stein — my brother, Jack — the ballplayer’s best nine-year-old fan. Jack studied the newspaper box scores and memorized Altman’s statistics. He defended Altman to any “unbelievers” who might have preferred some other big league star.

No defense, however, was needed in 1961: by baseball’s All-Star break, Altman led the league in hitting. The 6’4″ black outfielder blasted a home run in the game. Only a better Cubs team would have made the world of George and Jack perfect.

13213819

Ah, but the baseball gods are capricious, and the long ball Altman drove over the fence proved the high point of his Major League career. After another All-Star year in Chicago, he was traded to St. Louis and then to the New York Mets at a time when a ballplayer might be considered a “well-paid slave,” to quote Curt Flood about his own baseball career.

But this story ends well, so don’t lose heart. George Altman never did.

I offer you two stories here: one, a brief recounting of the life of an extraordinary athlete and man; the other, of a little boy who admired him. A tale, too, of the unexpected turns you meet if you live long enough.

—

Altman was 27 years old in 1961, and Jack was at the age when boys acquire heroes. Baseball permitted the love of a man of a different race in a way not allowed by almost any other public activities of the day.

Jack modeled himself after Big George. He adopted a similar left-handed batting stance and played the outfield as his hero did. My brother even hoped to spend time with him, something impossible after a ballgame in an ad hoc autograph line.

Jack wrote to the athlete at Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs. “Mom will cook you a meal of steak and beer,” he included as an enticement. No brewery inhabited our basement, and no beer lived in our refrigerator, but the letter found its way out the door. Jack waited. The whole family waited and wondered.

My brother received a picture-postcard with Altman’s photo on one side and his autograph on the other. No mention of steak and beer. No comment at all.

—

A little history: George Altman played a part in advancing race relations in the United States.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson, enabled by the Brooklyn Dodgers’ General Manager (Branch Rickey), broke the informal collusion among Major League Baseball’s owners to keep the game white: the color line. From Robinson’s arrival, it took until 1959 — the same year George Altman joined the Cubs — for every team to have at least one black player.

Big George was among the last to play ball in the Negro Major Leagues (a gifted dark-skinned player’s only alternative to the barred door of the Majors). They began to unravel when some of their best athletes found jobs in the newly integrated big leagues.

A rough road greeted “colored” men (as they were then called), even if they did leap the first barrier. Salary was modest, most took off-season jobs to survive, and racism among some of their white teammates presented itself. Managers were all white, and informal limitations prevented “too many” dark-skinned men from taking the field as “starters.”

Blacks had to room with blacks, whites with whites. Segregated hotels sometimes further separated the races. Little interracial socialization occurred after the game ended, and even in the dugout, the dark and the light often sat apart.

altman-ernie-bily

—

Altman had another superb season in 1962, but his trade to St.Louis left both the ballplayer and brother Jack disappointed. Injuries cut short much of Altman’s time in the big leagues, but he eventually became a brilliant star in Japan for eight seasons. Even then, however, he was a person on the outside. No longer an African-American in a white world, nor a college-educated man among men of more limited learning, he became an American in Asia.

—

George Altman grew up in North Carolina. His mother died of pneumonia when he was four. Willie Altman, his dad, made a living as a tenant farmer who became an auto mechanic. The senior Altman could be a hard man, a man of few words and hidden feelings; one who didn’t encourage his talented son’s growing athletic success or attend his games. But the junior Altman gave his all to succeed at everything he tried, including the back-breaking labor of picking cotton and tobacco during teenage summers.

Altman graduated from Tennessee State thanks to a basketball scholarship. He later became “semi-conversant” in Japanese during his playing days overseas, and a commodities trader at Chicago’s Board of Trade representing himself from the seat he purchased with some of his relatively high Japanese earnings. Along the way, he beat down colon cancer.

x9h7a3e6kcmdmce

Before he left Chicago, George Altman started a chess club for young people and helped build the Better Boys Foundation. In his 80s, he focused on high school-aged kids and combating the evils of drug abuse, but the Windy City continued to claim a special place in his heart.

The tall childhood hero once again came to mind with the Cubs’ 2016 World Series Championship. Perhaps, Jack hoped, a 55-year-old meal ticket could be punched as well. My brother tracked down his 1960s idol and made a date to visit him near Altman’s Missouri home.

—

The men who broke baseball’s color line are thought of as having advanced the status of their race despite the initially punishing reception of white baseball. Surely this is correct, but not the whole story. They also served all Americans of the time, not only by displaying their particular genius for the game.

Blacks were not just stereotyped, but invisible in mid-twentieth-century America: no black newscasters, no blacks in commercials, few blacks on TV or in the movies; and then, almost always in roles fueling the worst stereotypes of the time.

That changed with the vanguard of “Negro” baseball players. Even bigots now observed African-Americans in a new role, heard them speak in radio and TV interviews, and read human interest stories written about them. Unseen, anyone can be stereotyped. A man or woman in the flesh becomes a person, not so easily molded into an object of derision.

The black athletes of Altman’s generation played baseball well, but they played a more critical role in transforming America. The frozen, deformed national consciousness of people of color was reformed by their courage. We are better because of them, if still not perfect. We are better because of George Altman.

—

20170112_094110

Expectations nurtured over time become unspeakably high. The goal, once achieved, usually disappoints: too much pent-up anticipation. Not this. The still trim Altman met my brother at the appointed restaurant. The ballplayer didn’t remember the “steak and beer” invitation, nor did the pair dine on the menu items Jack had promised.

Still, the 55-year-old’s wish was otherwise satisfied — and not only because of the former Chicagoan’s pleasure at the success of the World Champion players who wore the same uniform he did. Here is Jack’s voice:

After a while I brought up some of the tragedies he endured, from poverty to racial prejudice to his son’s death in a head-on collision with a drunk driver; the loss of his grandson, too. Despite all this, George was an absolutely positive guy who appreciated his life and how he handled his most difficult times.

Since George was not legendary ballplayer, he seemed surprised anyone would drive a long distance to spend a couple of hours with him over lunch.  He enjoyed my detailed interest in his career and the recollections we shared of some of his greatest games.  For me, as I have learned more about George from his autobiography and our meeting, the hero of a nine-year-old boy became his hero again at 64-years-of-age. It was a happy experience for both of us.

Responding to a note of gratitude from Jack, George Altman wrote this:

Jack,

I thank you for the honor of your visit this afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment. You reminded me of some great experiences I had in baseball. Thanks for the memories. I’m honored that you would drive almost 700 miles (round trip) to have lunch with me. I am amazed at your knowledge of my career.

God bless you and your family.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Geo.

—

Where do resilience and grace come from? In the dedication of his autobiography, Altman first thanks God and then his mother, “whom I never really knew. Everyone who knew her said that she was a beautiful, kind, and loving person. I have tried to use her legacy as a guideline for my life.”

Then he names his wife, Etta, and his children, relatives, and friends, all acknowledged for “their love, comfort, and support.” Lastly, gratitude is expressed to five coaches, perhaps father figures, who are individually identified. As John Donne famously wrote, “No Man is an Island.” Whether he knows the line, George Altman knows the lesson.

—

The Stein family, ca. 1960. Left to right in the front row, Jack, Gerry, and Eddie.

The Stein family, circa 1960. Left to right in the front row, Jack, Gerry, and Eddie.

Back in the childhood I shared with my brothers, we never thought about players writing books or their lives in retirement. We were too busy watching those still active. The “stars” were, quite literally, in our eyes.

Mid-twentieth-century America presented an easy opportunity to believe in heroes. I mean the celebrated athletes of the time, especially baseball players. As Homer said of the combatants in the Trojan War, some were “godlike” men.

The human imperfections of anyone in the public eye today, however, have become inescapable. Each man’s and woman’s Achilles heel is x-rayed, dissected, and shamelessly exposed. We live in an age of full-frontal news. We know more, but are perhaps poorer because of it.

And then there are George Altman and other people like him, quietly living out their lives. There are never too many: intelligent, decent, and hardworking; gifted, grateful, and resilient.

How many of us can stand comfortably on a pedestal erected by a worshipful nine-year-old? The 64-year-old version of that little boy, my brother Jack, would tell you he met one: a man who made a difference, the rare example of a life well-lived.

————————————–

Most of the information about George Altman’s life comes from his autobiography, George Altman: My Baseball Journey from the Negro Leagues to the Majors and Beyond, written with Lew Freedman. The second image above is Norman Rockwell’s “The Dugout,” which appeared in the September 14, 1948, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. The painting well symbolizes the futility of most of the Cubs teams my generation watched as we grew up. The following dugout image includes, from left to right, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and George Altman. I do not know the names of the other players, but I would be pleased to be informed by those who do.

September 14, 2025

A Gift to Last a Ten-year-old’s Lifetime

On a recent visit to the Chicago Writers Museum, I conceived the idea of giving my eldest grandson the gift of a lifetime—something small, forever to keep. 

An exhibit featured brief short stories by named authors including Sibylla Nash. I pressed a button on an upright mechanism, similar to an electronic ticket machine. It spooled out a slender, two-foot-long paper containing all of her tale, The Big BOO!

No charge.

Ten-year-old X is a voracious reader, and the story suited him, but it wasn’t the yarn that made it a distinctive present. My handwritten note beside the title on the narrow page offered this:

For X from Grandpa. To be read to your brother Z, your children, and your grandchildren!

Yes, I was thinking ahead, but looking back, as well.

My own grandfather was on my mind when I inscribed this request to a boy I love. Leo Fabian was an imperfect yet loving man whom I last saw when I was a teenager. Mom and I went to the hospital, knowing the dreadful speed of his life’s clock and the shortness of his time.

Grandpa sat upright in his bed, watching TV, but his still blankness suggested a man defeated, the loser in the battle with Death, a larger than Life opponent with an undefeated record.

An artist would have needed only one color to paint Leo Fabian’s likeness that day—a gray man of gray hair and skin, with a face robbed of expression.

My mother entered first, but when I appeared a few steps behind her, his face came to life. He held out his arms and we hugged each other. One of those indelible memories you relive but for the touch. The touch you want more than anything.

I own faded photos of him, but I don’t have any videos or recordings of his voice. In their absence, it will be harder to tell my grandchildren what made him important to me.

No one else is left to do it, as my brothers were too young to know him well.

My grandad and I worked in proximity to each other at my uncle’s business during the days I had an after-school job. This son of Romania crossed the Atlantic to come to our promising land. He spoke several languages, and I listened to him use them. I recognized the charm, wit, and joy he carried and carried him through much of his life.

And I knew he loved me.

On occasion, he used the phrase “kick the bucket” well before he was inches away from the metaphor turning real. An event now long past.

Leo Fabian would be proud and happy that I think of him and pleased with this quiet honor. Writing his name, bringing it to life, and saying it out loud for nothing more than his remembered love. Such is part of a Jewish custom.

I wish the world permitted me to reach back in time and show you how he walked, spoke, and joked. His animated smile would have taken you in, with its sense of mischief, and the scent of the aftershave he applied to his cheeks. The twinkle in his eye, his imposing height, the width of his wrists, and the strength in his hands all said this was a man. 

Not the bad stuff in his life, just the best in him.

The record of my life is more comprehensive than my grandfather’s, yet whatever is told or shown of it, whenever I am gone, at the end, love is what matters.

James Lucas wrote this in a Substack essay on September 11, 2025:

So many of us drift through life as if wrapped in a fog, caught in the monotony of routine, numbed by a rhythm that feels imposed rather than chosen. We move like sleepwalkers, bound by the weight of what we think we should be doing.

And yet, it’s only when we truly grasp that our time is slipping away that the most beautiful part of us rises to the surface. Perhaps it’s because, when everything is stripped down to its essence, the noise disappears… and the thing that remains is love.

Love as the purest truth of who we are. Love is the only weapon we’ve been given against the cruelty of life. 

===========

The painting is titled “Old Man and Grandson” by Ghirlandaio. The cropped section shown here was done by Frank Vincentz and sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

It is followed by a photo titled “Hand of Grandpa and Grandson” by Nikhil More. The source is the same.

 

August 3, 2025

Some Random Observations That Don’t Tell You What To Do

Here we go:

  • There is strength in numbers. We feel better with the support of other like-minded people who also benefit from our presence.
  • My old friend Mel was a child during the Great Depression. He made no big deal of it because his father supported the family, and Mel never thought he was in any peril. He was a kid, after all. Surviving a calamitous time under favorable circumstances is not the same as experiencing the trouble of others.
  • Those under pressure benefit from our kindness and assistance. The Greeks have a long tradition of hospitality toward the stranger. It goes back to the time of Homer and his Iliad and Odyssey. This sacred duty is called Philoxenia, the opposite of Xenophobia, the fear of strangers.
  • You will be loved, but also betrayed, sometimes by the same person or people you thought to be friends.
  • The world of AI is a bit of a mystery, but it’s worth understanding what is known. This nonhuman, nonliving agent is a growing presence in our lives. Youval Harari, a brilliant public intellectual, is among those who speak intelligently on the subject. He is all over YouTube.
  • I was born in the luckiest historical moment and place in history for white people, just after World War II. Those born later, including my children, have encountered a less favorable set of conditions.
  • My mother used to say, “God helps those who help themselves.” She was not religious, though she prayed to my dad and her mother. Mom wanted to die and asked for their help in the several months she lived after my father passed away. Make what you will of that.

  • When my friend Joe, also a psychologist, was recovering from a heart attack, I stepped in for him with one of his challenging patients. She believed herself the most unfortunate person in world history. This woman expected special consideration from others as a result. Her sense of entitlement was part of her problem.
  • Most of the young and middle-aged do not understand the physical pain brought by old age. I sure didn’t. Better that you don’t.
  • Love and let yourself be loved. OK, I said I wouldn’t tell you to do something, but I couldn’t resist.
  • One of the problems created by the pandemic was skin hunger. We need human or animal physical contact, but not of the cannibal variety.
  • About 13 years ago, I learned how to read in a new way. Instead of judging the author after reading a bit, I tried to understand what the author intended without judgment. I was also instructed not to read background material or expert opinions and explanations of the book’s contents. I came to ponder how the human strengths and flaws portrayed in words might apply to my life, my decisions, and the human condition.
  • Are we free? That depends on how you define freedom, free will in particular. To some degree, we have become the prisoners of algorithms. These early AI interventions into our online lives keep track of what we choose to see and read, and provide us more of it. Included are media that enrages us and contribute to the virality of untruth and conspiracy theories. The only way to achieve freedom from this algorithmic effect is to dispose of our phones and computers. I haven’t heard of anyone who has made this choice.

  • Among my favorite old songs is “If I Had a Hammer,” as sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary. Appropriate for our time. I like “My Boyfriend’s Back,” which has nothing to do with a body part, and “Rock Around the Clock,” as performed by Bill Haley and the Comets. “In the Mood” is a big band favorite from before my time. It still puts me in the mood, meaning thoughts of romance with the woman I love. Then, of course, the instrumental masterpieces of Mahler, Brahms, Beethoven, etc.
  • The 1950s and ’60s offered a proliferation of cowboy TV shows and reruns of World War II movies, not to mention the TV version of Superman. Thereby, kids my age absorbed a simplified version of right and wrong. Native Americans were among the bad guys, a more than unfortunate and dishonest depiction. Nonetheless, the abstract moral principles led me to buy in. I later understood how the white men mistreated the natives, something I never learned in school. More recently, I discovered we no longer agree on right and wrong.
  • Among the most thoughtful action movies of the time was Abandon Ship. An ocean liner on a pleasure cruise strikes a naval mine, which explodes and sinks the ship. The lifeboat has inadequate supplies, and those clinging to it in the ocean lack enough shark repellent. The commanding officer faces a moral dilemma. He considers how to save everyone, an impossible task. The single alternative is to select the hardiest among them for a challenging journey. The rest are forcefully put in the water, resulting in certain death as they float away.
  • We live in a world of ideas. There are more movies, classic books, and transformative, exciting, and uplifting music than one can enjoy in a lifetime of learning, watching, and listening. A friend rereads many of the books he considers the most thoughtful and provocative. If we read such works, the greatest minds of human history still speak to us. They wait patiently for us to listen to their words.

Enough for today. Be well.

==========

The three images are sourced from Wikiart.org.

They are Thinking Thought Bubble by FreyaSyangila, Orangutan Thinking by Dmitry Rozhkov, and The Thinker by Auguste Rodin.

May 25, 2025

All the Lives We Touch

My friend Steve and I were coming home from a White Sox versus Tigers game at old Comiskey Park. It was a warm July night during our college years. He had a summer job at the Post Office, an early shift, and a sleepless night and morning at a party he hosted.

By the time we left the stadium, he’d been awake for almost 48 hours.

I asked him if he was alert enough to drive, but he pooh-poohed my concerns. On the return trip, I noticed his car began to weave into another lane. I turned toward him. His eyes were closed. With one hand, I grabbed the steering wheel, and shook him with the other as I got the vehicle under control.

What if?

What if we died in a crash? Humanity would have lost Steve’s future as a genetic researcher of international fame who contributed to the human genome project. Of course, no one could have predicted that in 1967.

Everyone matters.

I became a clinical psychologist, a husband, a father, and a grandfather. But the accident might have ended my future, with toddlers and grandkids disappearing without lives they were never given.

My wife, whom I met a few years later, likely would have married and produced different youngsters and grandchildren. Their impact on the planet vanished because I survived the close call. 

Those young ones were among an endless number of children who never were. I would have been one had my father returned from World War II thirty days after he did.

History only records what occurs, and then just part of the entire story. We cannot know the totality of our influence on others once we depart.

Yet we might have children or grandchildren who make their mark because of us. We might have nudged friends or their offspring and put our thumb on their posterity.

Van Gogh, for example, never sold a painting and had to be supported by his brother. The artist was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment and committed suicide at age 37. Most of us experience neither his profound desperation nor the ability to give birth to art that moves some to tears.

We have ways to revise and improve the world, small or large. Planting a garden, teaching, and attending a library board meeting come to mind. Loving another and seeing them in a way no one else does. Helping those in need, making charitable donations, and emigrating to a land offering multiple generations a better life.

In United States history, one cannot ignore the founders’ gift to all of us, and the slow refinement of the law produced by some of those who succeeded them.

As I waited to cross the street during college, a young lady traveled the same path a step to my right. She was lost in her conversation with a friend, unaware of the red light we faced. She entered the crosswalk in front of a speeding car. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

She was stunned and did not realize what had happened until later. Did she become a nurse, a nun, an architect, a physician, or a legislator?

Failing to learn her lesson, would she have walked into traffic again and been harmed or killed? Might this woman have touched one life, 100, or all those on the planet?

We live in a world of possibilities, but a troubled time. A single life might alter things, and the difference can be immense. 

Think of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Beethoven, the Buddha, Abe Lincoln, Hannah Arendt, Moses, Margaret Atwood, Mohammed, Jesus, Virginia Wolfe, Jackie Robinson, Ernest Hemingway, Homer, Rembrandt, Marie Curie, John Lewis, Indira Gandhi, and many others.

Do not diminish your potential to impact the world. You cannot know whether your presence sets the Earth forward or backward. Do not say your existence makes no difference. 

Live as if it makes all the difference. 

You never know.

==========

The paintings of Vincent van Gogh are sourced from Wikiart.org/ The first is Irises (1889), and the second is Sower at Sunset (1888). Finally, the artist’s The Starry Night (1889).

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 17, 2025

A Grateful Goodbye: The Importance of Endings

Old relationships leave a variety of marks. Dark and light, faint and bright, on the surface and below. Some fade quickly, others remain: the wistful, the love-sick, the haunting. Endings matter. They impact how you remember past passions, family, and friends.

Therapists talk about grieving, but what comes after? Is there more yet to learn?

We grieve close-up but understand at a distance, needing time to tally the score and figure out what happened. In the brightness and intensity of proximity, our emotions get in the way of reason and perspective.

The people who have reappeared as memories in my life sometimes took new forms and offered new lessons. One who lived on a pedestal far too high became more narcissistic and closer to earth with time. I understood her only after a while. But an old girlfriend is one thing, a parent something else.

Though as a little boy, I was “the cream in her coffee,” Mom and I lived at odds most of her life. Over time, I learned to master most of my animosity, fulfilled my responsibility, and visited the folks without incident. She knew I came out of duty more than admiration and said so in her 70s: “You love me, but don’t like me.” I could not deny it.

Age mellowed Mom some. The cutting edge of her double-sided compliments was duller, the clever complaints more effortful, less acid. After my 88-year-old dad died in the summer of 2000, my mom (81 herself) was desperately unhappy. She’d long since given up on friendship, not wishing to risk closeness. The wounds of her childhood remained unaddressed. Much as Jeanette Stein could be a tough person to deal with, the emotional devastation of an alcoholic father, a paranoid, smothering mother, youthful poverty, and teenage tuberculosis-these were her most faithful companions. They alone and her three sons represented the only “relationships” left with Dad gone.

In the last six-months of her too-long life (she daily prayed to my father and her mother to take her) I visited her every week. Preparation was required. I donned my armor suite, readying for the joust: criticisms aimed at me, the kids, the wife too; none of them present for the “fun” of seeing her again. Mostly, I kept quiet, conversed about the TV shows she watched, my brothers’ lives, searching for “safe” topics, and whatever else might pass the minutes with as little incident as possible.

The last time we talked wasn’t remarkable. While Mom was her usual critical self, at least she was not at her worst. The next week, Mrs. Stein didn’t answer the phone call made from the retirement facility’s reception desk. I took the elevator to her room, but no amount of knocking got a response. The facility manager opened her apartment for me. We discovered Mom sitting upright with a cooling cup of coffee tableside. She never regained consciousness.

Not an unusual ending, then, but I haven’t told you what happened two weeks before: the second to last time I talked with her. My mother suffered from lots of physical pain, even when she escaped invasion by one of her frequent headaches. Not this day. She felt “pretty good” and offered me a lightness of spirit I’d not seen in decades. We laughed. She was at ease. Her cleverness had no ill intent. The time together was an unexpected joy for me, almost a miracle: one of the most extraordinary days in my pretty interesting life. The kind of day you want to capture in a bottle and take home with you, the more poignant and precious it is, because you can’t.

Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, has described us as having two “selves.” The experiencing self and the remembering self:

The experiencing self is the one that answers the question (say, during a painful event): ‘Does it hurt now?’ The remembering self is the one that answers the question: ‘How was it, on the whole?’ Memories are all we get to keep from our experience of living, and the only perspective that we can adopt as we think about our lives is therefore that of the remembering self.

Kahneman continues, “The experiencing self does not have a voice. The remembering self is sometimes wrong, but it is the one that keeps score and governs what we learn from living.”

Yet, as the psychologist also tells us, this is not the whole story. If you are having surgery, your memory will be influenced by the “peak-end rule.” Both the extent of pain at its peak and the level of suffering at surgery’s end affect whether you will think back to the procedure as awful or no big deal. A benign ending can transform the experience.

Endings are like boomerangs–they keep returning. Twenty-four years have passed since Mom died. It has become easier to “live” with her ghost and be more sympathetic to her tragic life. My brothers and I get along better, and the family jokes I tell do not have the bitterness of the past.

That last good day lasted just a couple of hours—not long, but it didn’t need to. Some people get nothing of value when relationships end. The things unsaid remain unsaid on one or both sides; the finish finishes, at best, in discontent, at worst, in horror. You think you will have more time, and then it’s gone. I was lucky to see my mother once again, beautiful and gay, happy and happy with me.

It was not enough for the teen I was once, but by then it was enough for the adult, surely more than I expected or imagined possible.

It will do.

——-

The top photo is of my mother as a young woman. The Suit of Armor is from the Carnegie Museum of Art, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The Daniel Kahneman quotes can be found in his wonderful book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

October 27, 2024

What Wise Women Want in a Relationship with a Man

Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) was puzzled by the women of his time. We shouldn’t be. They have a wisdom worthy of admiration.

The psychoanalyst once said to the esteemed Marie Bonaparte:

“The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?‘”**

I will dare to answer the question the legendary psychiatrist could not. I received no small guidance from several knowing, kind, and whip-smart women I consulted on this issue. During my practice, I also evaluated or treated approximately 2000 individuals of the same gender.

First, I have narrowed the topic and will only offer a bit about young women. Like the men of their age, the experience, time, and change required to fully know themselves is ahead of them.

No one can understand what it will be like to marry, divorce, raise children to maturity, compete in the job market, suffer an illness, or grow older until many sunsets pass.

In the hormonal flow of youth, one is more prone to being swept away by a smile, charm, or an impressive resume. With luck, they have not yet been subject to the weight of longstanding desperation.

Time, disappointment, a broken heart, and mistreatment inform the wise about what they don’t want and what might create an enduring, loving partnership. Though we never fully understand ourselves, the clear-sighted and self-reflective among us acquire more self-knowledge than the younger version of ourselves.

Here, then, is a list of 18 characteristics that many astute, mature women are looking for in a partner:

1. To be Seen: A woman wants a consort to display interest in her. If the fellow is psychologically minded, such an enlightened companion will explore her ideas and soul as his acquaintance grows. Many women offer a sense of mystery and past adventures that go unmentioned unless a trusted one searches for them.

Significant others want to be recognized for who they are—never taken for granted. There are hopes, fears, passions, disappointments, and dreams to be uncovered. One extraordinary woman told me a lover should “look up when she enters the room.”

2. Kindness.

3. To be Admired: Routine wears down the niceties and compliments that draw us together. The words, flowers, candies, greeting cards, opened doors, and handwritten notes often become less frequent or vanish.

While it is impossible to make every day fresh, we all need admiration. With that comes respect and the acknowledgment that the other is your equal. She wants to be treated so.

4. Applause of Her Strengths and Acceptance of Her Weaknesses.

5. Financial Security: Women who earn more than sufficient funds sometimes fear a partner’s financial dependency or resentment of her success. Conversely, a male who controls the family finances because it is “his money” diminishes the one he says he loves and who he entrusts with their children.

To the extent the lady has set aside her career in whole or in part, appreciation should be factored into the twosome’s wealth.

6. Good Grooming: This quality includes caring for the body as it ages and regular medical checkups rather than avoiding MDs. Shaving regularly and showering after exercise show respect.

Not less than males, females want to be proud of how a mate appears in public. A man’s behavior needs to inform the woman she is desired. Attire and grooming tell her a part of this without words.

7. To be Heard: The partner should listen with intensity and focus, not impatience or overtalking. No one desires dismissal by someone checking the phone, looking at his watch, keeping the TV on, or reading.

Being heard requires patience, supportive listening, and understanding. It does not include unrequested solutions.

Men are inclined to dismiss emotions rather than provide comfort and recognition of the importance of the range of human feelings. One of the ladies I consulted reminded me that intimacy follows from being understood and heard.

8. Romance.

9. Sense of Humor: Wit, cleverness, and laughter are essential and count for more than many gents realize. A mature adult grasps the comical absurdities of life.

10. Acceptance of Physical Changes. No matter our self-care and exercise, evidence of aging cannot be hidden. The hand of Father Time can be delayed but not escaped. A wise spouse accepts this in himself and his mate.

11. A Mensch: According to Leo Rosten, Yiddish offers a version of “man” that differs from the definition of the same word in German.

A mensch is “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being a ‘real mensch’ is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous.”

Wikipedia adds, “The term is a high compliment, implying the rarity and value of that individual’s qualities.”

12. Honoring a Woman’s Role as a Caregiver and Family CEO: To the degree a man’s partner has historically taken on the traditional role of caregiver, this must be recognized and applauded. It should not be labeled as a set of tasks to be fulfilled by the female alone, expecting she forever put herself last.

Whether raising a child, earning a living, or both, a woman has accomplished something of merit. She requires time for self-care and wants a man to demonstrate his care for her through actions and words. She also needs time to herself, friendships, and activities apart from her husband.

13. Trust and a Sense of Safety—Physically, Verbally, and Emotionally.

14. Good Sex. Some couples will acknowledge a changed or fading sexual interest with time. A female confidant spoke for those who maintain much or all of their desire:

“Mature women are often more comfortable in their bodies, know what they like, have experience, and needn’t worry about pregnancy. They want a thoughtful and imaginative lover who cares about her pleasure.”

15. Opportunity and Support if a Woman Pursues a Career.

16. The Willingness to Apologize: The male ego insists that some men take an unashamed and unrepentant stance. Humble apologies are a necessity on both sides of any pair of people. Sincerity and reflection should be combined with humility, the better to escape future harm to someone you love.

17. Try to Show Interest in What Interests Them: It is well known that couples can grow apart over time. Too great a separation in what is vital to the other leads to a dying or dead letter connection between the individuals.

 18. Desiring No Man. Among those mature women who have had relationships and are heterosexual, more than a few find life satisfying without a romantic or sexual relationship with a man or woman.

–

Some of you will take issue with what I’ve written because I said too much or too little or revealed that I share the psychological blindness of many of my gender. I shall be pleased to be informed of shortcomings. Thank you for reading.

=========

The first image is A Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook by Camille Pissarro, 1894/95, Art Institute of Chicago. It is followed by a Daguerreotype of an Unidentified Woman ca. 1850 by Southworth & Hawes.

The following photo is Colors of a Woman, 2009, by Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia. Finally, J. Howard Miller’s “We Can Do It!” is also known as “Rosie the Riveter,” after the iconic figure of a strong female war production worker. 1942/43. All the images but the Pissarro work are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

**Sigmund Freud: Life and Work (Hogarth Press, 1953) by Ernest Jones, Vol. 2, Pt. 3, Ch.