psychology

psychology
therapy
cognitive behavior therapy

April 26, 2026

Notes On a Therapist’s Life

You might think my choice of a profession as a clinical psychologist was the result of a calling. Not so, at least not in any religious sense. Nor did I experience an irresistible force, from without or within, pushing me to serve and help heal those in pain.

Yet the work fulfilled me. I came to witness heroism among some of the profound and decent people I met. For others, the aim was to show up, live their lives, and try to do better than their parents.

They all deserve my applause.

Some of my clients led the treatment, somehow aware of the direction and effort required. Most sought guidance, while a few put in less labor than I did. When the sessions left me exhausted, but the other had not broken a sweat, I recognized an imbalance that needed to shift.

My duties were not a privilege each day, but on many days they were. I laughed with the afflicted. I shared their tears, without losing control.

The responsibility of carrying and caring for another brought weight and seriousness to my day, but enlightenment, too. Distortion, not unlike a carnival mirror, should be honored if we are to better ourselves. The strange spirit in the glass should never report, “You are the fairest of them all.

I learned that stories sometimes opened the door to insight. On occasion, they altered me.

A young and earnest therapist grows in confidence, experience, and knowledge. Failures in these areas are informative.

We all need mirrors if we expect our patients to peer into their own silvered glass. They must recognize themselves as they are, not what they might aspire to be or the monster declared guilty by their caretakers or themselves.

We are wounded healers whose job demands empathy born of our own injuries, without letting them interfere with the needs of those to whom we minister.

My childhood set before me a meal of dysfunction among relatives. The unintended desert was psychological understanding if I was able to ingest it.

My grandparents all came from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the last century. My mother’s family starved during the Great Depression. Alcohol stole the best of my maternal grandfather. Gramma set her children against each other in a fierce competition for her love.

All of those children, including mom, two aunts, and one uncle, were maimed by the love/hate of their home, poverty, illness, and parents not up for the job.

By my early teens, I grasped that living among them could be hazardous. I beheld my tearful mother beaten down with words by the family member on the other end of the receiver.

A fist delivered through a telephone cable would have caused less damage.

Dad’s family appeared more benign but distant. He worked multiple jobs out of fear of destitution, a tattooed shadow shared by many of his generation who endured the punishing decade of the 1930s economic catastrophe.

My brothers and I all needed a father’s presence, but we didn’t receive it often enough. Life in our home generated differentiated attempts to adapt, becoming an unwritten textbook on adjustment problems.

Therapists often come from complicated backgrounds, but not always. A psychiatric social worker told me about growing up in a loving family, including a kind pastor/father. None of this, she stated, prepared her for the stories of abuse she encountered.

Hearing personal histories, I required no imagination. As extreme as they were, the heartbreaking tales expressed what I came to accept about man’s inhumanity to man.

Reading Holocaust history and survivor testimonies added itself to the wash of unkindness and impulsive malice in my mother’s family. The combination made me more shockproof in the face of suffering by the time I reached my mid-30s.

This capacity was not a matter of indifference on my part, but familiarity with a slice of human nature from which I did not turn away. There is much good and wisdom in us, too, but clinical psychologists obtain a picture of both sides of ourselves and our brethren.

My practice included performing many psychological test batteries, well over 2000. I wrote reports to communicate both diagnosis and treatment suggestions. The patients I evaluated in this way and the psychotherapy clients I tried to bolster presented puzzles.

What contributed to their turmoil? Why had the previous counseling failed? What type of psychotherapy might benefit them? Would psychotropic medication be helpful?

When my efforts in the office stalled, I sometimes trashed my inadequate understanding of the client’s condition and started over. It was like knocking down a four-story structure, floor supporting floor, with a searchlight at the top to shine into another’s mind.

If the searchlight lacked something or the foundation proved wobbly, the wrecking ball would clear whatever stood in the way of healing. Sweeping up, I tried again.

Over time, many psychiatrists, other clinical psychologists, and social workers consulted me for my diagnostic and treatment recommendations. I received the opportunity to serve as an expert witness in about 30 lawsuits.

While the vast majority of therapists shudder at the expectation of cross-examination in a courtroom, I came to view it from a less fearful perspective.

The opportunity offered intellectual combat requiring concentration and detailed preparation. Such work tested the capacity to maintain attention, speak convincingly, and retain confidence in the face of an attorney whose job was to discredit my testimony.

My profession gave me the satisfaction of assisting those who wanted a better life and were willing to change. They, too, widened my understanding of the human condition. Our shared attempt to make a difference in a worthy life enhanced my own.

All of those in the helping professions must create a therapeutic distance between themselves and the sufferer. Concern also needs to be communicated.

That said, one of the challenges of such work is to stay above water when the other, in his own desperation, may pull you down into the world of anguish with which he struggles. We are thereby tested to see whether we will abandon him. The air you breathe in the office sometimes carries misery.

I could go on, but this is sufficient. I continue to live with the human experience gained in service to my clientele. From the position of retirement, the bruising torrent of political information, fake news, and targeting of the most vulnerable remains something from which I do not turn away.

I have learned not to close my eyes as a matter of routine. No one is without faults, and I am not the champion of any competition for the most perfect individual on earth. To the good, I am comfortable apologizing. I continue to ask questions and listen with care and quiet concentration.

On another day, I might write a different version of what you have read above. It is not a complete story, but my purpose is not to write such a book. Recounting one’s life shows how self-reflection can yield malleable insights and helps us create stories that foster our own overcoming.

As Buddhists suggest, retirement offers a path to living more lightly. Reducing responsibility suits me.

I might imitate and modify Douglas MacArthur’s closing of his 1951 speech to Congress by saying, old therapists never die. They retain their desire to examine and question the world. It gives them life.

What the General said, however, was “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”

I am not ready for either the death or the fading, but fate will come along one of these days.

At that point, all that will be left to do is to greet the Grim Reaper, shake hands, and smile.

But, knowing myself, I will doubtless ask some questions.

==========

The top image is Coming into Miami Last November from Argentina by the esteemed photographic artist Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The second picture is Hisa Matsumara at the Tottori Sand Dunes, sourced from jameslucasit@substack.com/ Unfortunately, I cannot find the source for the third image in this sequence. Finally, Ghost Sculpture, also on jameslucasit@substack.com/

April 19, 2026

How Much is Enough?

Some say that people in the USA never think they have enough. An old friend once suggested an answer:

Too much is enough.

More money, up to a point, is enough, in theory, but we don’t fashion our lives in theory. We endure with jealousy, laughter, desire, hope, anxiety, joy, cheers, boos, toasts, dismissal, handsome and gorgeous companions, routine, exotic vacations, boring jobs, joblessness, and more.

The Roman Stoic philosopher, Seneca, said:

To be happy, you must eliminate two things. The fear of a bad future and the memory of a bad past.

He urged us to live in the only other available mental and emotional state: the moment, meaning this moment and every other one to come.

One can sometimes find peace by staying in the present. Perhaps this occurs in the stillness of meditation or when your mind is caught up in the flow of a task, a movie, a book, or a roller coaster ride.

The philosopher points out that we cannot change what is behind us. We therefore ought not to punish ourselves with the whip called regret, forever reliving the flogging of yesteryear.

A commitment not to repeat the mistake is essential before we place the strap in a strongbox to render it harmless.

The unknowable time ahead is the domain of Seneca’s other piece of advice. The future, he argues, creates more consternation than it deserves.

Nonetheless, the time ahead is inhabited by the catastrophizing balloon man who inflates our less serious concerns to the point of bursting.

A brief recollection of the many fears that did not come to pass can help reduce feverish, false, painful anticipation. An equal recall of having survived worrisome challenges offers the remembrance of endurance, a capacity still within us.

Another enemy of contentment is the sense that we are worth less than those we admire, leading us to compare ourselves to their achievements or the past and departed triumphs of our younger selves.

The road before us always forks, leaving one or more paths untraveled. Once down the chosen highway far enough, we come to recognize its imperfections.

The direction not taken survives, however, in an idealized form, existing in a fantastic unreality, fueling our lamentation over a decision impossible to undo.

We are left without enough, without the fulfillment our dreams urge us to realize. A necessary sober discovery informs us that the unchosen alternative is similar to the Christmas gift of which we would have tired within a few days.

Aging schedules a one-sided, unrequested meeting, delivering a progressive loss of capacities. We are not the hardy, risk-taking, fast-moving, limber, energetic, quick-thinking wizards of the early days.

The best solution is to maintain as many of our abilities as we can, accept what we cannot recover, and commit to what remains enjoyable and fulfilling.

The ghost of our past self must be dismissed, lest it rob us of our well-being in an unwinnable competition.

The philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell said this about expecting too much of life in our endless hunt for more, no matter what we already have:

The world is vast and our own powers are limited. If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give. And to demand too much is the surest way of getting even less than is possible.

The man who can forget his worries by means of a genuine interest in, say, the Council of Trent, or the life history of stars, will find that, when he returns from his excursion into the impersonal world, he has acquired a poise and calm which enable him to deal with his worries in the best way, and he will in the meantime have experienced a genuine even if temporary happiness.”

Russell tells us to escape ourselves—diminish our self-preoccupation. As noted at the top of the page, many of us are born into expectations of success and the pursuit of it.

We need to move beyond the billboarded reminders of material things, palatial homes, the goal of writing books still read in 300 years, and wealth to place us in the 1%.

Better to listen for the quieter prompts to mend, contribute, and provide for what is needed elsewhere. Human and animal suffering remind us of those who are needier than we are.

A portion of what contributes to having enough is the beauty around us: the art, nature, painting, theater, ballet, poetry, and music.

Friends provide their own benefit, no less essential to a satisfying life.

Think too of the random smiles, those who serve us when we shop, the souls who cut our grass, and the graceful display of a young body swinging a baseball bat.

Don’t forget chocolate. There is never enough of that!

Kurt Vonnegut, the award-winning novelist, wrote the following poem on the subject of this essay, using his late friend, the famous writer Joseph Heller, to illustrate his point:

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:

Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer

now dead,

and I were at a party given by a billionaire

on Shelter Island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel

to know that our host only yesterday

may have made more money

than your novel ‘Catch-22’

has earned in its entire history?”

And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”

And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”

And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Not bad! Rest in peace!

==========

At the top of the page is King Midas from Wonder Book, the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Arthur Rackham, 1922. It is followed by a Photo of an Old and Young Woman in Traditional Ukrainian Clothes, by Mikhail Kapychka. Both of these were sourced from Wikimedia Commons. A picture of Kurt Vonnegut comes just before a discussion of his poem in memory of Joseph Heller.

April 12, 2026

How Well Are You Living — A Scorecard

Most of us are grateful that the daily newsfeed doesn’t report our personal failures. You don’t get graded, as in school. Nor do your hits and misses become an object of attention as they do for professional athletes.

In my day, all Major League Baseball trading cards included a picture on the front and the player’s career statistics on the back. A slab of bubblegum inside the pack you purchased was a bonus.

Imagine such cards for all of humanity, and ratings of each individual’s life performance updated once a year:

  •      Dating Success    C+
  •      Kindness               B
  •      Work Success       D+
  •      Mood                    C
  •      Parenting              B+
  •      Weight                  A-
  •      Attractiveness       B
  •      Wealth                  C-

Sorry. No bubblegum.

Would you want to know how your fellow humans rate you?

Would you like to be informed of your marks on a challenging test?

An old friend didn’t.

When his SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) results arrived in the mail (before the internet), he tore the envelope and its contents into small pieces and threw them away without reading the scores.

I was there.

He was admitted to Northwestern University.

Each person could provide their own categories and ratings, but they wouldn’t align with the rest of the world’s categories and ratings. It’s a necessary thing, isn’t it, that others keep their beliefs about you secret most of the time.

When might you find out such things, assuming you do?

Perhaps when your parents tell you what your teacher said about you. Annual performance reviews at your job insist on communicating whether you fit. When your friend, neighbor, or spouse is angry, you might hear it in their voice.

None of these consists of the full, detailed, and unimpeachable truth.

The validity of the information depends, more or less, on its application to one situation or another, and on the other’s diplomacy, affection, disappointment, and projection of their own problems onto you.

How would you deal with the alleged exactness of a negative report? Not everyone allows themselves to admit the dirtiest bits, the most contemptible indictments.

Beyond that, you might refer to your truth as “my truth.”

Here is a thoughtful comment on the “My Truth” movement from Hungry for Authenticity

By not having a precise definition, the “my truth” movement is being true to itself. Let me explain. The whole concept of “my truth” is that everyone’s truth is relative, as in, it’s personal to them. Therefore, “my truth” is in direct opposition to objective or absolute truth. To have a clear definition would put an objective truth label on the “my truth” movement. This is contrary to what it stands for! If there were a precise definition, it would defeat the whole purpose of “my truth.” The beauty of the “my truth” movement is that it can be whatever you or I want it to be.

Is it possible to combine all the details you receive from outside and inside into perfect autobiographical accuracy?

The completion of such an endeavor, inclusive of the owner’s evolving self-perception as he ages, recasts and refines his being as a person in motion.

An identity can be understood and recognized for a time, but as time goes on, man adapts, experiences more of life, and changes, whether he recognizes the modifications as they happen.

The best that you can do is to recognize some, but not all, of those shifts and revisions.

The truth of what one is can only be approximated. Unless you have been tested in situations that require courage, taking on danger, or enlarged self-sacrifice or generosity, you have not yet explored all your possibilities.

Where does that leave most of humanity? Your friends have their own opinions, but their frankness and honesty are not always on offer.

Your superiors have theirs, but the annual review is based on a single evaluator, possibly including a small number of additional voices, and, as a result, offers a limited perspective.

Your therapist? The professional wants you to feel secure and trust him. He tries to believe in you.

His observations occur only in the office or on a screen. The shrink’s clinical experience, you hope, generates insight.

If you are fortunate, he sees you as you wish to be seen and helps you create a possible future, including a fresh, modified version of yourself.

Your spouse and children? They witness more of you than most, but not necessarily the best of you.

Who are you, then? You might only come closest to fathoming that at the end of your life.

An additional, essential question, while you still have time, is who do you want to be, and how will you recreate yourself? The answers depend, in part, on your honesty about who you are.

Self-awareness grows from the important and wise opinions of those who know you at home, from truthful friends, and from the necessity of finding work and doing it. At your best, you try to acknowledge and remedy the flaws you struggle with and build on your strengths.

And you must be aware that time is short. No one can accomplish everything; not all roads lead where you want them to. As Steve Schmidt wrote yesterday on Substack:

The use of time is highly personal.

Its apportionment is foundational to happiness, and the decisions around with whom to spend it are keystones of life.”

If you are satisfied in the end, your scorecard doesn’t count for much. The record books, full of others’ opinions and ratings of your performances, have been noted.

As to the rest, dispose of them, albeit a little later than my friend’s SAT scores.

Here is Edmund Vance Cook’s entertaining position on all of this and more. A misleading title, but otherwise to the point:

 

Did you tackle the trouble that came your way

With a resolute heart and cheerful?

Or hide your face from the light of day

With a craven soul and fearful?

 

Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,

Or a trouble is what you make it,

And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,

But only how did you take it?

 

You are beaten to earth?

Well, well, what’s that!

Come up with a smiling face.

It’s nothing against you to fall down flat, But to lie there-that’s disgrace.

 

The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce

Be proud of your blackened eye!

It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts;

It’s how did you fight-and why?

 

And though you be done to the death, what then?

If you battled the best you could,

If you played your part in the world of men,

Why, the Critic will call it good.

 

Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,

And whether he’s slow or spry,

It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,

But only how did you die?

==========

The first image is Blurred Flowers Taken From Train at Beer Heights Light Railway by The Wub, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

Next comes Gustav Klimt’s Hymn to Joy (detail) from the Beethoven Frieze of 1902. It is sourced from Wikiart.

Finally, Children Playing on the Water Playground in Front of the Tegetthoff-Denkmal at Praterstern by Metinkalkan, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

April 5, 2026

Beware, Especially of Bad Advice

The best advice about advice is to consider the source. One might do better to read from a blank sheet of paper than listen to an advisor with a track record of endless mistakes.

People do well to ignore the guidance of anyone who has not lived the kind of life they are shooting for, troubles and all.

Rather than giving you a list of what to do, here are a few mistakes therapists observe or discourage.

  • Avoid, avoid. Dodge everything. Take no new chances. Hide. Tell yourself you are too young, too old, too worried, too traumatized, or too insecure to take action.
  • If you are afraid of rejection, say no first. You will be alone for eternity, but you will never sustain the wound of spurning or abandonment. Your only possible buddies will be those who hide behind larger rocks than the ones you use.
  • Rationalize. Never admit fault. Regret nothing. Give reasons to yourself for what you did or are going to do. Take no responsibility. Blame others. Harm them because, in your mind, they deserve it.
  • Never be a Mensch. According to Wikipedia, Mensch is a Yiddish word that figuratively means “a person of integrity and honor.” Leo Rosten characterized a Mensch as “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being ‘a real Mensch‘ is nothing less than … rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, and decorous.”
  • Make promises at the same time you formulate multiple excuses for not keeping them. Seek the absurd high ground of unreliability. Your friends will depart soon enough.
  • Cheat. Steal marbles as a kid for some early life practice. Tell yourself you will never get caught, because you are charming and more intelligent than all the suckers in the world. Consider it a calling.
  • When someone provides you with a service in a store or elsewhere, never say thanks. They are getting paid by their employer, aren’t they?
  • Never think about the condition of the democracy. Someone else will do the worrying for you. Persuade yourself of an excuse for inaction. Ignore the famous saying, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
  • You owe the world no help, even though the world needs repair. Carpentry might hurt your hands.
  • Become the thing you hate. Consider your parents, siblings, spouses, and your boss. They are among the most suitable candidates for the list of the undesirables who ruined your life. Then become as much like them as possible, the better to ruin someone else.
  • Lie. Keep track of your lies for a possible introduction to your autobiography, and enjoy escaping the limitations honesty imposes. Yes, your kids and spouse will learn from you and be better at it. They might even teach you new tricks.
  • Don’t read books. They will destroy your innocence.
  • I had an aunt who was a grifter. She found used objects by dumpster-diving and resold them. Florence placed free ads in the Chicago Reader, mischaracterizing the loot. A man paid her top dollar for what appeared to be excellent audio equipment. When the stuff didn’t work, the buyer called to request a refund. Ever ready, Florence stated, “Who do you think you are dealing with, the CEO of Macy’s?”
  • Live like the world owes you fairness and complain when it doesn’t. Think of yourself as the most unfortunate soul on the planet.
  • Rank order all the injustices you endured during your lifetime. Wear a favorite t-shirt with the word MARTYR on the front. At day’s end, you will discover someone stole it, perhaps your spouse.
  • Think of all the ways you can go wrong. Bedtime is perfect for this, since it will destroy your sleep. Read articles about unexpected and unavoidable catastrophes. Give in to fear.
  • Let the days pass you by without realizing you are mortal. The horror of your discovery of a wasted life will descend upon you too late. Time is unrecoverable.
  • Make a bucket list and imagine the distant days ahead when you will do the things you have always hoped to do. Better than knowing you might be a different person by then, or deceased.

  • On the question of whether you are metaphorically alive, bury the thought. If the idea recurs, confuse yourself by eating blueberries while upside down. As an added bonus, eat enough junk food to gain weight.
  • Forgive no one. Holding grudges will improve your digestion. As the old saying goes, if you want revenge, dig two graves. Pay in advance.
  • Keep the TV, radio, or movies on all day, every day. Check your phone as much as possible, waiting for the job or mate you’ve always hoped for.
  • Seek the kind of work or play you can do without exerting yourself. The time spent on mindless inactivity crowds out other possibilities. If the environment is noisy, the sound will impair your capacity to think about what is important and how to change yourself.
  • Depend on others. Believe they will always be there to take care of you. Dependency means others can take advantage of you or rage at the helpless burden you have become. Ignore the signs that you are undesirable company.
  • Stay at home, collect things rather than experiences. Empty beer cans count.
  • “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” These are the words of Satchel Paige, the Hall of Fame pitcher.
  • Live with shame and embarrassment, making these feelings a regular part of your day.
  • Hide who you are. Never be real, genuine, or authentic. If someone dislikes you, you will thereby avoid awareness that it is you who is detested rather than the role you play.
  • Appearance is everything. Your clothes are everything. Shopping for the latter is everything. Cosmetic surgery will fix what your wardrobe can’t disguise. Live a life with little human contact, but lots of selfies.
  • Don’t display interest in others. Don’t recognize their discomfort or fragility. Keep thinking of only what you need. Others are irrelevant, whether they are homeless or your relatives.
  • Stay at home and do not travel. Shun the human race. They are not worth your time.
  • Glare down on everyone, as if you are royalty and they are vassals. Take a last, long look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you are the top dog in a dog-eat-dog world.
  • Steal dog food from old people just for fun, and, if necessary, even from your dog.

==========

The top photo was Laura Hedien’s entry to the Royal Meteorological Society’s “Storm Hour Photo of the Week.” The image is an Old School Bus during an active aurora night in Coldfoot, Alaska. The next photo is a Sunrise in Utah, August, 2024.

Thanks to Laura for her permission to display these marvelous pictures: Laura Hedien Official Website.

March 29, 2026

“In Defeat, Defiance:” Suicide and the Danger of Giving Up Too Soon

Is suicide ever justified? Is it permissible to give in to the despair and hopelessness that life can bring, to “end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks”* of an unlucky life?

Under what conditions?

Before you answer, a cautionary tale.

The little girl was born in approximately 1889. She was five years old when her parents died in a home fire. Two older brothers, themselves only in their late teens, were now heads of a household without a home.

The farming community in which they lived in Lithuania (then a part of Russia) offered few vocational prospects and certainly no way for them to support their two younger siblings.

A neighboring family made them an offer. In return for the promised work services of the five-year-old and the slightly older sister for the next seven years, the head of that family would advance the two boys enough money for passage to the USA. By then, it was hoped, the brothers would have sufficient funds to arrange the overseas transport of their little sisters.

And thus, this poor little five-year-old, already having lost her parents, was separated from the older brothers she loved.

What is seven years to a five-year-old?

Eternity.

But the family with whom these children lived was good to them, and the brothers made good on their promise. They kept in contact by writing letters to their sisters and, after seven years, had enough money to arrange for a reunion in the USA.

—

The now 12-year-old girl was named Johanna. And it was not too terribly long after, when she was 16, that she met the man who was to be her husband.

Her brothers had been supporting her, as well as their own young families. It was time for her to marry, she was told.

She had to choose among the suitors available in their small town of LaSalle, Illinois.

The man she chose was 16 years her senior, 32 years old. A coal miner. Farming and coal mining were the chief vocations at that time and place.

Johanna had the first of her five children when she was 18. Life was relatively peaceful, and she made the best of the marriage that her brothers had required of her.

In her 37th year, things changed. Johanna felt less than her best. At first, she thought little of the fatigue and shortness of breath. Others noticed her pallor. Meanwhile, her appetite diminished, and she suffered from diarrhea.

Eventually, the symptoms could not be ignored. The local physician diagnosed her as having pernicious anemia, a disturbance in the formation of normal red blood cells.

There was no cure. Johanna’s doctor estimated that she might live for one year.

LaSalle, Illinois, was a small community. And in that place, at the same time that Johanna received her death sentence, so did another young woman, a mother and neighbor.

That person became profoundly depressed and hung herself.

Johanna did not. She did not want to leave her children and her husband in such a fashion. There were things yet to do for her children, messages to impart, care to deliver.

And then there was love to bestow upon all of them. The love she missed once her parents died and her brothers left the country.

Johanna informed her children that she was going to die before long. She instructed them on what they needed to know to take over her household duties and become independent.

This woman also told them they would almost certainly have a stepmother eventually, and to welcome her as if she were their own mother.

—

In 1926, the year of her preparation for death, Johanna Grigalunas could not know that there would be a second World War 13 years in the future and that the country of her birth would be consumed by it.

She might have heard of Winston Churchill, the man who became Prime Minister of England for most of that conflict. But she would not have been aware that Churchill battled depression himself.**

Things were particularly dark for England in 1940. All of continental Europe had been conquered by the Nazis, and night after night, the great cities of that island nation were bombed by the Luftwaffe, Hitler’s air force.

The British Empire stood alone against the Third Reich and expected an invasion of its land. The United States had not yet entered the War, and there was no certainty that it would.

In October of 1941, Churchill was asked to speak to the students of Harrow School, an independent boarding school that was his alma mater. Most of his words that day are now forgotten. But his job was to rally and inspire a nation, as well as the young men to whom he said:

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in…”

Virtually no one thought England would survive. But Churchill did, and the Nazis were defeated.

—

Just as she could not know of the geopolitical events ahead for the world, Johanna did not know that two separate research teams, one in England and one in the USA, were searching for a cure for the disease that afflicted her.

Thus, in 1926, George Richards Minot and William Perry Murphy fed large amounts of beef liver to their patients with pernicious anemia, building on the pioneering work of George Whipple, who had demonstrated that red blood cell production in dogs could be enhanced by this method.

It was determined that a daily diet rich in liver would prolong the life of those with this disease. All three scientists received the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Eventually, the crucial healing component in the liver, vitamin B12, became available by injection.

—

Johanna Grigalunas lived to be 93, more than a half-century beyond the medical death sentence that she received in the 1920s.

Now, you might ask: how do I know this story?

I met Johanna Grigalunas, almost blind but full of life, when she was over 90.

You see, Johanna was my wife’s grandmother.

==========

This essay was originally published on September 2, 2010. The present version has been revised.

*The quotation is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The top image is Winston Churchill. The quotation in the title is from Churchill himself: “In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity.”

The image beneath Churchill is a 1964 untitled painting of Paul Rego.

**Churchill is reported to have suffered from depression off and on throughout his life. He referred to it as his “black dog.” On the subject of suicide, he said the following:

I don’t like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don’t like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second’s action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.

March 22, 2026

What Can You Do for the World Today?

Part of growing up, at least in the USA, means answering two questions.

Who do you want to be? What do you want to do?

The first is a matter of meaning: your understanding of what life is about and what constitutes a meaningful life. Most think of a desirable feature of existence as a speaking part, a role that makes a difference in the overall story, not just their story.

No one tries to be a nonentity, a cipher, the mathematical equivalent of zero, without significance, influence, or worth. One hopes to make an impact and change things by gaining recognition for one’s outsized talent, rather than remaining invisible.

Another portion of the kind of visibility you’re looking for requires that someone see you as you see yourself. To achieve a role that distinguishes you from others, which is not the same thing, you must overcome whatever fear holds you back from trying to be noticed and understood, set apart from the crowd.

Few wish to take an ambitionless non-speaking role, one that leaves no mark.

In the dark night of the soul, question #1 demands that who you are matches who you appear to be. The alternative is to live every day wearing a mask.

The second question involves how you will get there: how you will achieve a meaningful time on planet Earth. What vocation, job, or calling?

Most find themselves psychologically incomplete as they approach adulthood. The upside-down world necessitates becoming right-side up.

The downside of making a lasting and recognized difference is how difficult it is to do so. Even in the short term, one must realize that a towering splash doesn’t last long. The water falls back in place, as if you had never entered the pool.

Stillness is our default position in the moving picture. Not everyone can be a mover and a shaker. In the end, your self-worth should depend on yourself and not the crowd. That much is achievable.

Start from a place of silence and quiet contemplation. What is troubling you will arise and tell you what you need to change.

People have to learn things, take risks, speak even when others don’t listen, and on occasion declaim, “Here I am. I have given you the best of myself. If that is insufficient I will leave now and not look back.”

Dan Ariely, a Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, tells the story of a meeting with friends. One of them raised the question of what gift each would give to everyone in the world, all on the same day, if such an action were possible.

One answer was an empathogen, a psychoactive substance best known as MDMA (ecstasy), thus increasing feelings of empathy in everyone.

Thinking about the meaning of life is worth some time, but I might suggest a more modest answer to the question posed by Ariely’s friend.

My response would be something within my power, not an idealistic, impossible goal.

I do, however, have a couple of friends who have made grand and lasting contributions to medicine. One developed a method of treatment, and another changed a country’s practice of refusing life-saving medicine to a marginalized group. Remarkable, indeed, men named Steven Henikoff and Richard Stern.

For my part, each day, or most of them, I try to make someone smile.

And you?

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The top image is a photo of a Winter Sunrise on Lake Michigan, IL, 2026. It is the masterful creation of Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

March 15, 2026

The Humiliations of Growing Up: When Boys Swam Nude in Chicago Public Schools

Youth, despite its moments of uninhibited joy, can be punishing. Not just the modes of punishment meted out by parents, but forms of humiliation at school that create an audience for mistakes.

Kids fear that the joke will be on them.

A youngster often lacks knowledge of proper behavior. He knows not left or right.

The opposite sex? Talk about mystery!

A parent who wishes to save money decides to cut their child’s hair. The tactless first-grade teacher’s comment? “Did your mother put a bowl on your head?”

What are you supposed to do? How do you fit in? The embarrassment of asking someone to tell you reveals your weakness.

Even requesting permission to use the washroom is not easy to manage. The one who suffers from an “accident” counts the time before the class sees the evidence.

What follows is a post about one aspect of such humiliation, dating from 2014. Thousands have read it.

You will enjoy the punch line.

When Boys Swam Nude in Chicago Public Schools

March 8, 2026

A Dramatic Moment and a Fitting Word

Kakistocracy.

Not bureaucracy, not religiousity, and, for sure, not meritocracy.

I’d never heard the word. I’d never read it before. But in our interesting times, I have learned a few things.

According to Wikipedia:

Kakistocracy is government by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous people.[1]: 54 [2][3]

The word was coined as early as the 17th century[4] and derives from two Greek words, kákistos (κάκιστος, ‘worst’) and krátos (κράτος, ‘rule’), together meaning ‘government by the worst people’.[5]

American poet James Russell Lowell used the term in 1876, in a letter to Joel Benton, writing, “What fills me with doubt and dismay is the degradation of the moral tone. Is it or is it not a result of Democracy? Is ours a ‘government of the people by the people for the people,’ or a Kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools?”[11]

Keep that word in mind as you read further.

This past week, a friend mentioned an extraordinary play I attended at Court Theatre in Chicago in 2013. It was a one-person show adapted from Homer’s Iliad.

The online study guide describes:

The Iliad … is an epic poem traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events that took place during the weeks of a disagreement between the Greek King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.

A drama can stick with you. You might have witnessed a scene that is hard to get out of your mind. An Iliad, as the one-man theater piece is called, offered such an experience.

I was not alone in this. Friends who attended were all struck not only by the actor’s ability to recall every name on the long list he uttered. They were overwhelmed by what he told us about ourselves, our past, our world, and our future.

One possible future of humanity

I have given you two clips from the play below; the first is a one-minute introduction. The second is the stunning three-minute excerpt I referred to:

I hope you will watch at least the second of these: the actor Timothy Edward Kane’s chilling recitation of a list of wars, from Court Theatre’s production of An Iliad. Kane is a more than competent man who demonstrated his craft and preparation.

You will hear name after name after name. All the titles by which the conflicts are called today.

Several could be added to the list the narrator exclaimed. War has not ceased since 2013.

A play without competence displayed by its director and actors is unthinkable.

War is a different thing.

Incompetence is an inevitable component of wartime, especially among those in the lead, a quality that stands alongside the heroes sharing its history.

Now, a few days into a new conflict, we appear to have a term for the creators of a grand but misguided venture.

What do you think? Does the K expression apply to the evolving circumstances?

The word has been waiting a long time for a place in a sentence.

What a misfortune that it fits any moment at all.

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The top image is of an Ancient Greek Storage Jar sourced from the Art Institute of Chicago.

March 1, 2026

About the Purpose of Life

You know the people. Indeed, you might be one of them. I am speaking about all of us and the objectives we pursue. The list includes items like money, power, status, beauty, attention, control, and fame.

According to Yuval Harari, the historian, author, and public intellectual, we are missing the point. He doesn’t talk in terms of purpose. Rather, he believes much of humanity views existence as a story.

Their story.

We search for our part in a play, looking for the musical score we perform and the lines we must speak.

It might not be in a book. Anywhere we think the answer can be found is acceptable. This could put us on a ball field, in school, raising a child, formulating a meal recipe, or serving in an orchestra or the military.

It might be something we discover within a religious faith.

The historian suggests reality is not about the drama or the character we play in it. We fail to understand life when we close our eyes to much of the anguish embedded in our world, and produce the very pain we wish to bypass.

Thus, ignorance is the cause of many predicaments, according to Harari.

Ignorance of reality.

We brush aside cautionary information we should ponder. Think of the times we cannot bear to face the events and choices generating discomfort.

Paradoxically, by wearing a blindfold while pursuing our goals, we increase our chances of hurting ourselves, our acquaintances, our family, and those who are different from us.

Looking is inconvenient. We decide to cross out the difficult parts in the play’s manuscript. Alcohol and drugs are available to serve as masks. TV is one of the endless distractions.

By avoiding what the mirror shows and turning away from careful, honest consideration of how we cause injury, we do not recognize or acknowledge our contribution to pain. This leaves us unable to remedy either our own misfortune or that of others.

As Harari notes, “We can’t fix something we are busy ignoring.”

To eliminate this tendency, the alternative is to engage in human life rather than hiding from significant parts of it. The unpleasant wisdom it offers begs for attention.

We hope to avoid pain, but discover that anguish does not obey our attempt to flee from it. As Henry Fielding said, “When you close the door to nature, she comes in at the window.”

Satisfaction in a life well-lived is the result of triumphing over its difficulties.

What is needed is the realization that not all unhappiness is inevitable. Our complex and potential difficulties can often be relieved by acknowledging our condition honestly, so we can take them on and improve ourselves.

Here is another hard truth. We can control, to some degree, the present moment and our own minds, but little more. The past is unchangeable, and the distant horizon offers no guarantees, no matter our plans, efforts, and ingenuity.

Not even the greatest and most powerful leaders do better. We grasp all too well the history of their mistakes and the limitations and unexpected consequences of their decisions.

The fix, Harari might tell us, is to work within the terms life allows, not denying them, not ignoring them, and not running from them.

This includes the most inescapable fact of living.

We age, we die, and everyone precious to us passes away.

Our end arrives at an uncertain time, while attempts to live forever have their shortcomings. Some of the wealthiest men want to reach eternity, an expensive way of denying death.

Downloading their consciousness to a computer becomes a goal. Moving to another planet is planned should the world become more unfriendly.

No wonder some of them build rockets.

No wonder we try to hide or alter the evidence of aging.

A number among us consider bringing forth children as our posterity, perhaps winning a Nobel Prize, or having our name in a record book, or on a building. Thus, we hope to be remembered, reaching a form of immortality.

Are the names of the following men familiar?

Each won a Nobel Prize in 1920.

Harari is not alone in pointing out our tendency to evade the reality of death, accepting it only as an abstraction somewhere in the distance, and trying to dodge thinking about it. Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death, deals with the subject.

Becker wrote it over 50 years ago.

Bottom line: Yuval Harari believes increased contentment comes from accepting the realistic conditions of life, thereby increasing our chances of reducing our pain and the suffering we cause.

Game on.

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The first photo is a Supercell in Lubbock, Texas, in June 2025. It is the masterful creation of Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

Next comes an Eharo mask from Papua New Guinea. The eharo masks were worn during ritual dances, before formal sacred rituals. They were intended to be humorous figures, dancing with groups of women to the amusement of all. This particular item is in the Muséum de Toulouse collection and was sourced from Wikipedia 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.

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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.