Preface

Arguments continue when participants can’t mutually define terms. When we can’t agree on the predicates of our arguments, we can’t reach reasoned solutions. That appears to be the current circumstance on allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s sports.


42

With the development of quantum computing coming along just nicely and Microsoft’s introduction of Majorana into the mix of potential “machines” underlying artificial intelligence, we Earthlings are close to having a real HAL 9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey, or a real Deep Thought, the famous computer of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But achieving that level of computing comes at a price. HAL deigns to kill off its human companions. And Deep Thought wallows in meaninglessness after spending more than seven million years computing the “answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Its answer is the famous “42.” Then Deep Thought admits that it doesn’t know the question for which 42 is the answer but that it could design a computer (Planet Earth) that could discover the question if it ran for 10 million years.

And that’s where we are in 2025, equipped with the most powerful computing machines since the development of the human brain, but still unable to frame and answer questions about who we are and what we should value.

What’s a Woman

Hey, Quantum Computers, I Want to Ask, What’s a Woman? Yeah. Work on that one for awhile. I’ll wait…

Enter those on either side of the trans “problem,” “situation,” or “circumstance” that has Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson unable to define woman and female—may I surmise that?— governor Governor Janet Mills of Maine defending the participation in female sports activities those physically superior males-turned-females or males-saying-they-identify-as-females. On one side are those who argue for “inclusiveness,” whereas on the other side are those who argue for “fairness.” Even liberal Governor Gavin Newsom admits to the unfairness of males participating against females.*

The liberal media certainly seem to side with Maine’s governor. CNN framed the dustup between President Trump and Mills over transgender athletes as Trump’s attack on trans people, not as Trump’s defense of women. “The move to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports is just one of the executive orders Trump has signed that target transgender people.” ** Target transgenders? Not defend women and Title IX? Come on, CNN, bury your TDS for your reporting.

Asterisk

In almost every instance of trans athletes participating in sports the male-turned-female defeats a woman while being nothing more than a mediocre athlete in the presence of male competitors. But in the argument, neither facts nor common sense prevail. No solutions seem to favor women other than outright banning trans athletes from competing in women’s sports to achieve “fairness.” Well what about an asterisk? Would the losing females be happy if we put an asterisk behind the record achieved by the trans athlete? We’ve put them into record books before. Roger Maris hit 61 homers to break Babe Ruth’s record—ohoh, asterisk: Ruth did it in 154 games; Maris, in 162. There! Satisfied? And those who took steroids to break the 61-homer barrier also have an asterisk beside their records.    

What the defenders of trans athletes in women’s sports say is of little more value than Deep Thought’s 42. But it’s the question, not the answer, that’s important. Defenders of trans athletes in women’s sports use the word gender, which they define as “fluid” and multiple. The question for them is “What’s your gender?” Defenders of women and Title IX use the word sex, which with the rare exception of hermaphroditism, is fixed. The question they ask is “What’s your sex?”

The Olympics use the proportion of testosterone in the athlete—or, at least, they used to use it to define the athlete. In 2009, 800-meter runner Caster Semenya was directed to medically reduce “her” testosterone levels to be eligible for competition. Now, in a supposed solution to the “problem,” the Olympic Committee says transition to female has to have occurred before age 12 to prevent the effects of male puberty. As anyone who has lived on the planet knows, however, we mature at different rates; thus, someone could start puberty earlier, especially in an age of food-borne hormones and widespread vitamin use.   

Not surprisingly, the defenders on the gender side of the argument can’t seem to define their term with certainty. I’ve heard some of them say there are many, even hundreds of genders, more, obviously, than there are letters in the alphabet, maybe one for each of Earth’s eight billion humans. Certainly, the failure of women testifying before Congress to define woman, is a manifestation of the confused state of mind that can’t separate gender from sex and biology from psychology.

So, what is worse than defending men in girls’ sports is the inability to frame the right question. Planet Earth, that computer Deep Thought wanted to invent, not only already exists, but it has also already framed the question AND answered it, albeit after not just seven or ten million years, but after 4.5 billion years. Yes, the actual experiment has been run on eukaryotic organisms.

Are the most athletic women better than the most athletic men? Run the experiment if you want, but you will only end up duplicating the experiment Earth has already run. No, women aren’t better at strength and speed skills. The best WNBA players would lose to the worst NBA players. Ditto soccer teams. Sprinters. Boxers. Softball girls’ teams against baseball boys’ teams. As I just said, Earth has run the experiment. You know it. I know it. Somehow the governor of Maine doesn’t know it. Recall that the US Women’s National Soccer Team lost 5-2 in a soccer game with FC Dallas (15-year-old boys) in 2017.

But defenders of males in women’s sports keep deriving the answer 42. Not because it is true; not because it frames a reality they want. They want it to be true that males do not have a physical advantage over females on average and definitely on the level of the most elite athletes. Is there a PHYSICAL difference between males and females?

Forty-two is an absurd answer, especially after Deep Thought spent millions of years deriving it.  But if one really doesn’t understand the question, any answer is absurd. The Left wants to change the parameters of the experiment Planet Earth has run through sexual evolution in eukaryotic organisms. Follow its logic and you’ll be back in prokaryotic times or maybe in the lab where the most interesting race occurs as bacteria compete in a petri dish.

And once again, I fall back on my principle that whatever is not personal is meaningless and its corollary that whatever is personal is meaningful. Men in women’s sports, Governor Mills? Let’s run that to its logical end. Men in women’s restrooms, specifically in the governor’s office. Pee in a urinal, Gov. And do that next to a male as you would have high school girls do that in Maine’s high school locker rooms. Run the experiment on yourself or your five stepdaughters if you truly believe in the cause you so adamantly support. Put your stepdaughters in those locker rooms you want other parents’ daughters to use alongside males who use the gender argument.         


*https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/06/politics/newsom-trans-athletes-womens-sports/index.html “Well, I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said in a podcast episode with conservative activist Charlie Kirk.


**https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/22/us/maine-trans-athletes-trump/index.html

Am I living in a bubble?  Strange question, right? Are you saying something about string theory and multiple universes, Donald? Is that what you mean, cosmic stuff, quantum stuff—things like that, maybe even a holographic universe?


No, societal bubbles like those we can see when we are outside them, as conservatives see the Northeast and Liberals see the Midwest; I’m talking about those socio/psychological and political bubbles, e.g., those who live in Liberal enclaves, Democrat enclaves, Conservative  and Republican enclaves, also. Such bubbles encase perspectives in which hypocrisy and illogic thrive like bacteria in a petri dish with a double layer of agar.


I see, for example, that I lean more right than left, that my bubble of influence, my world, is peopled by those who like their nonsense framed in sports, in family affairs, community, in faith, and in the practical operations of daily life. My microcosmos has people with a sense of humor, even self-deprecating humor. Although I worked for four decades in the halls of academia where taking one too seriously is a lifestyle, I never entered the isolating bubble of rampant liberalism, socialism, and elitism—though I did catch myself a few times taking myself too seriously. Yet, I believe I lived in a very tenuous and unconsolidated bubble of thinkers whose independence and wit I admired because it wasn’t, like that of SNL and late night TV hosts, boring drivel for its sameness and targets spoken by people who could recognize when they were stuck in a bubble of some sort. I long fancied myself to be an outsider and one who just couldn’t  see the world from the same perspective of those in bubbles.


It’s easier to write about others’ bubbles than one’s own encasement. Just as we can’t see the Milky Way because we’re part of it, but can see Andromeda and some of those other two trillion galaxies out there, so we can’t see outside whatever bubble that envelopes us. Anyway, what I’m getting at is the Northeast and academic bubbles, the liberal media and the social media bubbles, and even the entertainment bubbles. And especially the bubble around Scott Pelley.


Scott Pelley*


In delivering his commencement address to Wake Forest graduates, 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley said, “This morning our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack, universities are under attack, freedom of speech is under attack and insidious fear is reaching throughout schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts.” Yep, bubble, big encompassing liberal-media BUBBLE filled with Biden’s defenders, laptop deniers, and tax-and-spend-without-accountability types sure of themselves because they don’t see a connection to their self-imposed restrictions on free thought. Freedom of speech under attack? Am I missing something? Can one say that freedom of speech is under attack when freedom of speech is under attack? Is Wake Forest in Iran, China, Russia, or North Korea? Is it in the UK or in Canada? Journalism under attack? In what way and by whom? Those who would question the veracity of one-sided reports and concerted efforts to cover up the truth while trying to put blame on those for assumed thought crimes? Russian collusion perpetrators got a free pass. Universities under attack? For what? Oh! Yes, that antisemitism anti-commonsense anti-stop throwing tax money at studies that have no real consequence—a shrimp running on a treadmill comes to mind—and on allowing their own buildings to be destroyed by leftist agitators in support of a truly genocidal Hamas. Yes, Scott Pelley, to me, appears to live in a bubble. But should I blame him? Am I one living in a bubble and casting sharp objects? He’s insulated isn’t he? By? By high pay and adulation, by being able to tell whatever stories from whatever perspective he sees fit, and by a media platform that has run on TV forever—I wouldn’t blink if you told me 60 Minutes started in 1939 at the New York World Fair.


Francesca Gino**


Universities under attack. Wonder why. Oh! Yes. Francesca Gino, a “renowned Harvard professor,” was just fired for manipulating data on her studies. Studies on…yep…dishonesty. You think Scott Pelley knows about this and also about how Florida State University fired criminologist Eric Stewart for "extreme negligence in basic data management, resulting in an unprecedented number of articles retracted," according to the termination letter that Stewart received, posted online by the nonprofit group Retraction Watch. ***


Whoa, Scott. Look here, also: The former Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department was convicted by a federal jury today in connection with lying to federal authorities about his affiliation with People’s Republic of China’s Thousand Talents Program and the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in Wuhan, China, as well as failing to report income he received from WUT.Dr. Charles Lieber, 62, was convicted following a six-day jury trial of two counts of making false statements to federal authorities.****


And, pay attention, Scott. This won’t take sixty minutes: According to the New York Times Magazine, “Every year, the Office of Research Integrity uncovers numerous instances­ of bad behavior by scientists, ranging from lying on grant applications to using fake images in publications. A blog called Retraction Watch publishes a steady stream of posts about papers being retracted by journals because of allegations or evidence of misconduct.
​
Maybe universities should be under attack. Maybe someone should hold CBS accountable for not pursuing the truth, the “real truly true truth” about Trump, Biden, and…pretty much everything to do with politics over the past decade. Was CBS in the forefront of the laptop story? No, that was the NY Post.

Retraction Watch

Sign of the times? That there is a blog called Retraction Watch is a sign of the times that Scott Pelley might consider covering on 60 Minutes. That there is a need for such a blog is a bit of a scandal. Here’s a statement from the website:

    “Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 59,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List — or our list of nearly 100 papers with evidence they were written by ChatGPT?"

Pelley and likeminded media personalities display a blatant disregard for truth and rigorous inquiry. They have been bamboozled in their bubbles that are like those mirrors cops use in interrogation rooms. Those of us outside the bubbles can see what’s going on inside. Those inside the bubbles have little idea what’s going on outside, seeing only their own reflections.
Having sat through numerous commencement ceremonies as a professor, I feel sorry for Wake Forest graduates who sat through Pelley’s rant. Although such ceremonies are not memorable for the speeches graduates must endure as a courtesy to those who are responsible for selecting speakers, they are supposed to be memorable as positive sendoffs: Go out and conquer the world! You tell me whether or not you remember the address you heard at graduation. If you can remember, ask yourself if the message was purely political and filled with negative comments about conservatives and conservative values. Ask whether you heard warnings either veiled or clear that the future was dim because of the person in the White House.
​
If you graduated before the rise and spread of Trump Derangement Syndrome, you probably heard something uplifting, you know, “You’ve come this far, now go out there and get them, forge a new world with hard work and perseverance. You can do it.” I feel sorry for those who have to sit through the negative and humorless diatribes of those who see the world only through leftist political glasses.

*https://nypost.com/2025/05/26/media/60-minutes-anchor-scott-pelley-ripped-for-angry-unhinged-commencement-speech-criticizing-trump/


**https://nypost.com/2025/05/27/us-news/harvard-professor-of-honesty-stripped-of-tenure-fired-for-manipulating-data-in-studies/


***https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/florida-professor-fired/


****https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/harvard-university-professor-convicted-making-false-statements-and-tax-offenses

There’s a bit of wisdom in almost everything we humans have written or said because of our ability to infer. To every conversation or written piece we carry our personal philosophies and knowledge. And even when that knowledge is limited by immaturity that breeds its own form of ignorance, we carry that ability to infer. Let me explain.


I heard that the poet T. S Eliot, famous for his “The Waste Land,” “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and the poetry of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats that is the basis of the musical Cats, once gave a reading of one of his poems to an audience of university students. When he finished reading his poem, a coed (I know this might be apocryphal) asked, “Mr. Eliot, could you explain that?” Eliot replied that he would be happy to and then reread the poem. His point was that any retelling of the work in other words, even a retelling by the author himself, is not an adequate substitution. The work says what the work says. Saying it otherwise is to say something else. That is especially true of poetry, with a retelling possibly missing much of the original meaning.


I infer that Eliot also made this point: Even an author doesn’t know all that lies in his work. The argument is that whatever the author penned, the musician composed, or the artist painted provides what I hope all my little essays provide: A point of departure for the audience that combines personal experience with whatever the creative mind exhibited. You and I might both  hear Beethoven’s Seventh’s Second Movement and derive different feelings and thoughts predicated on what we “take” to the concert.


And in the forgoing context I’ll mention Homer’s Iliad and suggest that Putin, who is currently sending thousands of Russians into a hazardous battle, might learn something from Book 19 and the verses in which Achilles and Agamemnon reconcile. Did Homer foresee the wars of the centuries ensuing his writing the Iliad and the Odyssey? Did he foresee the likes of Stalin, Hitler, and Putin? Authors don’t necessarily know all that lies in their works. Sometimes readers see what they don’t see.


The Wrath Driven by Pride


Achilles had withdrawn from fighting the Trojans over Agamemnon’s taking Breseis, a “war trophy” captured by Achilles. The greatest Achaean warrior stays out of the battle in seething wrath until Patroclus, wearing Achilles’ armor, is killed by Hector, initiating the reconciliation and Achilles return to fight the Trojans. But his return isn’t my focus here. Rather, it’s the reconciliation. Read the lines (62 ff.) with me:


The swift runner Achilles rose among them, asking,
“Agamemnon, was it better for both of us, after all,
“For you and me to rage at each other, raked by anguish
“Consumed by heartsick strife, all for a young girl?”


Here’s a paraphrase (apologies to the late Mr. Eliot) of what comes next. Achilles admits he was consumed by anger because of his pride and that his withdrawal led to the deaths of many Achaeans who fought without his leadership and his following of Myrmidon soldiers. His absence from the fight benefitted only Hector and the Trojans, not the Argives (i.e., Greeks, Achaeans). Achilles says,


“Enough. Let bygones be bygones. Done is done.
“Despite my anguish I will beat it down,
“The fury mounting inside me, down by force.
“Now, by god, I call a halt to my anger--
“It is wrong to keep on raging, heart inflamed forever.”


More paraphrase: Achilles says they should return to the battle, and Agamemnon says he was blinded by the gods in taking Breseis and that he would like to offer gifts of reconciliation. Achilles says, “Okay, if you want to I’ve me gifts, but I don’t need them. Let’s go and rejoin the battle with the common goal of defeating the Trojans.”


Yes, they return to war, but I prefer to focus on the reconciliation and the letting go of wrath behind the deaths of so many who died needlessly.


What I Take from Book 19 I Apply to Putin and His War in Ukraine


After three years of fighting a war Putin thought would end in a couple of weeks, more than 1,000,000 Russians have been killed, wounded, or captured, and an estimated other million young men have fled their homeland to avoid conscription. Russian’s military has lost equipment and revealed itself to be both corrupt and incompetent. Putin has even relied on North Korea and China to save his cause with casualties mounting in foreign fighters as the Ukrainians continue to outwit and thwart many attackers and attacks. Desperate, Putin has launched rockets against Ukrainian citizens, a move with no military consequence. Ukraine has launched attacks against Russian refineries and weapons caches. Three years of death and destruction—for what?


Unlike Achilles, Putin cannot relinquish his pride and wrath. His military continues to suffer, his Russian youth continue to die needlessly, his economy is equally decimated. But he holds onto his wrath without showing anything more than mock reconciliation. I doubt even the death of one of his loved ones—as Achilles lost Patroclus—would soften his stance on the war.


Nevertheless, I recommend that Vlad read the Iliad and the Oresteia by Aeschylus which dramatizes Agamemnon's fate. He’ll discover that the greatest warrior Achilles dies and that the King of Kings Agamemnon returns home to be killed by his wife Clytemnestra for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to appease the gods and pursue the war just as Putin has sacrificed Russia's sons and daughters.

​Will Putin’s “family” turn on him? He’s already sacrificed many Russians, including those who once supported him. How many of them have mysteriously “fallen” to their deaths from tall buildings?


All those Russian dead piled high around the border of Ukraine like all those dead Achaeans piled high beneath the walls of Troy. And in the end, what’s left but death and destruction?


Read the Iliad, Vlad; read the Iliad.

Medieval times saw the invention of the padded horse collar, a device that enabled the plowman to get more tractive force from the powerful beast attached to the plow. The padding of the collar prevented the noose from cutting off air flowing through the animal’s windpipe as the horse pulled the plow.


That simple invention, or improvement, coupled with a better designed plow than the ancients had used increased food production. Its use is an argument that slight modifications in anything, from machines to artificial intelligence can enhance the human condition. If only we humans could make such small improvements to our emotional restrictions that act like an ancient horse collar!


Emotional Restrictions


The last few decades in America and western Europe have been a period of constricting emotions that polarized populations as much as during anytime in history, maybe even as much as during the conflicts between religious denominations like Catholics and Protestants, and Shia and Sunni. And the reason is that modern media are still using the methods of communication that the early newsmen used. Every story with a social or political side to it is told with constricting single point of view.


But such constrictions are probably the human way. It’s difficult to write a comparison/contrast piece, especially when one is already committed to a particular perspective. Opinion and supposition constrict all our efforts to communicate and make only shallow furrows in which only shallow-rooted thoughts can thrive. In addition, many reporters prefer to plow unproductive soils. There’s a recent example.


The Trump-South African White House Press Conference


I was in my truck on the road when I heard the press conference during the conference between President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and President Trump. As I listened, I heard the American President accost Ramaphosa over deaths of white South Africans and the demise of white South African farming because of a criminal trend to take their land. Over the radio I heard Trump describe burial crosses along a road, presumably those of white farmers who were murdered.


Then came time for questioning. A reporter from NBC ignored the accusations of genocide to ask about the plane Qatar had given to the US Air Force to use as Air Force One. The purpose of the question, if recent history of NBC’s relation with Trump is a guide, was to grow some scandal, to insinuate that the gift was to enrich Trump. Murders meant nothing. Murders weren’t of concern, just as illegal immigration wasn’t a concern until Trump started expelling South and Central American gangs. But the NBC focus shifted when the Trump Administration allowed South African Caucasians to enter the country, a move the Left-leaning Press obviously spun as “another” instance of Trumpian white-nationalist racism.


That South Africans shook off Apartheid decades ago was a notable accomplishment akin to our Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. But South Africa, one of the richest countries in natural resources, fell into a rule by corruption, bribery, and crime. The Black population of the country still suffers from a bad economy that has a 33.5% unemployment rate. That the crime has led to the decimation of once productive farming run by Caucasians seems to garner little interest in the Press, especially in a Press devoted to growing scandals in the political soil and in finding something—anything—to blame on Trump. The new Air Force One, was accepted because the new Boeing plane under construction has been delayed. Boeing is contracted to build two new Air Force One jets, designated VC-25B, which are based on the Boeing 747-8. However, the project has been significantly delayed, with the original delivery date of 2024 now pushed back to 2027 or later, and even potentially to 2029. Qatar’s gift plane fills the gap.


But what soil is more productive? A delving into the possible genocide of whites or the Qatari gift? The Trump Derangement Syndrome that has plagued the Press since he announced his candidacy for his first term, has constricted the media for at least 14 years. “They” can’t get over it. “They” can’t stop using the old inefficient plows and constricting collars they wear around their own necks as they plow infertile soil hoping to grow a crop of scandals.

I believe (Who says this without reservations today because of potential condemnations on social media?)—anyway, as I was saying—I believe that psychotherapy can convince someone to change behavior. The problem for counselors is finding the appropriate counseling methodology for clients. Common experiences tell us that repeat criminals won’t change just because we ask them to, won’t change just because we imprison them temporarily, or just because we monitor them with ankle sensors. Some, however, have changed their ways after lengthy periods of psychotherapy and others have undergone behavioral changes associated with flashes of religious discovery both with and without the help of a religious leader. That some have altered their behavior after sessions with counselors gives credence to the potential benefit of psychotherapy as an intervention effecting change. Seems we humans can influence and have in numerous instances affected one another’s behavior. But such influence works both ways, of course, as many young people have become willing participants in gangs because of a negative—reverse?—“psychotherapy.”


Intervention Is Hard because…


All of us have models for belief and behavior, and once attached to any model of thinking and behaving, most of us are reluctant to change or incapable of changing.”I used to be…” and “I used to think…” are not frequent expressions. Thinking and behavior, once locked into a human, are like clogged drains, but those who have used Drano or a similar liquid know that unclogging is possible. And when the clog is especially difficult, the old fashioned and forceful plunger often works.


Not that I’m condoning force as therapy. But a “kick on the butt” does work in some instances. Such is the variable nature of humans. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another. What drives one person to do good can drive another to do evil. Thus, there is a delicate balance effective psychotherapists must practice. But there appears to be one approach to counseling another person that underlies effectiveness: Nonattachment.


I did not come by this conclusion on my own. Nonattachment is a principle I learned from my son, Dr Christian Conte, founder of Yield Theory, a methodology for “getting through” the barriers, for unclogging the brain’s drains. A good psychotherapist is NOT attached to a single, one-size-fits-all approach based on his or her own beliefs and behaviors. Good psychotherapy requires personal “letting go.”


If someone asked me the goal of psychotherapy, I would say, “self-discovery.” And since each of us is unique, then I would say the psychotherapist’s role isn’t fostering some favored view of the world garnered from an intolerant ideology. Intolerant? Any ideology whose proponents favor censoring opposing  or even slightly alternate views. But intolerance or narrow-thinking, I fear, is what might be happening in university counseling programs today.


The Death of Professional Intervention


As I look at various universities’ mission statements, I surmise that counselor education programs probably teach attachment directly or indirectly. The curricula have been largely influenced by vocal special interest groups that have pressured faculty and administrations to conform to a norm that rejects the whole premise of “abnormal psychology,” a topic long incorporated in psychology curricula. Nowadays, every behavior by social fiat is not only “normal” but also edifying, and those who question a behavior or belief are ostracized. Anything goes as long as it isn’t questioning the opinions promulgated by mainstream and social media. Questioning breeds outrage and public condemnation.


Let’s begin with an anecdotal tale (Warning, incoming anecdote: dive, dive, dive). As one who spent his career in a university system, I can say by experience that Leftist ideologies have negatively affected the social science communities. And I understand why because I began my career in the humanities before I switched to the sciences. Looking back, I see a younger me infused with all the promise of slightly Left-of-Center ideologies and a disdain for Right-of-Center ideologies, my view probably influenced by those who taught me and by my conversations over coffee with other young professors. As a literature instructor, I taught a course of my own devising on censorship and the First Amendment. In preparing for the course, I naively convinced myself that censoring creativity was a practice advocated by the Right, my belief supported by a pre-Watergate Nixon declaring, “So long as I am in the White House, there will be no relaxation in the national effort to control and eliminate smut from our national life.” Censorship and intolerance? Wasn’t that one mandate of the Right? After all, I thought, no avant-garde playwright or novelist—or professor who taught their works— favored Bowdlerism in a time of Kerouac, Heinlein, Burroughs, Burgess, and other novelists and playwrights who pushed back the boundaries of acceptability, appropriateness, and morality. Within the hallowed halls of academia an anti-Bowdlerism flourished during the twentieth century.


Bowdlerism? The process of expurgating passages in books in favor of “propriety,” began in 1807 with Dr. Thomas Bowdler and his sister Henrietta’s revision of the Bard’s plays titled Family Shakespeare. The Bowdlers effectively erased words and expressions in Shakespeare’s plays to censor what they they believed were passages unsuitable to be read aloud in a family. In the late 1940s and throughout the next few decades, including those years of my early university career that began in 1968, Bowdlerism was anathema wherever professors taught literature.


But you know how pendulums swing. So, also, censorship which today appears to angle leftward.


How in the world does this relate to psychotherapy and professional secular counseling? Well, in running the gambit toward ever-freer speech, many professors began to accept anything avant-garde as superior in value to the “old works,” the “old thinking,” and the “old propriety.” Instead, they favored in art, literature and performance, the equivalent of a laissez-faire, hands-off, everything-has-equal-value perspective. The thinking that I might call the Equivalence Factor influenced other academic fields, also. Teaching kids about tribal cultures crowded out the Greeks and Romans, two of the most influential civilizations in occidental history. Eventually, this kind of thinking influenced some to believe that all opinions, even of those apparently disconnected from commonsense reality, held equal value. In my own university the faculty acquiesced to a policy that proclaimed all knowledge was equivalent, that no set of topics held a special place. Learning about batik and the-dyeing was just as valuable as learning how to write effective prose. The product of this largely 1970s movement was that “Well, it’s my opinion” rose to the level of fact. Thus, many faculty members in universities were trained under more Left-leaning ideologies. I call it reverse Bowdlerism. Everything “old,” all those therapies accepted as sound in previous decades have been expurgated to meet the “new propriety,” you know, the one that is acceptable on the “standards” of social media and Leftist culture. The process has effected a censorship from the Left and affected the training of therapists.


Leftist politics, often manifest in emotional condemnations of anything conservative, seem to have insinuated themselves into counseling programs. Some counselors are now being trained to attach. Yes, attach, to be attached to a way of thinking and counseling as long as it conforms to current culture as defined by pundits, podcasters, social media influencers, and mainstream media. And as an aside, I’ll mention that the same societal phenomenon has migrated into the sciences, where questioning string theory and climate change can get one ostracized or prevent one from acquiring a position or a promotion.    


Yes, whereas nonattachment was a principle once integral to counseling programs to teach trainees that counseling sessions were about clients and not about the counselors themselves, now political leanings bear weight, and sessions can be periods of censorship, condemnation, and propaganda. In fact, in universities many social science programs are like that: More about the professors than about the subject, more about opinion framed by popular thinking and censorship of free thought. The only acceptable thinking is Left-leaning.


It will probably take a generation for the pendulum to swing back to that principle my son writes about in his books: NONATTACHMENT is key to good and effective psychotherapy and to positive interactions among people. Good? Effective? I suppose one could say that both are relative. I suppose that one could argue that propaganda can also engender good.


Certainly, propaganda from any direction can be an effective control to foster a “good” behavior or belief as perceived by the propagandist, but propaganda enhances the needs of the propagandist, not the propagandized. In the context of psychotherapy, good and effective apply to a positive turnaround of someone in need of turning around from thinking or behavior that is in the client self-inimical or other-inimical.


Thus, by excluding the principle of nonattachment from counseling programs in favor of attachment to populist culture driven by various widespread media and anonymous sources, modern counseling education is focused more on therapist than on client, more on censoring than on freeing, more on dictating than on discovering.


I’ll reiterate: The goal of psychotherapy not associated with the psychotherapist is self-discovery in the client.






  

The recent post by James Comey, former head of FBI who allowed fabricated information to pass through a FISA court, convinces me that the man has no integrity, no loyalty to the country and the rule of law, and that he thinks everyone else is stupid. His recent controversial post that he tried to defend by claiming ignorance about its meaning reveals him imprudent. He said he knew the meaning of “8647” was political, but he didn’t know it was a call for violence. Yo! Comey. The mob knows the meaning of “86.” Didn’t you spend years in the FBI, an agency attuned to the language of hitmen?


The depth of corruption that generated two impeachments, numerous politically driven trials, and persecutions of conservatives and Pro-lifers has not dissipated. If the former head of the FBI still seethes with hatred for all things Trumpian, one can be very sure that there are others infused with similar hatred, harboring ill will.


But one doesn’t have to ferret out the TDS. Just go to a Bruce Springsteen concert in a foreign land, where the Boss stirs up anti-Americanism, specifically by saying Trump is a Nazi dictator totally incompetent and inimical to the good of the people. His logic? Well it’s there same logic expressed by those expats who moved after the last election: Trump is a rich bad guy.


There’s no specificity beyond the generalizations that Trump is destroying the Constitution, destroying Democracy, and destroying the American economy.


Apparently, most of the TDS crowd slept through the previous administration, cared little for the wasted hundreds of billions of tax dollars, and were happy with an imbalance in trade.


But you know all this—that is, you know all this if you are not infected with TDS, the insidious ailment that makes otherwise average and slightly above average IQs into dithering self-important academics and politicians, and many government employees into big spenders of others’ money with no accountability. You know all this if you can see the hypocrisy in the use of private jets for the Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez anti-oligarchy tour during which two socialists, one of them with extensive barmaid experience, have flown about the country to make Bruce Springsteen’s claims about Trump while failing to note their own support for waste, fraud, and abuse that occurred under their watch. (And, oh yes, spend more money on climate change)   


Take the outrage against DOGE, Tesla, and Trump’s cabinet because they have a mission to tame the monster of Big Government gone wild through Biden’s prolonged nap. What’s the logic of disdaining efficiency? What’s the logic of scratching an EV that you formerly praised for “saving the planet”?


Do conservatives have faults? Certainly. They did not stop or even slow the decades-long growth of government. When they controlled both House and Senate, they made no reforms to stop the waste. Wimpy governing, if you ask me. Afraid to ruffle feathers.


And some conservatives take unmeasured generalities for granted. Obviously, illegal aliens are “illegal,” but of the ten to twenty million whom Biden let into the country in just four years, most were just heeding the invitation on the Statue of Liberty, albeit with the incentive of free stuff the Biden Administration granted.


And now with the release of the audio of the Biden-Hur interview, some TDSers are forced to admit they allowed a feeble mind to sit as a figurehead of America while others—we can only guess—ran the country, or allowed the country to run like the proverbial headless chicken.


So, in this week’s news, Trump has announced some progress on trade, met with Muslim leaders, signed some deals to enhance America’s economy, and forced the Houthis into a ceasefire (that they will no doubt break, bringing more destruction on their tribal heads). None of these accomplishments, however, mean anything to TDSers. Springsteen will continue to rake in money from his young and aging fans who will approve of his unfounded diatribes and scratchy old voice. Comey will probably appear on The View to say he knew the message was political but did not know it meant “kill the president,” and will receive the accolades of the TDS-filled audience who, if asked, will have no specific remedies for waste, abuse, and fraud they unknowingly support with their taxes.


Anecdote alert: Dive, dive, dive


In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, this past week, I went to a “hometown” restaurant for breakfast. Although I don’t eavesdrop, I could not help overhearing an “old guy” (probably younger than I) say he was “so thankful for what Biden did for Social Security.” Hmnnn. You tell me. I’m unaware, but I thought Social Security was written into law, inviolable, and solvent for a few more years. Was it possible—I have enough sense not to have intruded on his table’s conversation—that he watches only those liberal networks who further the notion that Trump wants to take away their Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and subsidies of all kinds, including payments for transgender operations in Guatemala? Has he not heard that Trump wants to eliminate tax on Social Security? That he wants the price of energy reduced? That he wants to…


TDS has spread like COVID, but unlike the disease, it’s flourishing in the minds of many today.

Let’s write some rhymes from Left and Right
A verse is better than a fight.
We’ll lay out what the difference is
And at the end you’ll find a quiz.


Right:
“I’ll argue that the Right depends
“On subtle reason when it defends
“Positions that it holds most dear
“Right's reason whispers in your ear,
“Whereas the Left will shout and curse
While taking taxes from your purse
“And then the Right they will condemn
"As always in ad hominem.”


“The thoughts we carry do collate
“The ways we actuate our fate.
“What lies within our minds foretells,
“Does guide, and then compels
“It drives us to a common ground
“Where you and I can compromise;
“Trust me, now, I think it’s wise.
“But you might argue otherwise,
“That thinking’s not how we agnize.
“That feelings are the way we know.”


Left:
“They are inbred from long ago.
“Our thoughts are not a driving force
“Sensations are the real workhorse.
“We simply act on how we feel.
“Emotions are what acts reveal.
“And thus, we know just whom to hate
“Like Trump and others quick and late,
“Those racists of the past, you know.
“Columbus voyaged to and fro
“He started all the slavery trade
“From Africa and slaves conveyed.”


Right:
“That kind of talk is fraught with lies
“That through the media arborize,
“And show how feeling twists the facts
“Rewrites some history; misguides the lax;
“And trains the liberal young to hate
“Descendants whom they do equate
“With settlers in a different time
“Who lived a different paradigm.
“Emotion’s just one person’s truth
“Something you Libs don’t teach your youth.
“But if you say that what is real
“Is little more than how we feel,
“I’ll tell you, no, it isn’t true.
“Real for me is real for you.
“Paper cuts lie not in thought
“Irons that burn are truly hot.
“I’d be remiss denying truths
“What we know now we learned as youths.
“Kick a stone; you’ll hurt your toe
“Pain is pain; it brings us woe.
“Certain sure we can be wrong
“But feelings sing the Sirens’ song.
“And misconceptions that occur
“Make all we see into a blur.
“Sure, our thoughts can be quite wrong.
“You and I on that concur.
“Yet, our thinking plays its role
“Giving meaning to the whole.
“Sans pure thought the Self is less;
“It’s thinking makes the Self fluoresce.
“Thinking drives a prudent life;
“Prudence then reduces strife.
“If all we have is what we feel,
“Sensation will define what’s real.
“When I feel cold and you feel hot
“Truth becomes a Gordian’s knot.
“Thermometers will measure true
“The truth’s not me; the truth’s not you.
“It’s reason that interprets truth
“It’s what we now should teach our youth.”


Left:
“Your thinking’s heartless, emoting’s not.
“Compassion’s never born in thought.
“We need to feel if we’re to see
“The world as one for you and me.”


Right:
“That’s how we differ; it’s not one;
“A father differs from his son.
“Our difference is how we know
“Jack from Jill and Jill from Joe
“The frontal cortex is what welds
“Our differences in unity;
“Emotions break community
“By breaking up by race and class,
“If you’re not favored, you’re an ass.”
“I have a different view of man
“Extolling difference is my plan.
“Each to his own, what’s mine’s not yours.
“I see a world of open doors
“You want doors closed on how you feel
“For you it’s race that does appeal.
“Emotions see just black or white
“And they dictate what’s wrong or right.
“That’s how you voted to elect
“Joe Biden who did all affect
“With spending sprees still in effect
“And industry he then did wreck,
“And border crossings in the millions;
“Illegals helped to spend his trillions.
“All based on feelings of old Joe
“Who said that Trump was our foe.
“What was his plan save to expend
“Our wealth in causes with no end?”


Left:
“But, I say, we must emote
“To know for whom to cast a vote
“Supporting those who need it most
“In Guatemala to the Gold Coast.
“And all the UN wants to back
“Like climate that is now attacked.”


Right:
“Listen now as you declare,
“We spend our money on the air,
“We spend it on our enemies.
“We give them dollars; ourselves, pennies.
“Remember Bagram left behind
“For Taliban an easy find?
“Joe left them billions to equip
“Each warlord with a chieftainship.”
“And now your party pickets ICE
“Emotions give such bad advice.
“You Lefties side with Venezuelans
“With vicious organizations
“With those who hate the Jews
“And with Hamas and Hezbollah
“I see it in the daily news
“Your coeds dressed in a burqa
“Their feelings born in ignorance
“Of women’s lives in Middle East
“Where they’re considered as the least.
“How the coeds seem to feel
“Does not relate to what is real.”


Left:
“You have no heart or empathy
“That is the human destiny.
“And now you send illegals back
“To their own countries and to jails
“And that is where your thinking fails.
“Aren’t they people like you and me?”


Right:
“But those sent back were on a spree
“Of murder, rape, and thievery.
“Selective outrage hides the fact
“Of how their victims now react
“Or try to sleep quite unperturbed
“Their nightmares have their nights disturbed.
“Compassion’s good and has its place
“But you must look into a face
“Of a mom who lost her child
“Because Old Joe let gangs run wild.
“You let emotion drag you down
“You’re out there singing like a clown.
“For what and whom and just because?
“Are foreign gangs your only cause?
“See that is where your feelings fail
“A thinker thinks to use a jail
“To put away MS-13
“Before they kill another teen.
“Emoting’s fine with common sense
“Your screaming ‘Nazi’ is no defense
“No matter how your pundits try
“They lose debate with each bold lie
“As in those silly statements made
“To claim old Joe just should have stayed,
“To claim Kamala was so smart
“When everyone could plainly see
“And in their brains thought differently.
“And one more thought to end debate:
“Emotion is not good for fate.”


The Quiz
I’ll make this simple and real short
Just “Yes” or “No” in your retort.

1. Are you a liberal with a plan?
2. Do Democrats all think alike?
3. Do you support Tren de Aragua?
4. Did you favor spending sprees without accountability?
5. If you believe climates are changing, do you agree spending trillions will halt the change?   
6. Do you favor DEI?
7. If “yes” to #5, do you have a favorite sports team?
8. If “yes” to #5 and #6, do they keep score?
9. Are you a conservative without a plan?
10. Do you object to some conservative policies?
11. Do you want all illegals deported?
12. Do you have evidence that spending trillions will prevent climates from changing?

We’ve fallen. Humanity’s rise to the pinnacle of life has ended as we’ve slipped on emotion and ignorance. We’ve climbed part way to the pinnacle of evolution only to find uneasy footing on fissile shale. And we’re sliding down the slope toward the Valley of Fools, where we’ll likely be little more than organic detritus on a talus of broken lithic debris.


Case in point (as “they” say): After years of hearing about road rage incidents, we now have stories about parking rage. You read me right: parking rage. We don’t even have to be moving and colliding.


In Miami, Porsche driver Anthony Russian shot a person in the foot—after allegedly trying to kill him—over the victim’s taking too much time to park his car. * In Honolulu, Nathaniel Radimak assaulted a teenage girl learning to lateral park. **Certainly, these two incidents exemplify our slide into that valley of fools.


But There’s More


We might tend to dismiss these two parking-rage incidents as isolated, as the work of aberrant individuals. Radimak and Russian aren’t, we might argue, representative of our species. But if they are not representative of our species, then they are certainly representative of our times.


Our times? Maybe all times. We’ve been sliding, if we go by the ancient tale of Cain and Abel, over all our murderous and war-filled existence. And to what end? Makes me want to get in the face of Nathaniel Radimak and Anthony Russian to say Dr. Phil like, “What the H were you thinking?” And speaking of Russian, I’ll mention the more than a million Russian casualties in the Ukraine invasion. Makes me want to get in the face of Vladimir Putin to say, “What the H were you thinking?” Why all the anger, hate, and wasted life?


Thinking might have little to do with the slide. Emotions were the driver—parker?—in the Miami and Honolulu incidents. Emotion is certainly tied to Putin’s continued support for a failed invasion. Make that one secondary emotion in particular, Pride. And like Putin, many members of our species would rather throw away more lives than admit a mistake. Think of Radimak and Russian, the former throwing his future into the prison system by his rash acts of needless violence; the latter apparently willing to kill another over parking too slowly.


Is There Any Hope We Will Reach the Top?


I wouldn’t bet on success in the upward climb for the species as a whole. Sure, some exceptional people will stand on the top for their brief lifetimes, but regardless of their exemplary lives, there will still be Radimaks, Russians, and, well, Russians.


The climb over fissile rocks is difficult. The problem we all face is that the mountain we endeavor to climb is composed of eroded and fissile shales. We don’t make much progress as we slide on rock that cleaves as we step, causing us to expend our energy just to maintain our position on the mountain side.


But hope lies in the same folly that causes so many to fail. Bereft of a resigning wisdom that says most of us will, in fact, fail to find firm footing, some of us will still deign to climb higher, find more energy to be better, lend helping hands to those below, and keep looking upward.


I hope you are one of them. Not getting angry over parking is ironically, “a start.”


*https://nypost.com/2025/05/11/us-news/miami-porsche-driver-anthony-russian-shoots-motorist-in-foot-over-parking-spot-at-miami-airbnb/
Miami Porsche driver shoots motorist in foot for ‘taking too long’ backing into tight spot: cops. By Shane Galvin Published May 11, 2025, 2:46 a.m. ET


**https://nypost.com/2025/05/11/us-news/tesla-road-rage-driver-nathaniel-radimak-arrested-in-hawaii-for-assault-on-teen-driver-less-than-a-year-after-prison-release/
Serial Tesla road rage driver Nathaniel Radimak attacks mom, daughter in Hawaii — less than year after being released in California: police. By Nicholas McEntyrePublished May 11, 2025, 2:37 a.m. ET

Two old astrobiologists talk in an abandoned observatory. Gladys, an optimist, talks to Mark.


Gladys: Well, Mark, it’s time to acknowledge that in spite of our experiments and observations, we haven’t found that alien life we’ve spent our careers looking for.


Mark: I was sure we would find it on Mars. But I’m not done looking. Can’t wait to explore Europa, especially with the AI driven drones we’re sure to launch. But, Gladys, I’m surprised at you, an optimist, saying something negative. Surely, you don’t want to give up the search. With two trillion galaxies out there, we’ve just started to explore.


Gladys: Giving up the search hasn’t made me a pessimist. It has made me more optimistic about my own life. I have gained a new respect for what I… what we are. It’s been centuries since Copernicus said we don’t have a special position in the universe, Galileo and Kepler proved it, and Bruno said there are other worlds. In all those centuries we have looked and looked, waited and waited for some intelligent life beyond Earth. And you know what, Mark?


Mark: No. What?


Gladys: We’ve come back to a pre-Copernican Cosmos, where we are, in fact, special, because we have no evidence that another kind of conscious being exists, and I don’t care how many galaxies there are, how many nebulae have organic molecules, or how many carbonaceous chondrites land on Earth, demonstrating the presence of carbon in space. Yeah, there might be the stuff of life out there, but not, as far as we know…and we’ve searched pretty far…


Mark: But the presence of water is one key substance we’ve looked for, and we know that Europa has some. Mars has some, also.


Gladys: Mark, Mark, Mark. Let’s say you find a microbe. Then what? Conscious microbe?Intelligent microbe? Communicative microbe? We would still be alone as the only conscious form the universe possesses. So, isolated still? Yes, but that only enhances our special status as the universe aware of itself. We are, to go back to those pre-Renaissance times, the center. Not the physical center, of course because we think that in a pre-Big Bang singularity, everything was “the center.” Think, Mark, sure it’s possible that another part of that singularity acquired consciousness, self-consciousness, but we have little chance of finding it. We’re the center because we’re unique. I might still look for a distant microbe, but intelligent life? If it’s out there, as Fermi asked, where is it? Why haven’t we run into it? If it shows up, fine, but I’m not holding my breath. Instead, I’m relishing my role as the pinnacle of the universe, the unmatched pinnacle. And to go back to “Where is it?” I know that in a universe at least 13.8 billion years old, intelligent life could have arisen and gone out of existence before human ancestors looked up. So, the time element added to the distance element makes me think that all our recent looking has gone for naught.


Mark: So, your optimism derives from your isolation?


Gladys: Pretty much. I understand the reason for SETI enthusiasm, for the giant dish at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia and for other radio astronomy sites. We’ve learned much about the universe from all the expensive terrestrial and space telescopes, but not once have we said, with the exception of that brief “Wow!” signal, that there’s evidence of intelligence beyond Earth. And even that signal might have been just a natural phenomenon. Face it, Mark, you’re special because you are alone. This search for extraterrestrial life is essentially an endeavor of the idle affluent, of a civilization in which astronomers can look up because they don’t have to look down, that is, to look at the soil to see if the vegetables and grains have grown. Civilization includes people who see to the necessities. You and I build observatories because we don’t have to grow corn. Searching for extraterrestrials is the occupation of the coddled.


Mark: But finding that life will be a great discovery.


Gladys: Actually, I would say that discovering the methods for discovering life is greater. We use radio waves, X-rays, gamma rays, infrared rays, cosmic rays, and experiments with organic molecules, all unknown to our ancestors. We have new ways of expanding our awareness, new ways to observe and measure. The observations don’t justify the deductions, however.


Mark: What do you mean?


Gladys: I’ve relied on this joke before, but I’ll say it again because it once chosen as the “best” joke. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went camping in a remote place, say the to the moors.
They set up their little camp, lighted the fire, then tired from the hiking, decided to go to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson, saying, “Watson, Watson, wake up. Look up and tell me what you observe and deduce.” Watson, knowing he was in the presence of the world’s greatest detective, a man known for his deductive abilities, said, “Holmes, I see stars, thousands of stars. I surmise that around some of those stars there are planets, and on some of those there is life. And further…” he said as he cleared his throat, “I surmise that some of that life possesses complex brains and that some of those brains have achieved consciousness. From this, I deduce that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe,” he finished pleased with his logic. To which Holmes, the great deducer said, “No, Watson, you idiot, someone stole our tent.”


Mark: Ha! Perfect joke, false premise followed by misdirection followed by an unexpected twist. Reminds me of the guy who became interested in astronomy, so he put in a skylight in his ceiling and bought a telescope. His neighbors upstairs weren’t pleased.


Gladys: But I had a point in telling the joke though I do like yours. We’ve been surmising on the basis of possibility. We astrobiologists, science fiction writers, film makers have all been Watsons. We have wanted to find meaning elsewhere. We wanted the universe to be like the world we know. But so far, evidence points to it’s being a universe of stuff, just unthinking stuff with the one exception. If we find microbes floating in the depths of Europa, or methanogens on Titan, it will only prove that primitive life exists elsewhere, but none of our deducing—saying, for example, that if Earth’s early unicellular life led to us, then it could lead to beings like us with time—none of that deducing is proof of life, and certainly not proof of intelligent life.
    And you know, Mark, if our first communications, those radio waves sent out 105 years ago when KDKA Pittsburgh started broadcasting, would be 105 light years away. Assuming that intelligent life intercepts them anywhere along their path, derives meaning from them, say understanding a commercial for Mother’s Oats, then it would take any of those civilizations the equivalent number of years to respond. Would we be listening to the right frequency? Could we even know we heard any organized message if their return broadcast was at 1020 on our AM dials? Remember, also, that Earth and the Solar System have moved since those signals were broadcast. So, how do the aliens target Earth to ask, “What are Mother’s Oats?”


Mark: Nevertheless, your statements still make me wonder about your optimism. Sounds to me that you’re like Voltaire’s Pangloss in Candide. No matter what happened he said or implied, “This is the best of all possible worlds.” It was a parody of eighteenth century optimism because of all the tragedies Pangloss and Candide observe.


Gladys: No, I’m an optimist because I know that until proven incorrect by an alien encounter, that I’m special in having observable intelligence, in being self aware. The moon isn’t self aware. I’m retiring from astrobiology. It was fun while it lasted, but my optimism is rooted in realism. I ask with Fermi, “Where is it?” I can’t deduce there is intelligent life elsewhere and know I can prove my deduction. Yes, I’ll acknowledge that in so many years—a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand—someone will surprise everyone with a discovery of alien life, but I find meaning in the world around me. Unlike Watson, I know the tent is missing. That’s the commonsense deduction Watson should have made when he saw the night sky above him. My deduction is that we have reason to be optimistic because we have little choice in the matter. Life is here. Life here is significant because it its unique. That uniqueness is the root of my optimism and my self esteem. Want to study life in the Cosmos? Look in a mirror, Mark.

I’ve asked this before: Are you happy?


Tough question. Sometime and somewhere in my youth I heard the line attributed to Tolstoy in the context of his novel Anna Karenina: "The surest way to make someone unhappy is to ask if they [sic.] are happy.”


See, right there I’ve probably made some people unhappy.


“What?” you ask. “How?”


As some would see it, the nitpicking. Someone, the antecedent, is singular; they is plural. “For gosh’s sake, Donald, those years of correcting papers are long behind you. Let them go. Get on with your life. What’s next, correcting the text I sent you?”


Sorry, I had to insert that “[sic.]” to avoid being accused of faulty grammatical number agreement. I realize this is a time when people are “identifying” as plural entities (i.e., “they”), but the logic of the language, if not the practice, is ingrained, has been ingrained since elementary school. Heck, my mother, an avid crossword, puzzle solver, and newspaper reader with only a ninth grade education (dropped out to help support the large family of siblings during the Depression), as I was saying, my mother constantly corrected my teenage grammar. Habit, then, to add “sic.” (“thus”) in deference to a career of correcting thousands of student papers and proofreading numerous graduate theses, dissertations, and reports. And, yes, I have corrected text messages, but I fear I’m losing the fight to emoji language. LOL. But I’ll admit that before my recent cataract surgery, I made numerous typographical errors in blogs and, by pressing "send" let Siri send off words I never chose—She’s more exasperating  than I believe I am.


Have I just made you unhappy by the distraction? You were just thinking about happiness when I seemed to have changed the subject, but there’s s method here.


Distraction


With all our electronic media, we live in the Era of Ultimate Distraction. The obsession we have with news 24/7, podcasts, YouTube videos, and, well, everything else that intrudes our lives, all add to billions of people living either consciously or unconsciously by comparison and in distraction. Keeping up with the neighborhood Jones family, once a bit more compressed by localism, has been expanded to the world of Jones families. You might not care about the fashion that Kim Kardashian sports on some red carpet or the fashion that Bianca Censori did NOT wear, but it’s in your head, forced there as a distraction on your daily life. “And why don’t you care?” some gossip columnist or blogger might ask. “What else is worth knowing, save the goings on of the rich and famous, the stupid and reckless, the evil and political? Do any of these distractions and comparisons add to your happiness? Are you happy, for example, that Taylor Swift is happy, or rich, or dating? But even if you are indifferent, doesn’t the knowledge forced upon you by various media affect you? Just a little? Come on, now, be honest. It’s non-natural concupiscence to do a double take.


There you are, ready to watch a football game when abruptly the camera swings to the box where Taylor Swift sits or stands or claps  and high fives her new friends. Geez. It is a game you want to see, not a display of a player’s girlfriend. Distraction.


But that’s just one small distraction in a life of distractions. How can any of us be truly happy in such a life? *

You Don’t Need Research for the Obvious, as Stanislav Said


Did you know that there are people out there whose energies have gone into discovering what makes people happy? Yep. Guess what they found out. Yep. Stuff you already know. Stuff like being generous and helping others, paying compliments in a pay-it-forward interaction, giving solace, and all that other “stuff.”


A gregarious species finds happiness in its gregariousness. The COVID period taught many that lesson. Isolation is the most devastating psychological condition for most people regardless of what they might say, such as, “I hate people.” Withdrawing is a symptom of depression, the antithesis of happiness. Well, then, if we are gregarious, can the social scientists tell us about happiness?


In his 1972 Social Sciences as Sorcery, * Stanislav Andreski challenged his colleagues by noting how they failed in their attempts to turn common knowledge into “science.” He noted that after wading through pages of formulae and esoteric language, we find that people are gregarious, a fact Stanislav says he can believe because his grandmother told him so. In Andreski’s words, “Pretentious and nebulous verbosity, interminable repetition of platitudes and disguised propaganda are the order of the day, while at least 95 per cent of research is indeed re-search for things that have been found long ago and many times since” (p. 11).


If the answer to the happiness question doesn’t come from the social scientists, does it lie in the work of psychologists? They’ve given it considerable attention. And again, the answer to that happiness question seems to lie in our obvious gregariousness, in charity, aid, and gratitude.


Nothing Profound Here


Sufficient numbers of wealthy people have committed suicide to indicate that riches are not a guarantee of happiness. Neither are fame and drugs. Certainly, we know that admiration for others can simply lead to our asking, “But what about me?”


“Have you considered philosophy, Donald?”


Great suggestion. I had a philosopher colleague who was Heideggerian existentialist. He focused on play as a fundamental human need. Or maybe it was play as a fundamental characteristic. Definitely, play plays a role in happiness. We’ve seen colts and calves frolicking, puppies and kitties tumbling, and full-grown dogs fetching sticks and balls (just part of their hunting instinct?). We played as children. We have grown into adults whose play can be as frivolous as a weekend softball game to serious gambling in Vegas. Is investing a form of play?


Then, of course, there’s that nasty withdrawal that results from bad knees that prevent one from running the bases, bad shoulders and elbows that prevent us from the courts of tennis and basketball, and insufficient funds that prevent us from sitting at a card table in Vegas. Such withdrawals are inevitable. So, as my late Heidegger expert might argue, there appears to be a type of positive play that contrasts with a type of negative play. The positive one uplifts. But as with all philosophies, the problem lies in practicality. If all we do is temporary, can the happiness derived from the sundry forms of play ever last a lifetime? And how, I might ask, does happiness square with the existential world of dread and anxiety. Is it a distraction from a lifetime of trauma, tragedy, losses, and failures. Is it a distraction from death? WAIT! Wait. Yes, I just had a thought. Is happiness the ultimate distraction?  


Which, my dear reader, brings us back to our gregarious nature. People people are generally happier than Bah-Humbug Dickensian grouches. And that’s not a profound discovery. No one needs to tell you that. Fulfill your destiny to be a people person. Apparently, making others happy is the best way to become happy.
  

*https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/magazine/happiness-research-studies-relationships.html


**Get the book in the library because it’s outrageously expensive to buy ($95 on eBay to $695 elsewhere) Oh! Library? That’s a building that stores thousands of books you can borrow for the price of a library card.