July 12, 2026

The Corrosive Nature of Disrespect

We live in the day of shouting, name-calling, and rudeness. Such things make it a proper day to discuss respect.

Interrupting speech, also called talking over the speaker, was once considered discourteous but is now acceptable.

Intolerant disagreement is frequent. Civility has been under pressure since the end of the last century, correlated with the rise of the Internet.

Children mimic the trend, dismissive and contemptuous of classmates, reducing them in size, and bringing them to despair.

People work from home, and some stay there except for errands, walking the dog, and other necessities.

Making friends and going outside the fortress of one’s residence carries a risk in a world perceived as toxic.

No wonder so many sense that they are unseen and uncared for, with little experience of belonging.

Humans have become replacement parts. Their placement on the dumpster pile replaces their voice with a thud.

When the castle’s inhabitants peer down from on high, the faceless crowd below can be counted and considered for their utility. The palace’s inhabitants cheer on the unthinkable, and a surprising number of those considered underlings join in the carnage.

Why?

Hannah Arendt, philosopher and historian, remarked:

Before you can do the unthinkable to people, you have to make them superfluous, stripped of any place in the world where their existence matters to anyone.

Think about the implications of such a statement. It can apply to both those who will be victims and those who terrorize the vulnerable.

Let’s examine the latter.

People who are shunned, considered uneducated, and who work modest jobs in unfamiliar towns often have their ideas dismissed as worthless.

If Arendt is correct, when we ignore, reject, or belittle them, they are more likely to seek validation and attach to those in high places who appear to take their side.

To Arendt, “a person in that condition will reach for anything that restores a sense of significance, any movement that says ‘You are not nothing. You are part of something vast, something that is going to remake the world.'”

—–

Listening, ever since the last century, has become an act of kindness, and of community. A receptive ear is a sort of restorative potion and elixir for our tribalism. At least one step toward a worthwhile end.

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” wrote the French philosopher and activist Simone Weil.

In listening, we should observe our companion. Eye movements, tone of voice, changes in body position, smiles, tears, unstill hands and tremulous feet.

Weil offered suggestions on how best to listen.

Rather than an urgent preoccupation with what she would say to the one sitting near her, Weil tried to subtract herself, becoming both a sponge and mirror to absorb and reflect the other’s words and feelings.

She conveyed her regard for their value.

Mortals live to be afforded consideration as individuals of significance, not out of narcissism but out of necessity and the desire for companionship. Where this is lacking, they tend to welcome a place in any club that will applaud their membership—a spot for themselves.

Even better, to join a movement larger than life that offers self-esteem.

We search for logic in the troubling actions of others, assuming we are the logical ones. We call those who don’t side with us stupid, thinking them suckers when they cheer the grandiose and do their bidding.

Yet if the people one has depended on have failed you, perhaps it is not so illogical to believe in someone — anyone — who recognizes your pain. They offer you the attention you have longed for.

Hope supersedes despair. Being seen supersedes invisibility. Acceptance and stature supersede logic.

For many years, Industry and government have looked down their nose at those who cannot climb the lengthening rope up to the American Dream. The promise of a better life than their parents has been broken.

Ignored, they largely remained docile. Unquiet, the word “deplorables “ was attached to them by someone who should have known better. Others diminished the same group for clinging “to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them”

We, the people of the United States of America, rendered judgment. We, the people who were doing better, distanced ourselves from those who were not.

Perhaps we have begun to realize this.

———-

The top photo is of Simone Weil at age 13 in Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium, summer 1922. The final image is the logo of World Logic Day. It is the work of Jean-Yves Beziau. Both of these were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

July 5, 2026

Naming the BEST Names in 250 Years

Today I am asking you a favor. Please name a few of your favorite Americans over our last 250 years. One or two would be wonderful.

People to celebrate.

Here are a few of mine:

Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR, George O’Keeffe, Jackie Robinson, Jonas Salk, Barbara Jordan, Dwight Eisenhower, Judy Collins, Thomas Paine, Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, Edward R. Morrow, Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Carter, Renee Good, Alex Pretti, John Lewis, MLK, Pete Seeger, Mark Rothko, Frederick Douglass, and Gutzon Borglum (the sculptor who created Mt. Rushmore).

The idea comes from my sparkling friend Joan Chandler in her July 4th blog. You can read her list and her brief post by clicking on the link.

There was a time when “naming names” referred to U.S. Congressmen who served on the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1940s and ’50s.

The members requested that Hollywood actors, writers, producers, and others identify prominent associates, including close friends, who attended left-wing meetings or joined the Communist Party.

Those who refused to do what the panel demanded, movie stars among them, suffered blacklisting. Being on such lists prevented them from finding work, practicing their craft, displaying their talent, and making a living.

It did not matter that Communism had been popular in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, and some believed democracy and capitalism failed them.

McCarthyism became a simultaneous anticommunist force, fueling fear and promoting loyalty oaths to establish patriotic citizenship. According to AI, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and his cronies often made “baseless, sensationalized accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason, particularly concerning alleged communist infiltration.”

The 1950s were called the period of the Red Scare, referring to suspected communists as Reds.

Today is a different day, and the first iteration of the Red Scare is over, though serpents are not hard to find.

Let us praise and celebrate those Americans who have brought us honor thus far, 250 years since our founding.

Please allow me to add to my list a woman who fought against powerful men who made females second-class citizens, even before the Women’s Movement.

I forgot to mention her name earlier. She belongs on my roll call, for sure:

Joan Chandler.

==========

Freedom of Speech, the 1943 painting at the top of the page, was the first of four oil paintings titled Four Freedoms by Norman Rockwell.

June 28, 2026

The Persistence of Hope

Our country remains hopeful. Despite many obstacles, we are among those who came here seeking a better life. Preceding us, our ancestors made their hope into reality. Indeed, the Native Americans first built lives here, aware of their partnership with the land they lived on. They respected the bounty of the precious ground on which they flourished before white men arrived.

George Bernard Shaw offered these words in his play “Back to Methuselah.”

I hear you say ‘Why?’ Always ‘Why?’ You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’

We still live in a world of possibilities.

Nonetheless, the American Psychological Association’s 2025 study, Stress in America 2025: A Crisis of Connection, finds significant evidence of loneliness, uncertainty, and worry about the future, including AI.

The APA’s paper also suggests that the toll of our societal division is matched by our resilience. The report states that “while (we are) burdened by stress and uncertainty, (the population) continues to hold fast to hope, agency and a belief in progress — both personal and collective.”

The world of 60 years ago was not so different.

On June 8, 1968, Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy delivered this eulogy for his brother, Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy. You will find the audio and text provided by the John F. Kennedy Library at the link above.

Bobby’s junior brother reminded us of Robert’s belief in who we are and the responsibilities that fall to us. His hopefulness in a 1966 speech applies today:

“Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.”

In closing his tribute, Ted Kennedy called to mind his sibling’s love of George Bernard Shaw’s words:

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:

‘Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.’

I hope you listen to the eulogy or read it. Prepare to be touched and uplifted.

===========

The first painting is Gustav Klimt’s Hope II from the Museum of Modern Art. Below is George Frederic Watts’s Hope from the Tate Museum. 

June 21, 2026

When Our Mates Don’t See, Hear, or Remember

Blind Monks Examining an Elephant by Itcho Hanabusa.

Some of those closest to us are members of a particular club.

  • They fail to grasp something essential in human relationships, a deficiency that involves misunderstanding significant realities.
  • They listen to what you say but do not grasp your meaning.
  • Conversations of considerable seriousness, events you recall in detail, drift away from them, slipping out of reach like a bar of soap on a shower floor.

The person in question is not lacking intelligence. He lacks sensitivity because he doesn’t grasp vulnerability.

During my psychotherapy practice, some patients who had made every effort to achieve understanding from their mate asked what else they might do.

My response?

They don’t make mallets that big.

Those they love may be decent, helpful, and bright. Over time, however, comes the dawn of recognition about their companion:

They don’t get it, and never will.

While engaged in work, tennis, or computer gaming with relentless fervor, other concerns are absent and beyond cognizance. Ignoring diet, overlooking health, perhaps something goes missing. The needed human qualities exist elsewhere.

These souls are in denial and capable of dissociation. Their thoughts, feelings, memories, and actions sometimes detach from one another.

Since they are incapable of recognizing the tenderness of your nature and the pain they cause, pleading with them is like talking to a wall.

Leonardo da Vinci described the experience of seeing an artwork, not realizing he depicted the human tendency to slice off parts of the world too uncomfortable to grasp:

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”

A parent with characteristics similar to those noted above may make home life challenging. Many children have no choice but to shut their eyes, cover their heads, stop their ears, and jump into a foxhole until the sights, sounds, and memories fade.

The years may be endurable, but the danger to the child is becoming a replica of the mom or dad whose presence led them to guard themselves against portions of the emotional world. Their capacity to understand those who offer intimacy and a broader spectrum of sentiments is compromised. 

Pain in another becomes imperceptible, unfelt; it is not ascertained or recollected. Expecting more than that resembles speaking to an alien from outer space. Language is inadequate to bridge the gap.

Despite this, those who choose this type of partner go through the early romance phase in a normal fashion. The triple burst of passion, newness, and the best behavior is attractive.

Later, life together settles into a routine: house cleaning, clashes like those in movies, and frank exhaustion while trying to be seen and understood. Hope and affection build patience, but unmentioned questions emerge:

Does he know me? Does he like me? Is he in love with me?

Desperate and unhappy spouses do well to take off their sunglasses, removing the blindness of love with them. Except, of course, when illusions are preferable.

———-

Blind Monks Examining an Elephant by Itcho Hanabusa was created in 1888. It was sourced from Wikimedia Commons and comes from the Library of Congress.

June 14, 2026

What We are Looking For

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

Twice?

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

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

Together, but innocent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Join the club if you can. No requirements.

It is spring, after all.

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

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

June 7, 2026

Regret and the “Could Have Been” Man

At some point in my young life, my mother said, “Regret is a painkiller for fools.”

I don’t recall asking her to explain herself, but I believe she referred to two possible responses to one’s past.

First, there is the sadness and lingering wish that comes with mistakes or missed opportunities.

Second, the regretful apology some offer after injuring you.

Whatever mom intended, her choice of words and the way she spoke them revealed bitterness—even contempt—for those who allowed themselves to be preoccupied with the unchangeable past.

The guidance implicit in those six words described her attitude toward life. There was no looking back at the days gone by, except as a complicated experience. Instead, she lived in the present.

Beyond defending her family, Jeanette Stein offered intolerance and unforgiveness to those who injured her, writing them out of her life without the possibility of reconsideration or return.

—–

We can grieve losses and mistakes. Often, we can apologize. In the absence of direct communication with the injured party, confession is available. Both therapy and some religions encourage it.

Yet long past disappointments must be approached differently. The “if only” quality of self-blame and lost time is often addressed by recognizing at least three things.

Life does not permit the fulfillment of every wish, and chance can change everything.

People tend to exaggerate the perfection and transformative virtue of the road not taken. The avenue not pursued often towers over everything else we accomplished. It shimmers in our idealizing imagination. The path we chose, in contrast, is imperfect: the wrong choice, so we believe.

One must make the most of what the world offers in the moment, accepting our imperfect wisdom and limited ability to predict the future.

Recognizing the remaining possibilities is the essential next step.

Add to this formula Rilke’s poetic reminder of what to do:

You must change your life.

Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, offered similar advice:

Waste no more time arguing  (with yourself) what a good man should be. Be one.

Now on to a gentleman named James. The YouTube video below offers a six-minute example of a wistfully regretful life, but not a desperate one. This chap describes his history and what disappoints him about himself as he reflects upon the darkness and shadows of his past.

Despite James’s self-denigration, I hope you notice a tiny spark of possibility. More about this after the video.

James wears his Scot bonnet tam with a flair. It reinforces his impeccable taste. This Irishman lived on three continents and moved from his country to London. At the same time, he tells the interviewer that he is “the greatest failure who ever walked the planet earth.”

Another might say his tale is more than usually interesting.

Our hero’s list of failures includes no profession, no money, no wife, and no friends. He is the “could have been” man.

With enough money to be stylish, the care he takes in using the photographer’s name, and the gift of making people laugh, James is not without talents.

His biggest problem might be a preoccupation with what could have been, himself, his loneliness, and a belief that his story is over.

Over or yet to be?

As Rilke and Marcus tell us, the ink is not dry, and blank pages in the book of our lives stare back at us, waiting.

Write.

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

The top image is a 1916 self-portrait of Egon Schiele. 

May 31, 2026

Who Lives Inside of Us?

Who lives inside of us?

Those we love, for sure.

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

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

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

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

One other group of those who live inside.

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

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

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

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

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

She died too soon.

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

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

Think of it.

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

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

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

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

No, I answered. 

“What did you say?”

Good legs and funny!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please allow me to leave you with this.

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

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

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

By E. E. Cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
 
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
 
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
===========
The top photo includes Materials Used During the “Claiming Our Memories” Session at GLAM Wikii in Montevideo, Uruguay by Pribellini. The second photo is Election Night in Barcelona by Marc Lozano. Both were sourced from Wikimedia Commons. 
May 24, 2026

Before My Time: Talking With the Greatest Generation

All of us have heard the old phrase, “before my time.” It captures a simple truth.

Witnessing always makes a difference. Living “before” events happened is not the same as being there. Presence during the history of an epoch is the real thing.

Some participated in that history. The Greatest Generation, women and men, did just that before my time. They fought or aided the fighting force in World War II. We boomers are the ones who read about it and view the movies, coming away in tears, and wondering how they did it.

Perhaps you knew some of them, as I did. I spoke to them because they were my uncles, neighbors, and my friends’ parents in our youth. I talked to them as their counselor, past their battles, beyond my early years.

A few were Chicago Symphony musicians, like Fred Spector, whom I heard perform and interviewed later.

My dad served as a soldier in the conflict, as well.

These men and women of substance didn’t read about it or see it in motion pictures; these people lived the experience before your time and mine.

Sometimes, if they shared them, a handful of their memories lingered with the listener. One of those taught me not just about their life, but about life.

Jerome (Jerry) Katz was a psychiatrist in the Chicago area some years back. Jerry died at 72 after a long career practicing in Chicago’s northern suburbs.

The psychiatrist was a man of size and solidity with a gentle soul, despite his days as a high school football player in the Windy City.

Jerome Katz always appeared to be at ease, with an inviting smile on his face and a soothing voice. The twinkle in his eyes carried mystery, though — as if he understood something that the rest of us hadn’t figured out quite yet.

I didn’t know Jerry very well.

Ours was the kind of relationship that maintained cordiality, saying hello, passing a few words, telling a joke, as Jerry often did, but never much more.

From time to time, Jerry would consult me for my diagnostic opinion about a hospitalized patient. Beyond that, I suspect we never talked for more than five minutes.

Except for one day.

More than 30 years ago, we sat alone in the doctors’ cafeteria at Forest Hospital, then a private psychiatric facility in Des Plaines, IL.

To our surprise, no one else was around, and the room remained undisturbed for the entire period of our lunch.

One might say for that hour, it became the kind of place where one could share intimacies, like a therapist’s office.

The discussion turned to Jerry’s youthful service in World War II, “The Good War.” I don’t remember whether Jerry said that he enlisted while underage, but he didn’t hesitate. To young men of the time, patriotism meant joining up.

It was their duty.

Jerry made his way through basic training to the killing fields of France after D-Day, the Allied Invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944.

He could not have been more than 18 when his perspective on life changed because of a single enemy.

Katz and his unit were “dug in” that day. They’d created a foxhole, perhaps behind some rocks, dead trees, hastily shoveled earthworks, and a shallow pit to sink behind. Not the conventional trench of World War I, but something temporary.

A German force attacked: a bayonet and rifle charge. And Jerry, a strapping young man of perhaps 6’2″, did what he had trained to do. All his comrades did, holding their ground and firing into the oncoming assault.

Soldiers fell at a distance, but a few continued their rush ahead. The gap closed. One in particular kept moving — a towering giant of a warrior — bigger than Katz, built like a mobile fortress, a monster machine, indestructible.

Jerry and the Americans kept shooting, and no amount of speeding metal deterred the attacker. He just kept racing toward them.

Jerry remembered the surreal nature of the event. He and his mates had fired enough bullets to kill 20 men. But somehow they must have missed this soldier. He was now almost on top of their position and on top of Jerry.

Time stretched as the man lunged at Jerry with his bayonet — and collapsed, close enough for Jerry to touch the dead enemy and the blade intended for his flesh. If the giant German possessed only one more second of life, the future psychiatrist would have lost his own.

In a meaningful sense, Katz was touched by this combatant because he thought this soldier would be his executioner. The man who wanted to end Jerry’s life instead transformed it.

“Since that day, everything in my life — every day of my life — has been a ‘lagniappe.'”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a French expression. It means ‘something extra.’ Like when you go into a bakery, and they give you an extra roll because you bought a dozen. A kind of gift.”

The conversation ended not long after Jerome Katz told me that story.

Like most of us, Jerry had his ups and downs in life. Heart disease was one of his challenges; a loving wife and family were one of his boons.

Dr. Katz helped his fellow women and men by treating his patients, but also by donating his psychiatric expertise to Russian immigrants at the Ark, a charitable organization offering social services.

All of that matters, of course, but when I think of Dr. Jerome Katz, I always think of his combat story, his bravery, and the narrow escape.

I recall how every day of his life became “something extra.”

And I remember how the twinkle in his eyes got there.

==========

The three photos are the superb photographic art of Laura Hedien: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The first is Chile, Patagonia, at Torres del Paine Mountain, April, 2025. The second is a Kenyan Leopard, in the Masai Mara, Kenya, November 2024. Finally, Otter in the Wilds of Kodiak, 2025.

May 17, 2026

“I Wouldn’t Have Done That.” Our Search for Certainty and Control

I imagine you have either said or heard someone say, “I wouldn’t have done that.“

Perhaps you were right; you wouldn’t have.

I have a question, though.

Were you ever in the same situation as the person who took the wrong step?

Perhaps the circumstance under scrutiny is a catastrophic financial loss due to a risky investment.

Another example: a married person cheats on their spouse with a notorious new, young partner.

Finally, you read about a Jewish man who chose to stay in Germany before the worst of what the Nazis were capable of.

Again, the comment offered by many is, “I wouldn’t have done that.” Moreover, along with it comes the judgment of those who made a choice we assert was wrong, foolish, or immoral.

How do we maintain certainty — holding a position of no doubt about what we would do — if we never lived the experience?

Take the Holocaust for just a moment more. We look back on this epoch as history, and most of us possess only surface knowledge from school, movies, and books. Those who endured the cataclysm could not find a description of the upcoming horror in textbooks not yet written.

Almost no one at the time thought the most civilized nation in the world could be the birthplace of the unspeakable.  Germany was a place of scientific discovery, superb musicians, and towering visual artists. The genocidal murder of six million was planned there, with the intent of killing still more.

Or consider this. An old relative who lived as one of the homeless left a nephew $600,000, though he had been cold to her for years. The other surviving family members, some of whom showed her kindness, received nothing.

What would you have done if you were the beneficiary of the windfall? What would you have done if you were one of those who received nothing?

Keep reading, and I will describe what happened in one such family.

“I wouldn’t have done that,” and similar beliefs offer an imaginary certainty. Ancient Greek philosophers, however, recognized that one must be tested to know oneself.

Certainty of how we would face the future is related to control. The fabrication of a desirable future supports a positive self-image of moral rectitude. Some who assume they would act well envision personal nobility under pressure. They resist temptation and make sacrifices to help others.

Some do not think the problem through, but quickly default to the belief in their basic decency. They are therefore less troubled than they might otherwise be. This is accomplished by telescoping their vision of themselves to a place where they possess mastery, resist desire, display bravery, or show uncommon generosity.

Are they moral men and women, or people of high standards they have not met except in their mirror?

Conviction in our responses to hypothetical questions predicts command — the capacity to bend conditions when needed and impact the world rather than becoming its plaything. Of course, the only way anyone can discover tomorrow’s reality is to face a situation that is neither part of our past nor our present.

Put another way, we have made sure our magic mirror tells us we are the fairest of them all, or, at least, better and wiser than the person who made the mistake.

This is comforting. To avoid unsettling ourselves, there is value in believing a few things for which we have limited evidence or experience.

To manage our lives and protect ourselves, we think we can handle most of what might come our way.

And yet, there is much we don’t fathom, and much disappointment never happens. Resting easy is a decent strategy. Most of us sleep better that way.

I am no enemy of optimism and try not to claim a heroism I have not earned. Here is an incomplete list of things about which I have some knowledge and others about which I do not. Note the incompleteness of my lived experience:

  • I am not a woman and do not claim to have full comprehension of the many internal and external aspects of life encountered by women.
  • I would say the same of gay men, since I am not gay.
  • I treated a majority of women.
  • I have endured surgical mistakes.
  • I listened to thousands of stories in the course of my career.
  • I am a fine storyteller, omitting details that might identify former patients.
  • I was raised by a mother of broken emotions and a father who worked multiple jobs outside the home.
  • Acquaintance with aging has taught me about age. I tolerate significant and continuing chronic pain.
  • I enjoy the Midwest and the East Coast and have lived in both, but have spent no time living in the South.
  • I have visited several foreign countries, but not resided in any of them.
  • I love to laugh, I laughed with many of my clients, and have a wonderful time with lifelong friends, one of whom I met in 5th grade.
  • I have loved, and I have lost. Love is better when reciprocated with enthusiasm.
  • Most of my patients were Christian. Though I claim no faith, religion enabled some of them to lead better (and sometimes remarkable) lives. I also witnessed this magic elsewhere, including within the Orthodox Jewish community. The faithful celebrate life’s joys and search for the light, especially in times of darkness.
  • I have never faced my death, though I am comfortable talking about mortality as an abstraction.
  • I served as an expert witness and underwent cross-examination multiple times.
  • I have never been divorced, but treated a multitude of souls who were.
  • I’d have liked to have been in the body of Willie Mays for one game in the prime of his baseball career, just to enjoy what it was like.
  • I was consulted by the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team as a sports psychologist for one season. They didn’t want me back.
  • I was the beneficiary of my aunt’s $600,000 estate. Upon learning this, my wife and I decided to divide the total equally among my two brothers, two cousins, and myself.

We were the nieces and nephews of my aunt. I gave a small portion to the Zeolite Scholarship Fund, a philanthropy that I began with my old high school buddies.

Despite my values, I cannot promise or foresee how I will behave in many situations and can only guess what the future will evoke in me.

Memory tells me how I felt and acted at the ages I was and in the places I happened to be.

I shall discover what unveils itself the rest of the way.

==========

The first painting is an Untitled, 1950 work by Franz Kline. Next comes a Towering Cumulus, 3/3/2020, East Valentine, Nebraska, by Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website. Finally, Sunflower, by Gustav Klimt.

May 14, 2026

How to Avoid Defeating Ourselves

“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that things are difficult.” — Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Consider making two lists. The first includes all the troubles you have endured, as well as your successes, joys, and triumphs. Number the times you acted as Eleanor Roosevelt advised:

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face… You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Add the fears and anxieties you have overcome, including those expected disasters that never arrived in full force except in your imagination.

The second list is different. Include the risks you never lived, but for thoughts and nightmares, defeating you before you took them on.

These are the inert, self-created monsters of intimidation, like the diving platform of infinite height at which you stare, from which you never jump.

Internal fear factories create predetermined defeats. The failed advisors masquerade as wise instructors, but mislead us and diminish our confidence.

Do you remember the poor advice and anticipation sufficient to undo us?

  • Avoiding doctors because of the dread of a digital rectal exam.
  • Dodging or giving up on a rope climb to the gym ceiling because of predicted embarrassment or injury.
  • Never stepping into the elevator headed for the top of a skyscraper.
  • The terror of making public speeches. You expect paralysis of your vocal cords to the point of speechlessness, and rivers of perspiration enough to drown in. So you think.
  • Deciding to ride in a car, but not a plane.
  • Staying away from injections of any kind.
  • Going to a restaurant with a companion, but not alone.

Living a full life is a matter of quiet daring.

Not tomorrow, not after you do the dishes or mow the lawn, not waiting until you read a book to prepare yourself.

Not ’till then, you say. But soon there are no more thens ahead, only the irretrievable time behind you.

Throw yourself in, make mistakes, and jump back in the game. Now.

We needn’t announce our brave plans the same way we count all the steps back we’ve taken. Our indecisions and hesitations build one upon another.

That is the real risk: to be crushed under the weight of what we don’t do now and never did before. Heavy, immovable legs fix us in a position of unfreedom.

Do not remain a prisoner of fear and indecision. Liberate yourself. Cognitive Behavioral therapy can help.

A jail break or a lifetime in the slammer are in your hands.

It is time.

==========

The photo at the top is Beauty Salons by Mostafameraji. It is sourced from Wikimedia Commons.