Apropos my last post, my friend Haika’s husband Ashok is celebrating fifty years since his arrival in the USA from India. He moved to the USA to start a new life, and he succeeded. He chose to celebrate by recreating his exact travel route to America in 1975 and then once in America, by reading the poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. This poem is featured on the base of the Statue of Liberty. This is what America has meant and means to him. This is what the Statue of Liberty represents--a welcome to immigrants.
Friday, September 5, 2025
Give me your tired, your poor
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Staying positive during and after illness
The great divide
Parable is a poem I wrote many years ago--my reflections on the great divide between the wealthy and the poor, inspired by the parable in the New Testament about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31 NIV - The Rich Man and Lazarus - “There was - Bible Gateway)
Parable
While in the penthouses above
The glitterati meet.
In the end I left
The glamour, the effete chic.
(Not that I belonged).
‘City of vipers’--
Women poised like cobras,
Bedecked in jewels and haughty crowns,
Ready to strike, tongues flicking.
Gold lame skins rise and fall
With their breathing.
Fixing you with their stares.
Outside the frost-edged window
Awaits the city---
The viper rich indoors
See it not, nor feel.
Teeth flash, capped, even, gleaming--
Fangs for the night about to end
About to start
That never ends, for reality
Is a party, a toss of the coin--
One more Lazarus for the gutter,
One more snake for the pit.
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Autumn and moving on
Friday, August 15, 2025
Caring and not caring
Sometimes the smartest and healthiest thing we can do for ourselves is to care less, not more. I don't mean that we should be uncaring toward others or that we should not love or prioritize others. I mean that sometimes we care too much about what others think of us in situations that do not warrant our attention, or we want to direct others through our caring, and these scenarios are not healthy. Sometimes we don't like how others behave toward us or how they talk to us. We should say--it's your problem, not mine. But often we don't do that. We end up getting dragged into their banal dramas when we should just ignore them and walk away. We should make a conscious effort to not care about what they mean or say about us. Hard to do, yes. But freeing. Because when you really learn to let go of caring about what other people mean about you, especially when they are hypercritical of you, you are free. In the same way, we free others to do and say what they want when we let go of our vision of how they should behave and what they should do and say. The key words are 'letting go', not hanging on. What's important is to let others be, and that means not grasping at them in an effort to get them to do what we think they should do. Grasping at them reveals a kind of desperation. It's not smart behavior.
There are times in life when others are headed down the wrong path and we want to involve ourselves in order to stop them from making a mess of their lives. But if we haven't been asked for advice or our opinion on a certain matter, why are we getting involved? I'm not talking about children here who need guidance and direction, rather adults who can reason for themselves and make informed choices. Why are we inserting ourselves into others' lives when we've not been asked to do so? There are many well-meaning adults who want to control others, to fashion them according to their own viewpoints and beliefs. We should rather 'let go and let them' live the lives they want to live, regardless of the outcome. And in that way, we end up having fewer dramas and fewer irritating situations to deal with. Sometimes the outcomes for those others won't be happy, sometimes they may even be painful. But they are adult learning experiences. Pain can be a basis for emotional and psychological growth. We cannot prevent others from experiencing pain.
There are situations when another's behavior/comments may hurt our feelings. Sometimes we are faced with having to choose a response to them. The question is what kind of response. Sometimes it's best to just to let them be that way. Sometimes that's the healthiest response of all. Their bad behavior is not our problem. Perhaps their behavior or comments are intended to provoke us, to make us irritated, sad, jealous or angry. Do we take the bait or do we walk away? Do we care or do we walk away and not care? More and more, I've begun to see the value in not caring. That way, I can reserve my energy for the situations where real caring and active love are warranted. And that way, I don't have to be dragged into another's dramas. That by itself is energizing and empowering.
And Just Like That comes to an end
I watched the final episode of And Just Like That (AJLT) tonight (it aired last night), and can honestly say that I liked it. I've read some negative reviews and some positive reviews. Many people hated the finale, which simply confirms for me that you either liked the series or you didn't. The negative reviews meant that the series generally was too woke and that the finale didn't do the characters justice. I don't agree and I don't care what the negative reviewers thought. The finale provided fitting endings for Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and their new friends Seema and Lisa. It implied that Carrie's new novel will be a success, but that she doesn't end up with a man after having ended things with Aidan. She accepts that. Miranda finds happiness with her girlfriend Joy but her son's life is a chaotic mess (a one-night stand ended up with the young woman becoming pregnant), and Charlotte and Harry are weathering his bout with prostate cancer. In other words, they are all dealing with the problems of middle age and approaching old age. Life is unpredictable and messy. There are no guarantees of a happy ending for anyone. That is real life, as much as we'd like to run away from that reality. Some of the negative reviews wanted a happy (happier) ending for Carrie. But why? Many middle-aged women end up alone, or remain alone after years of dating. Many choose to live alone. They are often smart and successful women. Carrie at least experienced a happy, albeit short, marriage with Big. All of the characters, including Seema and Lisa (the new friends), are dealing with relationship issues. Those who are married admit that it involves a lot of self-sacrifice and compromise. What grounds all these women are the friendships they have with each other. They know that their friends are always there for them. That is what I love and have loved about the new series and the Sex And The City series. That, and the love affair they have with Manhattan. Having gone to school and worked in Manhattan, I share their feelings about the city. But, these women are wealthy and I was not. You need to be wealthy in order to have the lives these women have. If you're not, you can't remain in Manhattan for very long. But that feeling--that the world was my oyster when I was young and in Manhattan--is a wonderful memory. And after I left it, my life changed in ways that I could never have imagined.
AJLT ended abruptly. It made me wonder why. Perhaps there's more to the story than meets the eye. Perhaps we'll learn more down the line. Or perhaps there really was nothing more to say, no more new stories to tell. Michael Patrick King has said that he felt it was a good time to stop, and Sarah Jessica Parker seconded that statement. It might have been just more of the same--trying to find a good man, dealing with spouses, dealing with children, dealing with work. Dating is difficult at any age; even more so when one is older. Marriages have their ups and downs, and can become routinized at times. Children grow up and leave the nest--choosing their lives for themselves. Work problems can occur at any age. When we're older, we've heard the same stories over and over from spouses and friends. We try to reinvent ourselves. But it gets harder as we age. And we eventually end up asking ourselves--why? Why do we need to reinvent ourselves when we're older? At some point, it's got to be about patting ourselves on the back for getting as far as we've gotten, for achieving the small successes that life has given us. It's about accepting where we are now--the good and the bad. Life is never, and will never be, perfect or as we imagined it. As we age, we should be living in the present and trying not to focus on the past. The future is uncertain at best, so the present is all we have. That's where the series ended. In the middle of real life. There isn't, and there won't be, a fairytale ending, however much we may have wanted one.
If you'd like to read my post from 2022 about AJLT, here is the link: A New Yorker in Oslo: And just like that, Big died
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Do Something by Macy Gray
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
My author page on Amazon
As many of you know, I've been writing for many years. If you'd like to check out my Author page on Amazon, here is the link:
Amazon.com: Paula M. De Angelis: books, biography, latest update
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Jurassic World: Rebirth movie
I'll start by sharing the reaction of a young boy, probably around eleven years of age, who was together with his father. After the film was over, they were in the lobby on their way to the exit when they ran into people they knew--yet another father with his two boys. I was walking behind them. They exchanged greetings and then one of the fathers asked the other how the film was. Before he had a chance to answer, his son exclaimed that it was an exciting and scary film; his eyes widened and his face was full of wonder and excitement. You just knew that this must have been his first Jurassic Park/World film. His father smiled, but you could tell that he felt the same way, just that he had a more tempered reaction. At that moment, I realized that I felt the same--it was an exciting and scary film--even if we've seen most of it before in other Jurassic Park/World films. It didn't matter. This film captured the spirit of the early films, when the good and ethical people survived (mostly) and the bad and unethical people got crunched by the carnivorous dinosaurs. The demarcation between good and bad was easy to discern and no tears were lost on the demise of the bad people.
I love going to the movies and I always will. I love the summer blockbuster films (just not the super hero genre) and I love sitting together with other people who are there for the same reason--to be entertained. It's fun. Jurassic World: Rebirth is not a great film, but I never go to these kinds of films expecting great art. But it's a very good, tightly-edited film. I don't care if we've seen most of it before. Big (and in this film, mutant) carnivorous dinosaurs ARE scary and you wouldn't want to be eaten by one of them. That is the mark of good filmmaking, when you can transport the audience to that world and keep them on the edge of their seats. The teenage girls next to me in my row were commenting on the (often stupid) behavior of some of the characters. Much like we do at home when we're watching a movie. They were involved in the story, as I was. You root for the characters to get off the remote island where the dinosaurs live, alive, which they do of course, but minus some members of the original group.
Scarlett Johansson (former military covert operative), Mahershala Ali (boat owner and longtime friend of Johansson's character), and Jonathan Bailey (paleontologist) are all very good in their roles, but it was cool to see a pragmatic and unafraid female leader (Johansson) for a change. She kept a cool head in most of the borderline catastrophic situations. Refreshing.....
A fun summer film for sure, if you're looking for escapist entertainment: Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) - IMDb
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Garden update
I've been working in my garden since mid-May. I tried doing garden work a couple of weeks after I came home from the hospital in mid-April, but I became dizzy and had to stop. Now, almost three months after my operation, I'm back to working in the garden for hours at a time. But I take precautions--sun umbrella up, wearing a hat to protect against too much sun, drinking a lot of water and resting when I get tired. We've had intervals of sun and rain, which has been very good for the garden, especially the berry bushes. There will be good harvests for black currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and strawberries. I've planted a cranberry bush that is thriving, and my Norwegian blueberry bushes are also happy. The American blueberry bushes, less so, so I ended up transplanting them to a sunnier location.
Yellow loosestrife has overtaken a large area of one of my perennial spaces. I cut it back but it just keeps on coming. It's beautiful, but I need to keep it in check or else it will take over the entire space. That seems to be my job this year--keeping growth in check. Everything is doing well and I can't complain. But maintenance of the garden keeps me busy. I'm very glad that I decided to aim for a (mostly) perennial garden, because I don't have to worry about buying a lot of annuals each year. The bushes that have grown the most since I planted them three years ago are the forsythia bushes. I cannot believe how large they've become. Ditto for the lilac bush. And of course the ninebark bush, which resembles a tree at present. I could clip it right down to the base, and it would grow back happily. I don't do that though; I clip a number of branches to keep it in a certain shape. And the Japanese maple tree is thriving as well, which makes me happy; it is so lovely.
The wild cherry tree that decided to take root from seed in my garden (I didn't plant it) has grown quite tall. It produces sour cherries, but not as many as the cherry tree I bought and planted. The birds (blackbirds, brown thrushes, sparrows) are eagerly waiting for the red currants to be ripe; each year it's a contest between humans and birds to see who gets the most red currants. Last year, we managed to pluck half of the berries, but the birds got the other half. They don't seem to go after the other berries as much. I don't know why.
My garden is thriving, if a bit overgrown in places. I like it that way. It's as though I enter my own private secret garden when I arrive there. Except for the formal garden entrance (an arch covered with white clematis), the other three sides of the garden are 'walled-in' by growth along the street fence, tall raspberry bushes, and black currant bushes plus a 'krossved' (Viburnum opulus) bush.
Here are some garden photos from May and June.......enjoy!
Beautiful wisteria |
Japanese maple |
Irises |
Rhododendron |
Ninebark bush |
Blooming peony plant |
Loosestrife |
Monday, June 23, 2025
Summer solstice blessing
I don't know who the author of this little poem is, but it's a nice little poem for the summer solstice. Enjoy......
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Reflections on The Capture--a futuristic horror story?
Thursday, June 19, 2025
Grateful for the gift of life
Friday, June 13, 2025
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Closer To Home (I'm Your Captain) by Grand Funk Railroad
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Saying goodbye to Don
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
The angels among us
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
It's been a while--an update
It's been a while since I wrote any posts for my blog. It's not because I didn't want to, but because life threw me a curve ball that I spent the month of April dealing with. Suffice it to say that the curve ball was health-related and that I spent nearly a month in the hospital. I'm back home now and recovering from a heart operation. My doctors tell me that I will be fine, and I trust them since they're the experts. But I wanted to let you know that I'm still writing my blog and I'll be posting more soon as time goes on......
Thank you for your support, always.
Monday, March 31, 2025
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Thursday, March 27, 2025
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
The Youngbloods - Get Together (Audio)
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
The politics of vengeance
In my former workplace, there were two large research groups that more or less intensely disliked each other and did everything they could to make life difficult for the other. I never knew the reason why, and over time I never got a good explanation. When I started working there, I worked for the person who was the head of the research institute at that time. My research group leader worked directly for him, and so we enjoyed a rather privileged status in the sense that the institute leader looked out for us and our interests. But he was not particularly friendly with the leader of the other large research group, and when that man eventually became institute leader, he placed his own people as heads of different groups and sections and expanded his reach and power. He also made life difficult for those who worked for the former institute leader. I never had particular problems with the new institute leader, even though I clashed a couple of times with the younger leaders who worked for him. Those clashes became a bit more frequent over time, especially when they involved encroachment into areas that they knew little to nothing about. In the end, it evolved into a battle for control, a battle that our side lost simply because we were no longer in power, and because the politics of vengeance became a dominant force in how our daily lives were run. Tit for tat. If one institute leader's employees had previously been pushed aside, frozen out or ignored when it came to important decision-making, the other institute leader made sure, via his lackeys, that the same treatment was dealt out to his opposition when he became the leader. The effect on our department was, as you can imagine, not beneficial. What started out as a diverse research institute with small but productive research groups was little more than a research monoverse headed by one of the lackeys when I left. That lackey had complete control. His attitude toward others was haughty; he was the best, so the rest could get lost, and he did his level best to get rid of the small but productive research groups, something that the former institute leader had not done. The younger people, on whom any research future depends, chose not to do research; they looked around and breathed in the hostile atmosphere and thought, why bother, when we can choose more lucrative jobs in the private sector? And why should they have chosen to do research at our institute, when the only real option was to work for him? Other leaders who looked at the loss of research in the department shook their heads and wondered why. I know why. The lackeys were in complete control, and they wasted no time in trying to get their (perceived) opponents (scientists they deemed useless) to quit by making their lives miserable, under the guise of 'increasing efficiency', 'saving money', and 'improving the kind of research that was done'. I was at meetings where several of my colleagues were publicly humiliated and told that they were slackers who were just taking up space and collecting their salaries. If the lackeys could have fired them immediately, they would have. Luckily, this country has rules in place prohibiting mass firings in the public sector. This type of behavior was still going on when I left my workplace.
I should make the point that academic research science is far from a democracy and is headed by a number of leaders who brook no opposition. If you cross them or don't agree with them, you end up on their 'enemies list', slated for being pushed aside, frozen out or ignored when it comes to important decision-making and giving much-needed advice. You can believe it or not, but it's true. The tiny little microcosm of life where I used to work was merely representative of the larger world of government and politics. In other words, there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to behaving badly and governing badly. Just google Machiavelli and you'll see how far back this goes.
I'm reminded of my former workplace when I look at what is going on at the highest levels of US government. I'd like to tell you that the politics of vengeance is unique to the current administration, but it is not. Eliminating your (perceived) enemies in the name of victory and control becomes paramount to the types of leaders whose goal is to crush their opposition. The question is--who are the enemies of the current administration? All those who did not vote for him? All those who oppose him? All those who tried to undermine him and bring him down? If all of the above, that's going to be a mighty long list of people on whom to exact vengeance. And vengeance comes in all flavors--mocking, public humiliation, bullying, firing, demoting, shoving aside, freezing out. I've been privy to all of that kind of behavior in my former workplace. And I grieved the loss of a civilized workplace for several years after the lackeys took over. We are witnessing exactly this now in the US. And if this is the goal of power in the present administration, the country and its average ordinary citizens will suffer from the fallout. In a few years, there won't be much of a country left to govern. It will have been razed to the ground. Perhaps that is what his supporters want. But they destroy their own lives in the process.
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Hubris and bad behavior
I have begun to reflect on the following--to all those who think that the president's behavior is strong and heroic. You would do well to remember that you take for granted that those around you, who behave decently and kindly toward you as a matter of course, may one day no longer do that. We depend upon the good behavior of others around us to get through our lives. When or if we can no longer depend upon that, society as we know it is over. When we act like the president does toward others he doesn't like or who he deems unworthy of him, we injure others. There is no sane leader in the free world who behaves like him. I know the signs of a bully from previous experience. We can pray for them, yes, but we cannot let them rule a country and/or the world. Those who want that are misguided in my book.
Hubris, defined as excessive pride, is not a good look on most people, and definitely not on the president. Just saying. It's embarrassing to listen to leaders brag about themselves. But he does. How would most people react if each of us suddenly decided to do the same and act excessively prideful. For example, I could say the following and reiterate it to anyone who would like to hear it ad nauseam. I was the smartest student in my grammar school class, the smartest student in my high school class, valedictorian of my high school class, went on to college and graduate school and received my doctorate in tumor cell biology. I worked for forty years as an academic research scientist, published nearly one hundred articles in my field, mentored Masters and PhD students (most of them women), and empowered women any chance I got. Because for a while there, I was one of two women who were senior scientists in my department. And that wasn't easy, because some of my workplace leaders behaved like the president--they were vengeful, spiteful and mean. If you didn't agree with everything they said, they froze you out and/or ignored you. But back to bragging about myself (thank you, Mr. President). I was a gifted and innovative research scientist (I know that because the reigning American guru in my field told me my work was excellent) and a damn good writer. I've published six books of poetry and one book about passive-aggressive leadership in the workplace, the latter which sold fairly well in the first few years after it was published. I started writing this blog in 2010, and have slowly built up a readership. At present, about a thousand people view my blog each day. I changed my life in my early thirties by moving to Norway and building a life here, learning a new language, and working for over thirty years in a foreign country. My husband and I never made a ton of money, but we've traveled through Europe and the USA on a budget. We are doing fine financially, have no debt, and are enjoying our retirement. I'm currently relearning Spanish and learning Italian online. I'm so clever. I taught myself how to garden after being gifted an allotment garden in 2016, and am quite good at it. I love to travel and to write. I'm so smart. I've accomplished a lot, and it's so great. Look at me, how great I am. You'll never find a greater person than me in the whole world.........blah blah blah ad nauseam.
You get my drift. Would most people enjoy hearing me spout all this every time I opened my mouth? They would not. And I would never in a million years behave like this. But that is what is now held up as correct behavior, at least in the current political arena. We applaud this in our leaders. 'Look at me, I am so great. The greatest the country has ever seen'. But we would never want our spouses or children to behave like this. Why not? Why not encourage and applaud this behavior in others around us? Perhaps more people should try this as an experiment in their daily lives, just to see the effects on those who support bullies. I don't call this behavior good behavior, I call it bad behavior. But perhaps more people should try it, just to see the effect on loved ones. Guaranteed the divorce rate will shoot through the roof.
Am I better than most people? I am not. Am I a better Christian than other Christians? I am not. I awake each day with gratitude for another day, another chance to try to be a good person. I have lived my life according to the values that were inculcated in me by my parents, who were humble people. They are my heroes and my role models, and I will forever love them for it.
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
What to give up for Lent (and it's not chocolate)
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Sunday mornings
Sunday mornings. In a city. Oslo, to be precise. Sunday mornings in early March. Spring is right around the corner. You can feel it in the air. The hope and promise of spring. March and April are perhaps my favorite months of the year, although the summer months rival them, at least in terms of garden life. But right now, life is returning to the city, to the garden, to us all. The sun feels warmer on my face when I sit on the bench in my garden after having filled the bird feeder. I love watching the small birds fly to and fro, eating seeds and chattering away. The snowdrops, the real harbingers of spring, are poking their heads up and starting to bloom.
There is a peace that I love on early Sunday mornings when I walk to St. Olav church. The sun is shining and there are very few cars or people about. There is the occasional jogger or dogwalker, but by and large I have the sidewalks to myself. It is at these times that I love being in a city. I know I'm surrounded by people and I like that, but they're not milling about me as they would be during mid-summer. So I'm enjoying the peace and quiet time, walking up Teltusbakken and past our allotment garden, then walking along Kjærlighetsstien and the park/playground until I reach Akersveien. I then walk past Our Savior's Cemetery and then past St. Olav bookstore. Akersveien is one of my favorite streets in Oslo; it is peaceful, perhaps due to the religious feelings engendered by the church, bookstore and cemetery. It fills me with the peace and feelings of safety from childhood, when all seemed (mostly) right with the world, when Sundays meant going to church with family and then coming home and eating afternoon dinner together. When I walk along Akersveien, I forget that I am living in a nonsensical world that gets crazier by the day.
March is an unpredictable month in terms of the weather, I know that. So I enjoy the little tastes of spring that we are given on days like these, when the sun shines, when I feel like I have no cares in the world, when it feels as though the peace of the divine is shining down upon us.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Group thinking and things I've learned along the way
As those who know me know, I don't like group thinking. I don't like being told how or what to think by well-meaning but ultimately know-it-all groups. I never have, even when I was a child in school. I prefer being able to weigh both sides of a societal or political issue in the peace and quiet of my private space. In solitude. I don't want anyone explaining a situation to me unless I have specifically asked for advice about it. Does that make me difficult to live with? At times, probably. However, when it comes to personal issues, I am very loyal to those I care about. I'll side with them, no questions asked, unless what they've done or are doing is of a truly criminal nature. But again, loyalty is a personal decision, not a group one. If I make a mistake concerning this, I'm the only one who has to answer for it.
Given the current political climate, I'm glad I don't subscribe to group thinking. I'm glad I don't belong to one political party. I'm glad that I try to think for myself, to reason things out based on the information and news available. But there's the rub. Where to get unbiased news and information? It's getting harder and harder each day. So what do I do? I read newspapers and articles from both sides of the political spectrum. I remain politically independent. I don't belong to either major political party. In the current political climate, some might call that cowardly. I call it smart. You're not going to force me to hand over my intelligence to a mob. I'm not interested in mob thinking. Again, I've been like this for many years, since grammar school. Since I sat at the dinner table when I was a teenager and debated the important political issues with my father, who was both intelligent and kind. We two were the only ones interested in doing this in my family. I'm glad I got that training from him. We didn't always agree, but I learned to discuss and debate an issue and to defend my ways of thinking. Sometimes I changed my mind if I saw the wisdom in the other's point of view. But that was the point, we were able to discuss and debate, something that is long-gone in our current society. Nowadays, if someone disagrees with you, especially on social media or online, you'll find yourself the recipient of a barrage of hate comments, troll comments, laughter emojis or anger emojis. I have yet to read a comment that says 'hey, that's an interesting point. Thanks for posting. You gave me something to think about'. One of the reasons I closed the ability to comment on my blog was because the comments were either spam-like or downright hostile. One of the last ones I received from an anonymous (of course) poster before I shut the comments section said that he/she wished that I would die. I've got to wonder why, since I certainly don't set out to offend anyone when I write my posts. But I'm certainly not going to tolerate such things or even pursue them. My blog, my rules. If you don't like what I write, feel free to go elsewhere for your entertainment.
Things I've learned, especially during the last ten years--
- Those who shout the loudest are usually those who have little to say, or nothing to say that's of any value. You can shout in my face, be aggressive or threatening, and I'm still not going to convert to your way of thinking. I will 'listen' to you, as in, my eyes will be focused on your face and you will think I'm listening to you, but I'm really not. I learned that technique in the third grade when a teacher, who was particularly odious, singled out her pet scapegoats for her particular brand of mobbing. She was a bully, and the school let her continue as a teacher. Her modus operandi was to instill fear; she succeeded with some students, I'm sure. She only succeeded in awakening an anger in me that can truly scare even me when it is fully unleased. And I learned to unleash it as an adult. You would not like to be in my presence if you have wronged me or another that I care about. Why am I so preoccupied with fairness and justice for others? I need only think back to that teacher and how she treated some fellow students, and I know why. Or I think back to a time when I was treated poorly by another. You would not like to know some of the thoughts that ran through my head at those times. But then, I could not act on my anger. I was a child/young adult, and I was constrained by my upbringing ('be nice') and my religion ('be kind to others'). It took a long time to understand that anger is a good emotion, and when used correctly, can actually be helpful in changing your current situation or changing your life.
- The above post also applies to those priests who like to bark out their sermons from the pulpit. Who think they know best. Do you win me over with your fire and brimstone sermons? You do not. And as many of you know, I have been (and remain) in non-agreement with some of the positions that my religion stubbornly will not discuss (female priests and married priests). And I was and remain furious with them for not prosecuting their pedophile priests, however small the number, for the criminals they were and are. The church, as my father used to say, is not infallible. It is filled with fallible men, and that must be understood.
- I don't particularly like bureaucracies (just ask my former colleagues), but I've come to admit that they are necessary. Yes, some of them are too big. No, I don't think that they should be completely dismantled. What happens when you do the latter? You disrupt a society that needs bureaucracies in order to function, a society where some of its people rely on disability and/or welfare payments, health insurance, etc. We are not all wealthy billionaires. I only object to bureaucracies when they micromanage all aspects of people's lives and/or careers and when they try to convert non-bureaucrats (e.g. scientists, doctors) to a bureaucratic way of thinking, which is what happened in my former workplace.
- Disruption and creating chaos are tactics to get a society to accept group thinking. Think about it. If you disrupt the functioning of a society and create chaos, and then you come along as the great leader who will save society, you gain followers. They think, oh, the savior has arrived. I will follow him or her. I will be loyal to him or her, and I will badmouth all the others who try to stop him or her.
- Social media and the AI algorithms that power them play a huge role in the creation of group thinking. Take Facebook, for example. If you like a particular group or page, your feed will be inundated with posts having to do with that particular topic (in my case--gardens and gardening). If you extrapolate to political posts, you'll find that if you click 'like' on some 'leftist' or 'rightist' post, your feed will suddenly be filled with posts from left-leaning or right-leaning newspapers and organizations. After a time, that is all that you will read or focus on. And the algorithms are clever, they'll always find a new group for you to peruse and agree with. I call it subtle brainwashing. It's the same with tv; if you watch one channel that pushes a right-wing agenda, you'll eventually end up thinking like them if that's your only source of information. Why do the right-wing stations think they're the only ones who present 'the facts and the truth'? How do they 'know' that? They don't, but they're telling you that they're the only ones who know the truth and have the real facts. It's insidious. And the left-wing channels do the same, they're no better.
- Group thinking leads to intolerance of other ways of thinking. Think about it. Each time we are 100% certain that our way of thinking is the 'right' way of thinking, we close the door to others. We close the door to diverse ways of thinking, to innovative and creative solutions to problems. We close the door to compassion and empathy. The woke movement, while it may have been well-meaning at the start, has also become intolerant of those who don't accept its ways of thinking. It is possible to believe a certain way and have the intelligence to understand that those who think and believe differently are still worthy of our respect and empathy. If this is not the case, what is the definition of civilization and humanity?
- Schools should teach students how to think critically and objectively in order to face an ever-increasing polarization of society. As far as I can see, they do not at present. They have abdicated that role. Parents must therefore try to fill the gap. But they are often tired and without time to do so. I think back to my father's role in my life. He did that job. He taught me to think critically and objectively, even when he was very tired, and I love him for it. There should be more men like my father in the world.
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Life of Pi, The Wild Robot, and Conclave--all excellent films
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Inconsistencies
The odd times we live in have given rise to inconsistencies that are just begging to be commented upon.
The political party of family values, headed by two powerful and wealthy men, have fathered seventeen children between them via six different women. The same party is pushing for the birth of more children in the USA, but is not anti-divorce or anti-adultery or pro-marriage for that matter. Family values? Don't make me puke. Having more children is all well and good, but I'm assuming that if they're not pushing for polygamy in order to achieve that goal, this means that in monogamous marriages, wives should be willing to have more than one child, despite the fact that it costs a fortune at present to raise a child, buy a home, and pay monthly expenses. So is the party of family values willing to give young couples a break so that they can have large families? And do women get a say in how they want to live their lives? Just asking. This brings me to the next point.
If the party wishes to return to 1950s America, when family values were apparently sacrosanct, when women stayed home to raise children (more than one) while men as heads of the family worked to provide for their families, then I'll say to the younger men who like this philosophy, get your asses in gear. Or get off your asses. Get out there and hustle for an education and high-paying jobs. 1950s America is no place for losers. You're a loser if you don't make a good salary and provide a house for your family. And you can forget about getting any help from mommy or daddy. Men in America at that time, unless they came from truly wealthy families, did not get help from anyone. They made it on their own. So get out there and work for a living instead of living at home with mommy and daddy until you're thirty. Stop living life through your devices. Stop moaning and complaining that women aren't interested in you. They will be if you show them that you can earn money. THAT was 1950s America. It was no place for men who were losers in the job market, whiners, or complainers. And there was no safety net.
The men who support the current political regime are the men most likely to lose under it. It is not a regime that supports losers, the poor, the uneducated. It says it does and says it will, but it won't. It will enrich the already-rich. Because most politicians at present, in both parties, have grifter tendencies. They are interested in enriching themselves. That's the world we live in, that's the world we've become. Eat or be eaten. It's about survival of the fittest. And those at the top of the food chain got there by eating those at the bottom of the food chain. Study Darwin and you'll learn all about evolution, which as much as you'd like to deny it, is a reality and a fact of life.
And of course, along with the new regime, comes the resurgence of viewpoints about how women should behave. Women, like children, should be seen and not heard, unless they're the 'dollies' on Fox News as my friend calls them. If you look 'glam', you're acceptable to men. If not, you're invisible. The non-glam women should just know their place, in relationships and in society at large. They should acquiesce to men. When I was younger, I had a conversation with a priest friend of mine where we disagreed about the New Testament passage that talks about wives obeying (submitting) to their husbands. What is often ignored is the second part of that equation--the admonition for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. I told the priest, when men can achieve that, when they can love their wives as Christ loved the church, then come talk to me about wives acquiescing to their husbands in all things. I haven't met one man who has managed that type of love, not one. The priest had no response, because he knew I was right. And while we're on the topic, why should women listen to others less intelligent than themselves about how to live and think? There are so many women I know who are far more intelligent than many men. How they think and feel about their lives is far more important to me than what some random men (read--politicians) I do not know or care about, think.
Is the party of family values going to do something about the dying middle class? Will they continue to blame the less fortunate for their status in life? Because no matter what, a civilized society will always have to carry the less fortunate, because that is what civilized societies do. My father used to say that. Christ, who was a wise man, once said that 'the poor you will always have with you'. What kind of society blames it citizens for not being financially successful when that same society makes it impossible to for its citizens to get ahead? If you're in debt up to your ears because of high prices for everything, you have no chance. The rich blame the poor for being poor. But perhaps the truly rich should look at the advantages that they've had from birth. They are not the advantages that the poor have had, that's for sure. And trust me, if you haven't had those advantages, you can scramble and struggle an entire lifetime to achieve success and never reach the level of wealth and success that the rich enjoy. Because many of the rich inherited their wealth; they did not work or struggle for it. Average ordinary people, who belong to the middle class that I was born into, worked hard to get what they have. Most of them have achieved moderate success. Most of them are financially-comfortable. But most of them would go under if faced with staggering medical bills as a result of some illness that required expensive treatments or full-time nursing care. And most of them are careful with money, with how they spend it. That is not something the truly rich need to worry about. The current level of hypocrisy in society is appalling. Perhaps it's always been there, but I see it in its entirety now. We need to call it out at every opportunity. The time to rise up against it is now.
Celebrating fifty years in America
Apropos my last post, my friend Haika’s husband Ashok is celebrating fifty years since his arrival in the USA from India. He moved to the US...