What Social Media Does To Us

I recently posted something fairly innocuous on social media. I was commenting on the beauty and the virtue of a certain edifice of sacred significance, a place of profound meaning and enlightenment. There shouldn’t have been anything controversial about what I said. And yet, a certain small but deeply troubled demographic that lurks among us […]

It feels good to laugh. Laughter is a real “high” as endorphins are released into the bloodstream, providing an emotional sensation that is almost euphoric. Sometimes we get to laugh at ourselves, and it is good if we do so. We shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. Other times we get to laugh with others (notice […]

I recently (Issue #302) wrote about bullying in this column. I received a lot of feedback on that piece, and it got me thinking about bullying even further. It has since occurred to me that a less violent form of bullying often occurs in more professional settings by insecure individuals who wish to push their […]

I find the entire saga of the Fall of Adam and Eve utterly fascinating and thought provoking. While virtually all of the known Christian dogmas on this consequential occurrence view the Fall with regret, remorse, and disdain (often blaming Eve for succumbing to the temptations of Lucifer, who approached her through the medium of a […]

I attended Junior High School in Los Altos, a posh little community located in Northern California, in a region today known as Silicon Valley. The school was called Egan Junior High School. It encompassed 7th and 8th grade. I didn’t care for the place, even though we had it pretty good. I remember feeling apprehensive […]

There is an old saying that’s been around for a while: “Be careful what you wish for.” There are times that we wish for things, and actually attain things, that may seem like a good idea at the time, but then we end up regretting the decision. That is because often times there are unintended […]

There is in the music of various modern-day composers a certain mesmerizing quality that enables one to become lost in one’s thoughts, or transported, however temporarily, to a higher plane. The musical project dubbed VNV Nation (Victory Not Vengeance Nation) has produced a moving piece titled “As It Fades” which can only be described as […]

There is a falsehood floating around out there in the form of this phrase: “I have no regrets.” How is that possible? Life, if lived to any degree or capacity, is loaded with regrets. How many people have fantasized about going back in time to their beginnings and starting all over again, and being able […]

Perhaps my all-time favorite television show is 24 starring Kiefer Sutherland. The show is an action thriller featuring a character named Jack Bauer (played by Sutherland) who works for a Federal Agency called CTU (Counter-Terrorism Unit). Jack Bauer is constantly doing 24-hour stints in foiling terrorist plots, although he himself is occasionally captured by the […]

Brené Brown is a popular thought-leader with a devoted following. I have only scant familiarity with her work and don’t have an opinion on the few things of hers that I’ve read or heard in the past. However, recently I was sitting in a meeting where the presenter was using PowerPoint slides. The final slide […]