John Swinburn

The safest countries in the world today, according to worldpopulationreview.com, “tend to display high levels of wealth, social welfare, and education” and they “typically have effective criminal justice systems and governments that maintain very healthy relationships with their citizens.” The five safest countries in the world, based on the 2024 Global Peace Index (GPI) score [lower is better] are ranked as follows:

1. Iceland
2. Austria
3. Ireland
4. New Zealand
5. Singapore

The remaining top ten safest countries are: Switzerland, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, and Malaysia. The United States ranks #131 out of the 163 countries ranked on the Global Peace Index.; a ranking that suggests the relative peril of living in the USA. Unfortunately, according to the 2025 GPI report, “global peace is at its lowest level since the inception of the Index, while the conditions that precede conflict are the worst since WWII.” Moreover, “global peacefulness has deteriorated every year since 2014, with 100 countries deteriorating over the last decade.”

While a lower GPI score is attractive, it is no guarantee of peace or safety. Essentially every country’s most heavily populated cities, for example, have at least some pockets in which crime, social tensions, political battles, etc. take place. But, over all, the most peaceful countries are the most serene places and their populations are happiest.  But if all of us who long for peace and tranquility were to rush to the safest, most peaceful countries, I am afraid the influx would reduce the safety and peacefulness of those places. A more effective, but much more time- and energy-consuming approach would be to change nations into environments in which conflicts would be fewer and less damaging. In other words, lifetimes of dedication would be required for such transformation. My optimism about the likelihood of improving safety and peacefulness for all humanity has all but disappeared over the years. Yet another argument for insulation, isolation, solitude, and withdrawal. I wish I could look forward to changing my mind, but I am too much of a realist for that to be likely. On the other hand, the possibility exists. With enough dedicated, charismatic leaders who possess sufficient collective will to radically change global society, my mind could be changed. If my mind can be changed, so can the minds of enough others.

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Last night’s thunderstorms were audibly violent and visually engrossing. Every clap of thunder and flash of lightning shook the house and illuminated the air with an eerie blue light. I have no idea whether the storms were all show…or whether they demonstrated their power by breaking limbs and causing terrified forest beasts to race through the woods in an effort to escape the chaos. I went to bed early, unmoved by Mother Nature’s tantrum. But when the NOAA weather radio shrieked its warnings, I believe the unbelievably loud, shrill noise caused skin to peel from my scalp and burst into flames. My pulse rate jumped to 1200 beats per minute, keeping pace with a hummingbird’s heart beat. When I woke this morning, shortly after 3, I discovered I had survived the night; at least it appears so.

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It was another one of those seemingly endless nights, blending the remnants of the fading day with encroaching darkness. The night again lasted far longer than did darkness, finally giving in halfway into another day. I find it hard to recall where Monday ended and Tuesday began; both were firmly rooted in sleep that lasted much longer than usual. Sleep seems to have replaced fantasies and dedicated saferooms and caves—the promise of serenity in the form of unconsciousness has become a shelter from the storm…in which the consciousness represents the storm. Psychoanalyzing one’s own sleep patterns is dangerous, in that a person might begin to actually believe the stories one tells oneself. The reality, I suspect, is simple: the facts of—and the treatments for—an affliction that feels mysterious, regardless of the vast amounts of information about it that are available.

During last night’s overload of sleep, I dreamed I hired a young man to provide management for an association client I wanted but did not have time to serve, personally. I did not train the kid, reasoning that he should be able to figure it out for himself, since the client was simple and unsophisticated. The guy’s performance was a train wreck; I fired him in the middle of the new client’s annual conference, with no one available to manage the event. And I had to catch a flight to meet with another client. So I resigned from the client, leaving its board to deal with the carnage. Halfway through the flight to the next meeting, I realized my decision to resign the client at such an awkward time would almost certainly wreck my company’s reputation, so I began thinking about planning the closure of my business. And that was that. My shelter from the storm, in the form of sleep, put me in the middle of a fierce typhoon that was sure to drown me. Maybe I should force myself to stay awake and confront the wind and waves.

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Yesterday, driving home from the appointment with my cardiologist, a pickup truck passed us on the right. Its rear window featured graphics of an AR-15 style rifle, along with some aggressive printed statements clearly meant to tell the world that the driver was a mean S.O.B. who would immediately use the gun to eliminate anyone who threatened him. I think the display of such stuff, which I find offensive, reveals some fundamental characteristics of the person(s) who owns the vehicle. First, they are constantly vigilant about the many potential threats they believe constantly face them. Second, that vigilance is a reaction to their own deep fear of the world around them. Third, they are likely to react any perceived threats as suggested by the graphic statements—they are like frightened dogs under attack that can choose either to flee or to fight in the face of danger; they would choose to fight because their fear of injury is not as great as their fear of humiliation.  The window sticker is intended as a proclamation of machismo; in reality, though, I think it is a revelation of either fear or cowardice or both. Regardless, they may likely be dangerous.

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I rarely stay up to watch any of the late night talk shows, nor do I watch reruns. While I think some of them are interesting and funny, they are not sufficiently interesting to me to merit making extra efforts to see them. That having been said, I think the shows’ broadcasts should not be subject to the political whims of government officials. Censorship is, in my view, a direct attack on democracy. People who do not voice opposition to governmental censorship (whether directly or by various forms of pressure) because they do not watch the shows are, I am afraid, aiding and abetting censorship and, therefore, attacks on democracy. Apathy and lethargy can be used (even unintentionally) as powerful weapons to undermine freedom of speech.

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In my opinion, artificial intelligence (AI) could determine the income (or other financial resources) necessary to give every human being on earth a safe, comfortable, and fulfilling lifestyle. My guess is that the figure(s) would be considerably lower than most people might think. And the collective amount of financial resources necessary to deliver that lifestyle would almost certainly leave a considerable amount “left over” to serve as an incentive to people who want “more.” With a strict limit on how much “more” would be achievable, long-term balance should be attainable for everyone. Only after those figures are calculated and verified, though, could we expect the population of the planet to collectively agree (in sufficient proportions) to accept reductions or limits. If I had the brainpower, the information resources, and the time to work on such a project, I think that could become my life’s work. But it’s a bit late for that, anyway.

The time is almost 7:00 p.m. I decided to write a short post, despite the late hour. I may write again tomorrow or I may decide I have nothing of interest to share. Time will tell.

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I thought I would drive myself to the appointment with my cardiologist this morning. Thankfully, mi novia thought otherwise. Before I could ask her to drive, she had made the decision. I am not sure I could have made it myself; I was more than a little tired—I felt a powerful need to close my eyes and rest. The cardiologist visit was uneventful. When it was finished, we went to breakfast at a diner near the race track; I was feeling much better by then. When we got home, though, I slept. For at least 3 or 4 hours. Ach!

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Unsullied by artificial light, the sky above the far northern Scottish coast was awash in starlight against a backdrop of the blackest black. Standing at the edge of a high cliff at St. John’s Head, Hoy Orkney, overlooking the Norwegian Sea, the scene mesmerized me. There’s no telling what possessed me to do it, but I did it nonetheless; I leapt off the cliff. I suppose I expected to plunge into the sea, ridding myself of years and years of unpleasant consciousness. What I got, though, was entirely different. Instead of dropping to the sea below, the sky drew me upward into the darkness and toward the stars. My experience from that point on was far too involved and complicated to explain. But I can relate something I learned. There are times when the gravity of the sun and the earth pale in comparison to the magnetism of the stars. And I learned that being swept into thousands of clusters of stars at the distant edges of the universe is an incomparable experience. The gravitational pull of elsewhere is beyond comprehension.

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There is a moment beyond which the propellants of rage cannot be restrained. More than “a  moment.” Many, many, many moments. So many that rage can erupt with virtually no warning. Regardless of the steps that might be taken to harness rage, the blades to cut through that harness are so sharp and so numerous that restrictive actions are fruitless. That pessimistic vantage point is brought to you—in the absence of meaning and purpose—by fragments of broken humanity and shards of shattered compassion.

Much of last night, spent on the fringes of sleep, felt like punishment for an unspecified crime or major infraction. Half-asleep and one-quarter awake, the rest of my hours of “sleep” churned in unpleasant semi-consciousness. Now, when I try to recall the disturbing dreams or fantasies or illusory tangles that comprised the environment in which I immersed myself, I see only translucent curtains, behind which are shadows of unrecognizable figures moving in urgent fits and starts. Though I have no idea of specifically what cluttered my mind last night, I know it was ugly and unsettling. Whatever it was, it sapped my energy, as if had I spent the night fighting to escape something troubling and frightening. By the time I woke, I had decided to surrender the fight—but, after I woke, I remembered nothing about what and to whom I was surrendering. I then got out of bed, went into the kitchen, and promptly decided to return to actually sleep. I left the Sunday morning visit I normally enjoy with my sister-in-law and mi novia to go on without me.  The time is now about 1:30, roughly an hour and a half after I woke to shower and shave and otherwise ready myself for the rest of the day. My memory of last night’s dreamworld experience remains only a tangled nest of dark grey wire, wrapped into a ball. I want to probe into it to explore what happened last night, but I do not want to find myself stuck in the middle of the sphere, unable to extricate myself from its center.

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Entertainment. Our television-viewing lately has including the following:

• Department Q, Episode 1
• Hostage (limited series, episodes 1 to 5)
• Untamed (limited series, 5 episodes, ending with Terces
• The Black Rabbit (limited series; 1 episode so far)

I am sure I have not documented everything we have watched recently. I become lazy, coupled with uncertain about the value of keeping a record. Netflix makes it easy to review past viewing habits; the network keeps a record. The others we watch, though, do not make it so simple…they require viewers to keep their own records. So, if I want to keep track of viewing on Prime, Acorn, BritBox, etc., etc., we have to take action to record each program on a spreadsheet (or whatever). I have discovered, over time, that I am perfectly happy to rely almost exclusively on streaming services for my entertainment. When I include music resources from those services, I am close to completely pleased to sit at home: watch streaming programs, listen to music, think, write, and sleep. Sleep has become a perfectly fine pastime, by the way. It is no longer just a way to replenish my energy; it is a way to relax and enjoy comfort and, at the same time, enjoy thinking without the effort that can accompany thinking.

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Yesterday afternoon, a good friend stopped by to visit with us. And, as is often the case, she brought some tasty goodies…these from a pastry shop. The fact that she takes the time out of her busy (should I say “frenetic”?) schedule to spend an hour or two with us is so very meaningful. Her actions are both compassionate and educational; compassionate in that she shows that she cares and educational in that I learn from her practice. If I recover enough from my experience with cancer/cancer treatment, I hope to follow her lead and visit more often people who matter to me.  Of course, she’s not the only one. I remain more than a little amazed by how many people have come into my life, in very positive ways, during the past decade.

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I’ve begun writing posts for this blog a number of times during the past few days, giving up each time after admitting failure. Today, regardless of my judgment of the quality (or lack thereof) of what I write, I will post something, if for no reason other than proof of life.

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In the thirteen years since I began writing in this blog, tentacles of my past life occasionally have reached through time to wrap around me for a while. Several months ago, a high-school acquaintance who had stumbled upon one of my posts left a comment for me. He and I chatted by way of email for a short while, but that connection did not catch on. A year or two earlier, a woman with whom I had worked in my first association job inquired through a comment  whether I was who she thought I was; I was. Our limited chat via email lasted only a short time, as well, disappearing into fading memories. For a few years, a woman with whom I had worked more recently started following my blog; until she died, we enjoyed conversations, both in the comment section and by email. The most recent connection began when a woman with whom I was close for several years came upon my blog. Though she does not follow my posts, we occasionally converse via email. As I think back on these interactions, I realize my characterization of them as “tentacles” that “wrap around me” is grossly misleading overstatement.  I can legitimately classify only one of them as a truly powerful connection to the past. I think I must have a tendency to sever weaker connections that are unlikely to survive distance and time intact.

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Until I was in the midst of a conversation with my oncologist yesterday morning, I had not given much attention to the agenda for the visit with her. I had assumed it would be a short follow-up of no consequence. She reviewed some of my most recent lab results, noting some of the numbers were, as usual, significantly out of the “normal” range. Though most “abnormal” numbers are not serious…just bear watching…some need to be watched more closely and addressed accordingly. The decline in my weight, always a concern, was more top-of-mind to her yesterday morning. Another issue:  the effects of chemotherapy on my bones, as indicated by lab tests, led her to prescribe an injection to deal with the effects. Finally (but not really…there was plenty more), hemoglobin levels were significantly lower than they should be, so she wanted me to get a blood transfusion as part of  plan to respond to the decline. As a consequence, I drove to Hot Springs, where I was given a blood transfusion—one-unit. My oncology clinic visit, which otherwise would have ended by around 10 a.m., dragged on until 2:15 p.m.; another day claimed in the war on cancer.

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Some people in my sphere have warned me that I am starving myself. Until recently, I dismissed the warnings as hyperbole; just exaggerated expressions of concern. I readily acknowledge that I am not eating as much as I should, but I’ve been of the opinion that my disinterest in food is simply a temporary side-effect of chemo that will disappear when I no longer need chemo.  That opinion, though, is flawed on two levels. First, the evidence suggests otherwise: I have noticed a direct and obvious correlation between my reduced intake of food and my energy levels. When I go for several days with little or no food, I become quite weak and lethargic. Second, the idea that there will come a time when I no longer need chemo seems to be closer to a fantasy than to reality, in which case the side-effect will not evaporate. During the visit with my oncologist, she expressed concern that I had lost more weight since my last appointment; I weighed just over 148 pounds, the least I’ve weighed since long before I first started seeing her. It is far easier to decide to overcome the bad habit of going without food than it is to convert that decision into action. Somehow, though, I need to do it. Otherwise, as mi novia often warns me, I may wind up in the hospital again to try to recover from the effects of unintentional starvation.

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The days and nights continue to demonstrate that they—not I—have the power. They shuffle me around as if I were one of an unmatched pair of socks…stuffed in an empty drawer, awaiting the other sock to be found. The problem, of course, is that the missing sock might have been left in a hotel room in Houston or taken by gypsies who rummaged through my luggage while my bags sat unguarded on the tarmac during a brief layover in Bucharest. Except I’ve never been to Bucharest. So I suppose I should offer my apologies for insulting gypsies.

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Nothing else worth recording remains in my fingers. Nothing worth recording was there from the start, but that never stops me. Except when it does.

The day began later than usual after nearly two more days of nearly non-stop sleep. Sometime during the last umpteen hours, a concept took root in my brain. I expected it to express itself in the form of a short story, but when I tried to set it in motion, neither my fingers nor my brain were cooperative. The resistance I encountered insisted the basis of the storyline was far too intricate to fit into a short story—even a long one. Nothing short of a full-length novel would accommodate the story I wanted to tell. Had I switched gears and started to write that novel, I am confident the first few pages or paragraphs would join the dozens of others hibernating on my hard disk or on thumb drives resting uncomfortably in a desk drawer. My perpetual problem: inadequate discipline made worse by waning interest and loss of belief in my ability to finish the project. The enthusiasm that fuels the first few pages or paragraphs is like compressed gas in a propane tank. The smallest pinhole allows it to escape into the atmosphere. Another problem is that my fingers cannot keep pace with my brain. The words on the screen lag far behind those in my head, the distance between them increasing with every beat of my heart. If I try to get an upper hand on the problem by initiating a competition with myself, I quickly realize I am not in the same league as my competitor. Even if he intentionally put the brakes on his productivity, I cannot keep up. Damn. If nothing else, I’ll keep in my WordPress file folder my very short draft of this morning’s abysmal failure. At least I’ll have something to trigger my memory if something sparks my creativity. I can always continue where I left off. Or I can simply resurrect the names of the characters I began creating: Perfidia Adebayo, Insidia Aaberg, and Ephemera Foreva. Perhaps using more traditional names would help? Names I might find easier to remember?

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My earliest recollections about the Sargasso Sea and Sargassum seaweed are from my early years in Corpus Christi. I do not recall with certainty whether I learned about them in school or during optional “classes” held at the Corpus Christi Museum; probably the latter. Memories of the free classes at the museum are dim and vague, but I think attendance was a reward of some sort. Sometimes, memory fragments—buried beneath layers of Time and the detritus of unexpected incidents and unfortunate accidents—are exhumed in response to inquiries made by simple circumstance or demands made by experience. The relevance of memories is never assured, but sometimes crucial to understanding.

The feeling of elation that accompanies an unexpected contact by someone who mattered and made an important positive difference in one’s past is impossible to difficult to describe. But those feelings include emotions touching on giddiness, gratitude, admiration, respect, and a dozen others. Those sensations also tend to replace some others that time has permitted to wither: self-respect, social value,  justifiable pride, among others. As the initiator of such contacts, though, others’ reactions can be disappointing—recollections may have faded, responses may be unenthusiastic, memories may not be as positive as anticipated, or a long-lost reason for a past rupture in the relationship may could suddenly erupt into flames. I think the potential for recovering the positive aspect of the relationship outweighs the dangers; but it’s best to be prepared.

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Dread feeds on powerlessness and the sense that your opponents desire nothing more than your utter defeat, up to and including your death. Your dread is based not only on fear, but on fact. Once dread takes up residence in your mind, you can never again be free. Even if your dreaded opponent is imprisoned or dies, his animosity lives on. It grows.

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I am staring at one third of a demi-tasse cup of espresso that has lost its warmth and could not capture my interest this morning. In its place, I would like a cold glass of sparkling water, kept cold with crushed ice and flavored with a generous squeeze of fresh lime juice. The ideal accompaniments would include chunks of cantaloupe, papayas, strawberries, mangos, grapes, and various citrus fruits. Considering where I live and local seasons, I am afraid I would have to import several of my preferred taste treats. Maybe a freshly-baked almond croissant would go well with the rest. Of course, the moment these delectable things appeared on my table, my taste for them probably would transform into an interest in beers, chips, pretzels, and beef jerky. Or nothing at all.

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If Christians and Muslims and Jews and Atheists and all the other people who identify with descriptive terms used to categorize religious beliefs (or the lack thereof) were serious about peace on earth, that seemingly impossible dream would be easy to achieve. Religious texts have long since outlined behaviors that would accomplish that aim; plenty of secular writings have done the same.  The keys, of course, are tolerance and flexibility. The countervailing obstacles, hidden in full view, assert themselves through intolerance and inflexibility: two vital components of control and power. Darkness conceals illuminated pathways. Light struggles to escape into brilliantly-lit caverns. These are not places; they are fierce ideas that thrive in the right circumstances or starve when kept in cages.

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My interest in television programs, films, documentaries, etc. has declined lately. The good stuff requires me to think in order to fully grasp the messages triggered by the content. Much of the rest is either dull and empty or unnecessarily violent, raw, and predictable. My tendency to want to sleep around the clock interferes with the entertainment value of everything I watch. Or try to watch. My poor vision makes watching television a demanding effort. I’ve essentially given up on reading for that reason, as well. Though I somehow manage to wade through some of what claims to be news. I am not quite sure why I spend my time writing about such stuff as this. I might be far happier if I would just copy and paste one of dozens—or hundreds—of updates I’ve already posted here. Less work, and it would require less time and energy wasted on replicating experiences on which I’ve already wasted plenty of time and energy.

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I tolerate the side-effects of chemotherapy, but I would prefer my unpleasant reactions to be more appealing or, at least, less disagreeable. Actually, I’ve grown rather fond of my tendency to sleep so easily and for such long periods. Sleeping lessens the time available to me to experience the discomfort of constipation, the pain of…whatever causes the pain…the annoying dry-heave expressions of nausea, and the various other physical and emotional attacks on my sense of well-being.  I think I would enjoy the ability to sleep, uninterrupted, for months on end, provided my lengthy naps would not end in fits of ravenous hunger. That’s not been a problem so far, though, as food remains unappealing, in general. I had  a chemo session last Friday, with Navelbine and Gemzar. The two together, I think, pack quite a punch, making me sleep all day and all night and otherwise reminding me of their potential side-effects; none of them serious so far, but enough to make me distinctively conscious that the medications play havoc with my ability to live a “normal” life, whatever that may be. I go back in today for my routine post-chemo injection and, possibly, to learn when my next visit with the oncologist is scheduled.

Cold, wet strips of the sky fell in pieces, leaving behind darkened and discolored patches of pastel-stained air. On the ground, those shiny globs of fallen sky were almost transparent, their barely discernible pink and blue tints giving them an ethereal, ghostly appearance.  Within minutes, streets and lawns and rooftops and driveways were coated with the thickening globs but, because the sky-fall occurred in the the pre-dawn hours, the village was asleep, so no one noticed. By the time people awoke to begin their days, all types of communications—telephone, short-wave, wi-fi, television…everything—had been rendered inoperable by the massive amounts of sky-fall. Residents were unable even to contact their neighbors, because the sky-fall had piled up to the tops of door frames and windows. Looking up through the slits of window glass that remained uncovered at the tops of the windows, only dark and discolored strips of pastel-stained air were visible. What had been the sky was only a vague reminder of what had once been, but was no more. At least not now. Not at this terrifying moment of utter confusion. The insurmountable distance between experience and understanding had never been more clear, nor more horrifying.

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Friday, I learned when I went to the cancer center, was a day for chemotherapy. Unlike most “chemo days,” the normal procedure—labs, followed by a visit with the oncologist, followed by the infusion—was not followed. I did not see the oncologist. Just labs and infusion. What followed, though, seemed to replicate the last “chemo-day.” Extreme fatigue, nausea, and a great deal of sleep. If memory (or consciousness)  serves me correctly, I slept most of Friday afternoon, through the evening, and all through the night…until around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday (with a brief episode of dry heaves some time before midnight), when I got up for a while. I tried and failed to blog, then “rested” on the loveseat in the TV room until almost 11 a.m. I woke for a while, then napped again for most of the afternoon, before getting off the loveseat and going to bed early. I slept late this morning…until 5:30 a.m. I woke thirsty, but not in the least hungry. My vivid memory of two or three dreams has already begun to decay, so much so I cannot remember enough to document anything of substance. Something grotesque involving watching a man eating spaghetti, while several strings of the pasta slipped out of his mouth through holes in his cheeks. And another, in which I may have been interviewing as a trainee for a sales job; the remaining snippets of memory are too slippery and nonsensical to make any sense of them.

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The introductory short-short-short-short-short “story” above intentionally leaves the reader hanging. There is no explanation, no solution, no hope to escape the inescapable. The despair and panic of those experiencing the inexplicable is implied. There is no hint of a “cause,” though; the experience, the dread,  just is. The experience suggests nothing could have been done to avoid it.

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Please remind me to create a questionnaire, the responses to which can be used to correctly determine the degree to which the respondent adheres to, or departs from, widely accepted beliefs about morality. The same responses should enable the questionnaire’s user to correctly determine the respondent’s placement on a scale indicating political positions (e.g., liberal, conservative, etc.).  I’d like that questionnaire to be completed, in widespread use, and accepted as valid by and across all political and moral affiliations no later than the first Friday of the first month of the fifty-seven-hundredth century.

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This morning, so far, all is well. I do not feel even remotely energetic and I’m already tired, but I’m not quite ready for a nap. I’m beginning to feel a tiny bit hungry, but my interest in food is extremely limited.

No matter how tightly I close my eyes, the monochromatic images remain—as if they are permanently etched on polished spheres that spin at high speed inside my eyelids. The dark forest green figures—thousands of distinct, unique items—fill my entire field of vision. They move so fast I can barely register one collection of images before the next one flashes past my consciousness. Though unique, each item has a commonality with the others. They mostly are typographical symbols one might find on a computer keyboard: dollar signs, pound symbols, punctuation marks, ampersands, parentheses, commas, question marks, asterisks, tildes, apostrophes, and so on. I cannot focus my attention on any one symbol for more than a microsecond before it has been replaced many times over. I am confident the combinations of images carry with them a complex assortment of messages; not mysterious concepts nor mystical enigmas—just communiqués designed exclusively to enlighten me about matters I have yet to understand. The source of these messages is unclear, but the longer I am exposed to them, the more likely it seems to me I am both their source and their target. I do not want to be misunderstood about these images, though. I realize these visions could be random space-fillers in my brain; completely devoid of “meaning” or relevance. Or they could be symptoms of a neurological disorder that has been with me for almost all of my 71+ years. They might even be fantasies that do not exist in the real world…only in my imagination. That is unlikely, though. They are too consistent, too predictable.

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Today, I will spend quite a while at my oncologist’s office. Whether today will involve chemotherapy infusions or not, I do not know. I’ve lost track of whether today is just another day of lab work and hydration and injections or whether I will be pumped full of cancer-killing chemicals, etc. If my post-recurrence treatment had gone as originally planned, I would be approaching the end of two years of immunosuppression drug therapy. But plans got derailed early on when I developed an allergic reaction to one of the primary chemo components. I’ve said this already, haven’t I? I just repeat myself, it seems.

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When a person has little or nothing left to lose, he can become either heroic or deadly dangerous or otherwise transform into someone new and unpredictable. What, I wonder, determines whether “nothing to lose” leads to philanthropy or, instead, to murderous pathology?  Those are not the only options, of course, but they are among the most impactful. Wealth and hopelessness can lead in entirely different directions, of course, but poverty and optimism can spur the same….or radically different…responses, too. We’re too complex for anyone to be able to “read” us. That’s one of the delights and dangers of humanity.

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And now I will sally forth into what the world holds for me today.

Until yesterday, I knew very little about Charlie Kirk. I had heard about him or read his name online, but my exposure to him was limited to reading a few quotations attributed to him. I found offensive his condemnation of virtually anything remotely “liberal,” but beyond that I knew almost nothing. The volume of reactions to his assassination surprised me, but only because I did not realize he had such a large following. If his assassin thought Kirk’s death would diminish support of the man’s ideology, the killer was more than a little bit stupid, along with being mentally unhinged and morally deranged. I expect the assassination to be used as fuel for the fires of bigotry and hatred by those among Kirk’s supporters who are equally as unhinged and morally deranged as his assassin. My understanding is that Kirk’s wife and  two children were in attendance at the event at which he was killed. I can only imagine the depth of the trauma and pain they must be experiencing. I hope the assassin is caught soon and brought to justice.

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A word or action, as expected, sparks an obligatory reply: indignation. Indignation provides fuel for frustration, which leads to exasperation. Exasperation builds into the ire that becomes the foundation for anger. Anger expands into rage and then into hatred. The fact that hatred unleashes unbridled and irrational fury should come as no surprise. At the end of the day, that simple provocation—that spark—too often leads to  violence. The cycle is as predictable as sunrise. But, unlike the sunrise, we have the capacity to intervene in the cycle of violence. What’s missing is the will to intercede on behalf of tranquility and understanding. And the acknowledgement that responsibility for creating or perpetuating the cycle belongs not just to “them” but to “us.” Unfortunately, attempting to reason with a psychopath (which are numerous on every side of every issue) is an utter waste of time. So, often, our capacity to intervene is thwarted. Victory, then, goes to the one with the most patience and the longest fuse. In the meantime, we should try to minimize the number of casualties.

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Yesterday’s bronchoscopy was, happily, uneventful. It (and the sleep before and after the procedure) consumed the bulk of the day. The “moderate sedation” administered to me amazes me. I recall a nurse saying the doctor would begin the procedure in a moment, as she was spraying lidocaine into my throat. The next thing I recall was opening my eyes in the recovery room. The doctor had told me before that I would be awake during the procedure, but would not recall anything about it. He was absolutely right about that. I think the anesthesiology process is like magic!  But, the results: Nothing of significance. The concern about a fistula was, apparently, unfounded. I return to visit my oncologist tomorrow; perhaps I will learn something new then. Probably not, though.

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Today, I plan to send messages to all of the people who were so kind and thoughtful to record video messages to me (as I mentioned in my most recent post). I have learned that some people attempted to submit recordings, but were unable to get the technology to cooperate; I appreciate their efforts, as well. I may try to figure out a way to incorporate the video here on my blog; that’s probably beyond my technological capabilities, though.

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I thought I had more to say…and I did. But empty spaces where fragments of the alphabet might want to congregate are sometimes better left blank. Unfinished thoughts can reveal their familial relationship with balloons…stretched so tight they are on the verge of exploding into invisible clouds. I’ve ridden in a hot air balloon and I’ve jumped from an airplane, but I’ve never jumped from a balloon and have no plans to do so.

I’ll start by acknowledging that my writing frequently (and intentionally) merges reality with fiction. People have told me they do not know whether, when they begin to read them, my blog posts are factual, fictional, or a combination thereof. But, even after reading a post from start to finish, the question sometimes remains. So, I’ll begin this post by confirming that it is intended to be a factual summary of what’s been going through my mind.

The last few days, on reflection, seem to run together as a single period, rather than each day its own unique moment in time. My memory combines those days into a swirl of numbness, withdrawal, elation, gratitude, regret, and other emotions too numerous to count and too complex to explain. Sleep commanded much of the time, beginning about mid-day a few days ago. I slept essentially all afternoon, then all night and into late the next day. That cycle continued, I think, the following day. Somewhere along the line, I missed a dinner arranged to celebrate my sister-in-law’s birthday. Between long, dream-infested periods of sleep, I spent my time silently observing the stillness around me, using that time to resurrect pleasant memories and dredge up incurable regrets.

And I watched a collection of videos my friend, Jim, had put together. He had asked friends from our joint work and social lives, along with a few other people he knew I had been/are still close to to record brief videos with their thoughts about me. Watching that collection of videos was an incredible emotional experience. After I watched it, it occurred to me that he probably did not ask some people who might have wanted to include a video…and some people probably could not submit a video for one reason or another. My assumption about the reasons Jim invested his time in creating the video “memento” is that he wanted to give me a meaningful gift before my time comes…whenever that is. If my assumption is right, he accomplished his objective many times over.

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Off for a bronchoscopy this morning.

I hope somewhere in this empty universe, something capable of turning me inside-out will become apparent to me. Something that has clawed its way deeper and deeper into a protective cavern. But, unless I dig deeper—scratch harder—and scrape with every shred of my energy, I will fail to reach it. My strength, though, has evaporated. At least for now.

Since starting to write this morning’s blog, I have bounded from mood to mood. And idea to idea—most, fortunately, did not find their way to this post. I have bounced between emotions and passions. And stumbled between rage and love. Fortunately, most of the ricochets have done no visible damage. They have done little more than tear gaping holes in my compassion and fed the sources of warmth and despair. For every belief to which I have expressed commitment in my writing here and elsewhere, there is a reservoir of doubt waiting to be fully articulated. Every assertion of compassion pairs with animosity. When I demand kindness, I need not look far to find more than an adequate reserve of mercilessness.  Forgiveness is readily offset by blame.  No visible damage? Steel corrodes. Wood rots. Plastic degrades. Paint can cover the damage done, but surface finishes cannot protect the damage done to the substrate. Eventually, in the absence of protective care, even the Great Pyramids will decay and even the Eiffel Tower will collapse under the weight of its own deterioration.

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Friday began as a reasonably decent day. And, as it wore on, it stayed on track for a good while. A friend from church (a place I’ve largely avoided for quite some time, thanks to my oncologists’ team’s advice that I avoid unnecessary social contacts) came by for a welcome visit. After the brief visit, though, I drifted into fatigue-mode, so I took a nap. And, later, another. And then another. And the day wore on and continued into yesterday. And so on. A telephone call from my sister brightened my afternoon, with some discussion of the possibility of another visit from her in the not-too-distant future. But, then, back to the routine. Sleep.

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Perhaps my series of overly-long naps—each one lasting several hours, with shorter periods of slumber in between—finally have ended their cycles. But since I awoke just before 3 a.m.—only two hours ago—I have begun to feel very tired again. Sometime during the hours preceding my most recent awakening, I emerged from an experience that left me drenched in sweat and feeling intolerably cold. The sheet beneath me was wet and cold. The top sheet, too, was unbearably cold—uncomfortable in the extreme. My discomfort was made tolerable by putting on a t-shirt, aided by a dry towel between me and the bottom sheet. Still, after I slept a bit more, I had to get up and attempt to get warm. A long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of lounging pants has helped, but my feet and my hands feel frigid. The idea of resting my extremities in the flames of burning logs seems both horribly painful and wonderfully warming. The outside temperature is 55°F. The temperature of my hands and feet probably is closer to 15°F, on the way to -250°F. I am afraid the sun has burned out much earlier than I expected; certainly earlier than I had planned.

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Because I was up so much earlier than usual, I skipped my usual espresso and delayed taking my morning medications, opting only to feed a ravenous cat and consume water and Ensure. So, I took a break from blogging to fulfill my pharmaceutical necessities and partake of my mood-enhancing espresso.

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I have plumbed the depths of anger, only to discover its base is always beyond reach. Anger refused to be the tool I dreamed it could be. Rage, too, fell short of my expectations. There must be something else that smothers gasoline-drenched embers.

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The total number of speakers of most—but probably not all—languages is much larger than native speakers of the language. For example, the most-spoken language is English, with 1.5 billion speakers, but only 380 million of them are native speakers. The language with the greatest number of native speakers is Mandarin Chinese, with 941 million native speakers; its total number of speakers is 1.1 billion. At the other end of the spectrum are:

• Ongota (Ethiopia) – Estimated <10 speakers (likely extinct);
• Taushiro (Peru) – 1 speaker;
• Tanema (Solomon Islands) – 1 speaker;
• Lemerig (Vanuatu) – 2 speakers; and
• Njerep (Nigeria) – Possibly extinct

Access to people who share political philosophies and who are fluent across a wide range of languages may prove crucial to the success of governments. Equally as important, though, is access to people who combine the following:

• shared philosophies of governing;
• fluency in various languages; and
• expertise in a broad array of disciplines;

In other words, people who seek (or seek to retain) political power must assemble strong supporters who “speak the language”  necessary to exercise political control. Extensive linguistic skills—coupled with comprehensive knowledge of complex engineering, scientific, and  managerial disciplines—are required to seize and preserve power.

What must the opposition do to foil attempts to establish such control? The very same thing, I suspect…just more aggressively and through any means necessary.

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Yesterday’s visit to the pulmonologist was a precursor to a bronchoscopy, scheduled for next Wednesday. The appointment for the bronchoscopy procedure conflicts with my next chemotherapy treatment. So, today I will attempt to reschedule the chemotherapy. Ideally, I would be assigned a personal/medical scheduler, who could use my availability as shown on my calendar to make appointments on my behalf. The reason my oncologist referred me to the pulmonologist has to do with an (apparent) fistula somewhere in my torso. I did not ask the right questions about the fistula, so I do not know the type. I hope I can safely rule out a colovaginal fistula and an enterocutaneous fistula; there are several others I expect can be dismissed, as well. Next steps in dealing with the fistula will depend on the findings from the bronchoscopy.

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Aside from the conversation about the bronchoscopy, an awkward and slightly uncomfortable conversation took place between the physician and another person (not me) in the examination room. The interaction could have devolved into a knife fight but it was resolved amicably.

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I have grown immensely tired of writing about my ongoing battle with lung cancer. And it’s not just writing about it that is wearing me out; it’s the inevitability of the outcome. If I could completely erase my awareness of cancer until just hours before it declares victory, I would consider the engagement a success.

I remember very little of my early childhood, when I was known as Sherlock Shakespeare. But my few memories from that brief period of my childhood are crystal clear. Ours was the first family in our tiny English village to have both an automobile and a television. By the time I was recruited into the new English standing army in 1660, my uncle had acquired bayonets, hand grenades, and sacrificial children—the latter who carried into battle weapons of self-immolation. Flame-throwers capable of broadcasting sizzling streams of flammable aggression came soon thereafter. One of those devices was stored in the attic of the house we built after losing our original home to arson—that fire, we learned later, was set by the fire brigade. Oh, those were brutal times, they were. Had we not fought tooth and nail to protect our homesteads, we would have been made homeless…and then butchered. As it was, several of us were severely injured during face-to-face confrontations. Most of the men between the ages of 16 and 26 lost at least one limb in battle; some survived with only one leg or part of one arm remaining. My memories of childhood and young adulthood end with those gruesome recollections. Beyond those ugly early periods of my life, my recollections commence again with vague memories of cell phones and 900-foot tsunamis. The recent spate of publication of autobiographical fiction works (e.g., novels, poems, diaries, textbooks, and survival cookbooks) is, of course, top of mind, inasmuch as they have been produced only recently. The first such published work was completed and offered for lease only two months ago. At 6 million pages in length, the book was necessarily published in series format.

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Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York…

~ William Shakespeare/Richard, Duke of Gloucester ~

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I could go on for days like this, but my knees won’t permit it. Nor will my elbows. Nor my fingers. And, if the messages I’ve been receiving from my brain are legitimate (and they are), and the attitudes oozing out of my head are reliable (which I cannot verify), I will go on record as an honorable man with nothing worth hiding and nothing worth telling. Where is the value in emptiness? Why do blank pages leave so much to the imagination? Black fades to grey and grey fades to cream and cream fades to white. Predictions hide beneath their messages. Honesty and nudity have nothing to hide but regret and shame. But in a world in which truth is not a weapon, nor does embarrassment fracture peace, fear is just an artificial intruder.

Another busy day awaits—oncological blood-letting, Fall seasonal maintenance of the fireplace and propane heating system, and a long-delayed haircut. Tomorrow will bring still more attention to my healthcare and to periodic household upkeep and maintenance. To start this day off with suitable fanfare, and after I properly introduce myself to an otherwise unpredictable day, I’ll shower and shave and wander aimlessly into the abyss. Subsequent to my cleansing, and depending entirely on my state of mind afterward, I will stumble into a day unlike any I have experienced heretofore. I refuse to make predictions about this as-yet-unencountered day. Ahhh..it’s not so much a refusal as an inability…similar to one of the reasons I avoid knife-fights. Predictions often lead to blood stains on pristine white shirts.

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I do not cling to even a shred of hope that I will one day understand quantum theory. Quantum theory is at odds with “truth” and “understanding” and “observation” as I believe them to be. Those conflicts exist, no matter what definition I might apply to quantum theory and its applications in quantum mechanics. People who are comfortable with the discomfort of knowing that observing a behavior changes it live in a dimension far outside of the one(s) in which I live. In other words, an observation of relative distance (“far,” for example) is possible only in a dimension in which Schrödinger’s cat is both dead and alive at any given moment, yet simultaneously neither at the same time. Some people think the concepts around quantum theory and Schrödinger’s cat are simple in the extreme. Other people are certain those concepts represent the ultimate in complexity. Yet those same groups of people neither accept nor deny the legitimacy of those theories, opting instead to embrace both through repudiation and confirmation. Nothing is “known” at this moment in time; everything is “doubted,” “questioned,” and/or “probably unlikely” with an extreme level of certainty in denial.

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A nuclear fence surrounds the observable universe, making observation beyond that fence impossible. The term, nuclear fence, is arbitrary and nonsensical, but probably is the closest we can come to describing—using the English language—such a barrier. Regardless of what is it or what we call it, that barrier to understanding was conceived and a prototype designed and built by supernatural vagabonds who troll failed galaxies and feed on the remnants of stars…event horizons encircling black holes.  Carl Sagan was the only human who ever saw beyond our own nuclear fence. What he saw was incomprehensible in size and beauty; more than 990 trillion universes, each one at least 100 trillion times the size of our own universe. The least intelligent beings who live within some of those 990 trillion universes possess intelligence that far exceeds the brilliance of Carl Sagan. In fact, those dim-witted sentient mistakes labeled Carl a “knuckle-dragging product of interspecies  incestuous bad-behavior derived from intellectual cesspools.”

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On the other end of the spectrum is a pocket where purity, decency, and love reside. Carl spent most of his time on Earth there, surrounded by like-minded people. That distant point on the spectrum is visible today only as a dim, pulsating speck of light. Perhaps it will grow brighter one day. Or it will be extinguished under a cloud of deadly cosmic dust.

My frustration grows when my ideas feel sticky and incomplete. Frustration turns to panic when my lungs fill with a viscous fluid mix of jagged grains of sand and warm creosote. No matter what I do in my attempt to recover from the sensation of drowning, the terror continues to expand exponentially. The expressions on the faces of people in my vicinity harden into stone as my breathing becomes severely labored.  Wind whistles between towering skyscrapers and enormously tall redwood trees, struggling to keep the air moving. Desiccated corpses of vultures float by, atop the arid flood of bone-dry rivers kept moist by water volumes that never exceed a thimble per mule.

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We joined friends for dinner last night. As usual, my energy began to fade immediately after we ate and, as a consequence, we left rather early. Apparently, a few hours earlier, I got sidetracked while organizing my mass of medications, including pain meds. I opted to take a nap as soon as we returned home. And, as expected, my nap lasted through the night and until just before 4:00 a.m. The confusion with the medications caused no irreparable harm, but my body is still in the process of readjusting to the proper timing and dosages. I feel like sleeping again for a few more hours before going to get my scheduled massage, but the risk of missing my appointment would be too great. Bah.

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Silence echoes through empty corridors buried beneath thousands of feet of solid granite. Odors are so powerful they melt steel and boil diamonds. Ancient grandmothers, born ten generations in the past, teach their descendants to taste and identify hard-to-differentiate flavors of arcane colors.

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Neither the sun nor the moon looks on us with compassion. Their emotionless stares seem to bathe us in indifference. On occasion, though, their fierce glares far surpass apathy, offering evidence of unrestrained animosity—the kind of hatred ignited by betrayal. But if a judgment of betrayal is appropriate, we are the ones in whom that emotion should rightfully reside. After all, we glimpse skyward only to see a vast expanse of unfulfilled promises. We are the ones teased by celestial objects that appear so big and so near that we should be able to touch them—only to be ridiculed when we reach out and try to grasp them. One day, though, we will secure our vengeance. One morning, the sun will stumble out of the night sky into a world blinded by eternal darkness. Smothered in ashes and dust and blackened by cooling embers, the sun’s long-standing privilege and aristocratic elegance will have vanished. At the same time, the moon’s source of light will have grown cold and distant. How long, I wonder, will the vengeance last? Will we look back and wish we could have calmed our rage? Only time will tell…but, no…time, too, will be long gone. It will have turned to invisible vapor and moved on to other galaxies in other dimensions.  Time will not tell. Time, too, will have suffered the consequences of our revenge.

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My two most recent chemotherapy treatments instantly reminded me how I responded to most, if not all, of the previous treatments. After a brief period in which my energy level experienced a modest spike, a longer period of fatigue-exhaustion-tiredness ensued.  My nephew and his wife arrived on Saturday morning—two days after my chemo—for a brief visit. By late Saturday afternoon, my energy was sapped. I took a “nap” several hours before dinner time and slept until about 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.  Though I had recovered just enough stamina to go out to breakfast with them and with mi novia and mi cuñada, my energy did not last very long. Again yesterday, after I napped in the morning, I woke for a while, then repeated the previous day’s routine. Unfortunately, I allowed napping to interfere with taking scheduled pain medication, which derailed their intent. But, the pain was not intolerably bad; just annoying and disruptive. It’s what chemotherapy does; better from my perspective to tolerate it until it becomes intolerable than to reject it and, in the process, accelerate the decline.  Despite the intensity of my fatigue, I was very glad my nephew and his wife came to see us. They are good people, through and through.

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We have been invited by friends for a dinner of smoked brisket this evening. It has been far too long since I have eaten a good brisket fresh off the smoker.  I think there will be six people (including the two of us) at the gathering; a small enough number to encourage conversation and enough people to minimize the likelihood of intrusive silences. I wish I could contribute to the dinner effort, but I have become unreliable in providing kitchen support, much less in taking on the role of lead chef. Going “out” has become very rare for me for a variety of reasons. Fatigue, of course, contributes to my preference for spending time in my own house, but a compromised immune system is a stronger reason than mere preference. In spite of my preference, though, I realize on those fairly rare occasions when we leave the house for something other than medical appointments how energizing (at least mentally) they can be. I can say without the slightest bit of irony that my favorite activity is spending time with friends and family. That probably has been true all along, but for many reasons I recently have given the matter considerable thought.

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My calendar teases me by showing me several consecutive days with no obligations. But then, suddenly, commitments begin to form, filling in the blank day with reminders that any claims I make about being in control of my own schedule are delusions. I dare not reject a “friendly reminder” of an upcoming appointment with a pulmonologist known for his expertise in the surgical suite—it is unwise to upset someone whose scalpels are custom fitted for his grip, so I will see him on Thursday afternoon.  My appointment for tomorrow morning’s massage, though, is not one I would be apt to reject—I might prefer her to make a house call, but the inconvenience of driving to her office is not sufficient to merit making a big deal out of it. And the Wednesday appointment at the cancer center has become almost routine and not particularly intrusive. Still, I want a two-week vacation designed for maximum relaxation. Sitting high on an ocean-side cliff sounds ideal: watching the sunset, sipping a New Zealand sauvignon blanc and burning calendars over a wood-burning fire just might soften all of…or, at least, some of…the hard spots in my psyche.

The incredible majesty of the universe—where the simplest of the simple is far and away the most complex and where the most intricate is the the purest and simplest—may be the single most compelling argument that humankind is incapable of real understanding.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

~ Buddha ~

Hundreds of obstacles dot the path between where I stand this morning and where I would need to be to have written a memoir…a biography…an autobiography. My poor memory probably is the first and most challenging impediment. In the absence of a reliable memory, coupled with the fact that useful source documents of my experiences do not exist, there’s little to tell. The second hurdle is the paucity of interesting or educational experiences in my life that could form the basis of my personal life story. Even if I had an exceptional memory as a resource, there would be no point in writing a book that very few people would find intriguing; a book others might want to read. Another genre might conceivably overcome the barriers to producing what some people might call “the story of my life.” That genre: autobiographical novel. I’ve played with the idea of writing biographies and autobiographies for quite some time. But only recently have I begun to consider whether an autobiographical novel might be the the product my unconscious mind has been wanting to create. Yet I think I would be somewhat embarrassed to admit to writing an autobiographical novel. But that’s only if I were to write it from the traditional autobiographical perspective. If, instead, the book were written as if it emerged from the words of an anthropomorphic emotion, that could address the snags. I’ve mentioned the autobiography of fire in this blog in brief (or longer) several times, including recently. I’m sure I have altered the title from time to time, calling it the unauthorized autobiography of fire. And I’ve considered that a biography of love might give readers an opportunity to examine a highly emotional subject from a dry—almost cold and calculated—perspective. This is what procrastinators do; we repeatedly think about actions we want to take and we should take, but the actions are so complex and overwhelming that we simply explore them over and over and over again as if they were our life’s work…when, in fact, they are simply inadequate justifications for eternal delays.

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The CHI Cancer  Center, adjacent to the Genesis Cancer Center on the CHI campus, has a very large aquarium in the lobby. I do not know what kind of fish are in the tank, nor whether the water is fresh or salty. In fact, I know almost nothing about the aquarium, nor its residents. I wonder, though, who feeds the fish? How often? Who cleans the tank and when? Every time I see the aquarium, I think of the relaxing “spa” music I heard during my most recent massage. Something about the dim light inside the aquarium, the slow-moving fish moving effortlessly through the water, and memories of relaxing, calming music invade my mind when I enter that environment. Serenity transfixes me.

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If my level of interest was high enough, I might explore the reasons why so many pharmaceuticals are called by so many names. But I would say my level of interest ranges between moderate and moderately high, with occasional surges to slightly-above-normal. As far as I remember, my curiosity about drug names has never reached the point of obsession, but certain circumstances tend to cause my interest to spike. For example, I received two injections on Wednesday;  my doctor called one of them Aranesp (a brand name) but a conversation between two nurses referred to it as darbepoetin alpha. The other injection was denosumab, but other names (brand, I assume) are applied to it: Bomyntra, Osenvelt, Wyost, Xgeva. It’s not just in doctors’ offices that multiple names are used for the same products. Pharmacists, too, often choose to use a brand name instead of a generic name. When a nurse reviews with my the medications I am taking, the list read to me often includes a name I do not recall; generally, it is either a generic name for a product I have learned to call by a brand name or it is a brand name for a generic product. This confusion did not cause me much consternation until the number of prescribed medications I was taking grew to be so large. I can live with it. But sometimes I need something to blame for my sour mood; medico-linguistics can fill the bill.

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Twenty years have passed since Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a “weakened” Category 3 hurricane. Before slamming into the Gulf coast, the storm had reached Category 5, with sustained winds of at least 175 miles per hour. Though the storm’s ferocious winds did enormous damage, it was the failure of the levees surrounding the city to keep the storm surge at bay that did the most damage (estimated at $125 billion) and led to the greatest loss of life (1392 fatalities). I thought at the time that many of the complaints about the inadequacy of the federal response to the catastrophe were legitimate. I fear that today, if we were we faced with a similarly catastrophic storm, our response would be dramatically worse. The current administration’s dissatisfaction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has led it, essentially, to dismantle the agency and rethink standard responses to such powerful events. In my view, that approach is akin to shutting the doors of the only hospital serving a region (for “underperformance”)…and only THEN beginning to create a ten-year plan to determine what should be done to replace it. Perhaps preppers are considerably more pessimistic than am I—or they are omniscient—or they are both.

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Graham Davis was in the habit of leaving handwritten notes in personnel files of his staff. In most instances, the notes did not get any attention; their contents were either informational and innocuous or complimentary. One handwritten note, though, triggered an inquiry into the ways in which he interacted with employees. The investigation, by the executive committee, eventually led to Davis’ dismissal from the firm. His dismissal, in turn, prompted him to begin retaliatory legal proceedings. The legal battle between Davis and his former employer was long and brutal. The original handwritten note that started the ugly process was entered into the court records, which found their way into the local newspaper and, finally, into the national professional press. That handwritten note was written in response to a prompt on an evaluation form:

"In as few words as possible, describe the employee's work style and a characteristic that contributes to that style."

Davis’ response :

"Slow and stupid."

Leonard Tremble, who was the subject of Davis’ note, was the managing partner’s nephew-in-law. Davis was the only partner who had objected to Tremble’s hiring as a paralegal. His objection was noted, but Davis made a point of saying his objection was not a strenuous one. He said he was certain he could overcome his objections. Only after both Davis and Tremble were found dead of asphyxiation—several weeks apart—did suspicions about the possible criminality of others in the firm begin to arise. The legal battle between Davis and the firm…specifically targeting the managing partner…was far from over when the two men died.

Circumstances sometimes conspire to diminish, or even erase, the importance of events. So it was with the unfinished legal battle. The managing partner’s ex-wife, Melinda Scott, was arrested and charged with smuggling several hundred pounds of fentanyl from Copenhagen, Denmark to Dallas, Texas. At roughly the same time, Tremble’s great-grandmother, Teresa Shunkenflutter, announced her unplanned and unexpected pregnancy…and that Graham Davis was the father. Finally, the judge in the case between Davis and the law firm/managing partner was captured on live television feeds as he emptied an AR-15 magazine into the Secretary of War and the Vice President of the U.S. Naturally, addressing the lurid situations involving Davis and Tremble and the law firm and its managing director lost urgency.

Years ago, on one of our periodic road trips, my late wife and I drove west from Chicago. I do not recall with certainty whether we had a particular destination in mind or whether it was, like so many of our other long escapes from the city, an aimless expression of wanderlust. Whatever the purpose of the trip, I recall stopping for a night or two to view sandhill cranes near and along the Platte River. I remember going to viewing sites near Kearney, Nebraska and Grand Island, Nebraska. Both towns were groomed for birding tourism, thanks to their positions along the migration routes of both sandhill cranes and whooping cranes. Roughly one million sandhill cranes stop in the area during their March migrations. I was mesmerized by the sight of huge flocks of cranes in the fields along the river, rising in unison from the marshes. If we took photographs, they have either long-since disappeared or they are buried in boxes that haven’t been opened since the mid-1980s. I have mixed feelings about taking photos. On one hand, photos can trigger and clarify memories that grow cloudy over time. On the other, taking time to take photos can detract from the actual experience. This morning, as I consider the pros and cons, I lean toward relying on professional photographers to take pictures so I can focus my attention on what I see through my own eyes. Yet I feel slight regrets for not having captured my own unique experience with a camera. On balance, though, my visual memory this morning is sufficient to make me glad I can rely on it. The sight of those hundreds of thousands of big, regal birds in the fields was stunning. Seeing them turn into clouds that almost filled the sky was just as incredible.

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Thinking about the Nebraska marshes, I considered the differences between what constitutes a marsh versus what constitutes a swamp. A cursory look into the internet revealed that the differences between marshes and swamps seem, primarily, to be in the vegetation. Plant life in marshes is dominated by woody plants and trees, whereas swamps comprise reeds and grasses…”herbaceous vegetation.” Both environments have ample amounts of standing water, but the water in swamps is generally deeper and lasts longer than the water in marshes. Aside from differences in their physical attributes, I think they seem to conjure radically different anthropomorphic judgments. Marshes are sophisticated and compassionate, whereas swamps are unrefined and cruel. Marshes pay more attention to their personal hygiene than do swamps, as manifested by the stench often encountered in the stagnant water of swamplands. When traveling through marshes, one is likely to hear the sounds of classical guitar, while one hears the perverted, echoing chords of menacing banjoes while wandering through swamps. Vegetarians live in marshes. Carnivores and cannibals make their homes in swamps.

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I assume Navelbine, the primary chemotherapy drug  being administered to me lately, is responsible for the sudden surge in my requirements for sleep. Immediately after returning home early yesterday afternoon from a chemo session, I took a nap. When I woke two or three hours later, I went into our entertainment room, where mi novia was playing a mix of classical music from a Sirius XM station. There, I reclined on the loveseat and listened to the music until I woke, just before 11 p.m., and went to bed. Something (I have no idea what) jolted me awake this morning around 7:30 a.m. Now, roughly an hour later, I feel like I could easily fall asleep again. Heavy rain just started to fall…a sign, I think, that it is time for more sleep. But I could be wrong.

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The act of teaching cursive writing was criminalized in 2027. Two years later, the sentences given to the first four teachers convicted of the crime were delivered. One was executed by public hanging, one was sentenced to life in prison, and the other two were given sentences of “time served.” The public outcry about the disparity in sentencing led to demonstrations, which had been outlawed in 2025. A single trial was held for the demonstrators all over the country. At the conclusion of the two-day trial, held in Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, the universal finding of “guilty” for all defendants was delivered. Immediately after the verdict was read, the judge in the matter ordered the sentence of death to be carried out immediately. Members of the Texas National Guard, who had been activated to keep order for the trial, were commanded to carry out the sentence. After roughly half of the 260 defendants had been shot, the judge ordered the executions to stop and made the following statement: “The remaining defendants are free to go. Let this experience teach the rest of the American public that the law is the law. It may be impossible to explain, but it is equally impossible to escape.”

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Born as a simple “crush,” the emotion evolved over time into firm appreciation. Later, it matured into malleable adoration and then, later still, into an affection whose steel structure was impermeable to water and fire. Finally, it transformed into something a thousand times harder than diamonds: love.  The process, which took more than one million years to complete, seemed like it happened in the blink of an eye. But so did its undoing. With its second blink, the eye closed, refusing to open again. Hence the saying, “love is blind.”

Yesterday was full of medical procedures and appointments. It began with a PET-scan and blood draws before noon, followed by a review session with the radiologist, and finished with a visit with my oncologist, who reviewed the PET-scan results with me. The PET-scan revealed a few improvements, including shrinking in the sizes and/or “brightness” of the SUVs (standard uptake values) of some of the cancer lesions. On the negative side, the lesions on my T-10 and T-3 vertebrae has worsened, but not so much that I should be concerned about it (according to the doctor). Radiation therapy continues to work for a period after treatments, so the scabs if the vertebrae may improve with a little more time. Overall, the oncologist said she was “pleased with the results,” though the ultimate outcome of the disease remains the same. She referred me back to a pulmonologist with whom mi novia and I have had something of a love-hate relationship, thanks to various of his mannerisms. I give him a pass because of his Middle Eastern cultural upbringing; mi novia is a little less forgiving than I, but she’s making progress.  Having delayed my pain medications in preparation for yesterday’s PET-scan, I am trying to recover a tolerable pain level as quickly as I can. Pain is just part of the process; one of several elements of the disease I find objectionable.

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I watched an interesting and informative YouTube video this morning, entitled What If We Detonated All Nuclear Bombs at Once? The seven-minute video’s assertions are based on a number of unproven (but, I think, reasonably likely) assumptions. The bottom line: the planet would recover from the horror after a few million years, but our species would become extinct, very quickly.  The unfortunate likelihood, I think, is that extinction probably would not be instant instantaneous. All sentient creatures left alive after the blast would die an excruciating death. On the positive side, though, the extinction would consolidate suffering in a relatively brief window of time. Though suffering would be intense, it would be short-lived. Depending on your point of view, if I had the capability to cause all nuclear weapons to be exploded simultaneously, I either should exercise that ability or I should be neutralized. Either way works for me. The other option would be to render impossible the creation of nuclear weapons…but the cat’s been let out of the bag already, so some enterprising scientist would become a magician, turning magic into reality.

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National and world news enterprises continue their collusion with illegitimate governments to make life a living hell for people worldwide. I wish the power to inform—that leaders of these institutions have at their disposal—would be used to render impotent the authoritarians, despots, dictators, and those like them. My moral principles in relation to this wish are not pure, but I believe intense consideration and contemplation would lead to the conclusion that those principles—and the actions taken to achieve them—represent the epitome of practical morality. I have mentioned my loathing of genocide many times but, to clarify, my definition of genocide excludes the deliberate and systematic extermination of groups on the basis of the danger those groups pose to others as a result of the groups’ heinous philosophies. I know, I know. My philosophy is impossible to justify without first adjusting one’s beliefs about the legitimacy of certain impermissible thoughts or actions. I have successfully adjusted my beliefs to accommodate my philosophy.

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If we were to fully embrace negativism about humankind’s ability to recover from its growing list of stupidity and indiscretions, the only reasonable option would be self-imposed mass extinction. And we would be unable to suggest morbid solutions built on a base of black humor and nearly-blind hope. So, we have a choice: either succumb to despair or refuse to give in…instead, clinging to tattered shreds of optimism fueled by vengeance. But there must be another way…yes?

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Fiction is merely a preview of upcoming facts—a look ahead to see the world in the absence of pressures and constraints on its path along the way to get there. Tomorrow is today—but dressed in bright colors and fine jewelry.

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Redemption. Atonement. Penance. Reparation. Hostility. Vengeance. Softness. Cuddling. Caregiving. The Original Silk. Kindness stored in leather bottles. Cunning friendship. Ethereally corpulent beauty.

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Ideas are beginning to clog my thought-pipes. And they refuse to allow my ideas safe passage through the channels that hold my blood. Thanks to that refusal, the rapids are slowing…becoming a dam. When the dam collapses, the ensuing tsunami will unleash a hydraulic torrent of impractical solutions for problems that do not exist. I worry sometimes that these brief superficial cracks in decorative features are becoming fundamental ruptures in  a crucial framework.

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Another weekend day, vying for attention. I often fail to notice because I do not acknowledge the superiority of weekends over weekdays. That attitude, alone, could get my name placed on the assassin’s list.