Health

We all seem to be having a problem with communication on this health care issue. As a health care professional, I thought I would try to clarify some things for those of you who are adrift with the whole health-care-reform concept. Let's start with some definitions, as I see them:

Health: This is what you have when you are not sick at all.

Health Insurance: This is a financial instrument you purchase from a third party which pays for your doctor and hospital bills when you are sick. It's actually sickness insurance, but they didn't want to call it that for obvious reasons.

Health Care: This is what you get when you are sick to restore your health. It is so expensive in the United States that it is usually paid for by the government or by a health insurance (sickness insurance) company, which also gets help from the United States government.

Wellness: This does not have anything to do with rural water supplies. This is a vague term which refers to combined physical and mental state of good functional ability, whether you are healthy or coping with sickness.

Well being: This is another vague term which refers to your "I'm-OK factor". In other words, when you feel OK, if either healthy or coping with sickness, you might be considered to have a state of well being.

Reform: This basically means fixing or improving upon something that is no longer functional.

Now, let me explain a few basic facts about health care:

1. No human being goes through life with his/her health in tact. No matter how much yogurt you eat with active cultures or green tea you drink, you will get sick, if you aren't already. The absence of 120-year-old Christian Scientists attests to this fact.

2. Many of you are already sick and don't know it. No, that's not a wise crack. Disease is often slow and progressive as you age and things happen to your body. In the U.S., you will get very little warning about this until something goes badly wrong, because the health care here is reactive or remedial, not proactive or preventive.

3. Remedial health care, based in emergency and intensive-care medicine, is much more expensive than preventive health care. In other words, if you put off getting treatment for sickness, it costs more, whether you have health insurance or not.

4. Ultimately, taxpayers already pay for the health care of the uninsured and many of the insured, whether they themselves are taxpayers or not. Since hospitals cannot refuse treatment to the seriously sick, they treat everyone and bill the government for any deficits caused by treating people without health insurance or with deficient health insurance. This is called "free care", which is a misnomer, because we are all paying for it already.

5. Health insurance companies are able to pay for all those cheery TV commercials, build those nice buildings and hire all those paper-pushers by NOT paying for health care whenever possible. In other words, they are in the business of collecting money (monthly premiums) and then working hard to avoid spending it on the people who pay the premiums. (Question: Would you pay a monthly fee to someone to pay your utility bills and then expect to have to ask them if you can turn on a light bulb when it's dark?)

6. Every full-time Federal employee gets affordable access to a superior health insurance policy to any that you as an individual could ever afford to buy. That includes Republican members of Congress!

Now, I hope that clears up some misconceptions about how all this works, or doesn't. You will get sick, or already are in some way without knowing it. The only way for us to get good health care is for everyone to participate in the health care system, even when they are well. Insurance companies are needless middlemen, who profit from not helping people who pay them.

So, a fair public insurance plan would have been the solution to your health care needs now and in the future. If you supported the people who have eliminated that option, you really blew it for yourself and everyone else. Maybe you should drop a line to Scott Brown.

Summit

The President of the United States will be holding a televised domestic political summit today on the Health Care Reform Bill issue. That's right, a summit. You know, there are always international summits occurring somewhere in the world on some issue. Celebrity politics in luxury accommodations usually. More camera lights than heat.

This summit has all the same theatrical trappings. I think it is a brilliant maneuver from the beleaguered and obstructed White House. But, I wonder if it will play like a Sarah Palin rally. Another gladitorial hate binge for the detached and deluded masses, who cannot see the obvious and immediate value of getting a reformed health care system started in the U.S..

Populist politics have reached a nadir. The lowest common denominator of mass intelligence threatens to rule or paralyze the government.

Here's my idea of how to break the gridlock:

The government itself should construct a polling system with adequate checks and balances. All legal citizens of the U.S. should be allowed to register for an account on the site by providing basic identifiers. We should all get an ID number, not linked to our SSN, and a password.

The site would contain all the current bills before Congress. Congress would be required to post the bills in plain English, bulleted or itemized for easier comprehension. You know, like a readable Web site anywhere else. City libraries could be funded to provide access to citizens who do not have Internet access at home. They could also do regular tutorials on the use of the Web polling method.

Each of us who takes the time to register and actually read the bills could cast a vote on the Web site. It would be essential that this data NOT be identified by geographic region, gender, race, ethnicity or sexual identity. This would preclude the site's use by lobbyists and PACs to scurry from place to place to subvert the educated popular will.

Congress could resolve to ignore all other various polls, many of which are polluted by corporate interests, when considering legislation. In other words, they could resolve to listen to the dynamic and direct voice of the people. The lobbyists and PACs would have to listen to that voice as well. This would most likely send feedback to their corporations and organizations to provide better services to the people.

Summits seem to me to be relics of the aristocratic governments of Old Europe. They promote the image of benign oligarchy. I feel the U.S. needs a healthy dose of intelligent and informed democracy. Old party politics and corporate domination of elections will not cut it any more. The people are indeed getting fed up with being patronized and exploited. It will only be a matter of time before their anger surges upward toward those who have caused the gridlock in the people's business. Why not channel their interest and their anger into a constructive tool for true democracy?

Idols

I just got off the phone from a conversation with my friend, Joyce. I want to share the wonder of Joyce with you.

Joyce, who lives alone on Cape Cod, is eighty-two. She's a seamstress and a local socialite. She takes town meetings seriously and never passes up a chance to meet someone new. She has been a rare grandmother who sadly survived the death of her own beautiful grandson over a decade ago.

I first met Joyce in 1986. I had moved to Provincetown that Fall. I was in transition in my life. I commuted back and forth to Boston for two days a week for work on a Honda CB650 motorcycle, but I lived in a tiny one-room cottage in Joyce's garden.

Joyce, who is somewhat diminutive, looked up at me on the day we met, after I had dismounted my motorcycle in her driveway. I saw deep perceptiveness in her blue eyes. I had answered an ad in the newspaper for her rental cottage. She showed me the cottage. She said I could have it. I moved in the following week.

By the following year, I was living in New York, where I moved to work in AIDS hospice care. But, Joyce, who had lived for decades in Manhattan in the prime of her life, stayed in my thoughts. We had become friends quickly.

Over the following 8 years, I visited Joyce regularly. She was kind enough to put me up at times. I sometimes house-sat for her while she was off on her world travels. Traveling is her passion. I was lucky enough to be part of her life. I got to know her two daughters. I watched her grandson, who was born with a serious birth defect, grow up in a loving and nurturing family. I stood by in grief when he died. There have been few times in my life that equal simple suppers at Joyce's kitchen table. She and I can talk for hours.

In 1995, I was told I could die in 6 months. And indeed, after 6 months I could not maintain my life in my city house. I was crippled with shortness of breath and exhaustion. The stress of being in the city and the knowledge that I was deteriorating was a daily torture. None of my friends or family seemed forthcoming and willing to see me through the worst of it, which seemed to be fast approaching.

One evening, I was speaking with Joyce on the phone. She was obviously disturbed by how I sounded. Eventually, she said, "Well, my cottage, your old cottage, is vacant. Why don't you sell your house and come here and live in my garden?" I wept immediately. A great weight was lifted from my chest. I said, "But, Joyce, I'm dying. I wouldn't want to..." Joyce interrupted me, "I know. I know what I'm doing. You put that house on the market. I'll be up next week and help you bring what you want down here." And she came and she did.

I did very nearly die that year in Provincetown. I woke one morning at 3 AM unable to breathe. Weeks followed in hospitals. Months of IV treatments followed that. I needed a walker to cross the eight feet of living room to the bathroom in my little cottage. But, I endured and survived. Despite my disgust at the profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry, it has saved my life more than once.

Through it all, Joyce brought me soup, sat with me at supper time, called me on the phone several times a day. She was the best of human beings to me. When I decided to move back to Boston eventually to be closer to the medical care I would need, Joyce never flinched in her friendship and openness. We have remained solid friends and have never had an angry argument.

Joyce is my American Idol. She is the model of what I consider a humanist to be. She would dismiss this as foolishness, which, of course, would only strengthen my opinion of her. Joyce is the rare human being whose vision of her own way through the world is always crisp and resilient. Despite her many challenges, she opens her eyes and her heart to each new day with the same energy and curiosity. This is true strength. This is what I aspire to become in my own daily practice as a humanist and a human being.

Pluralism

---a social organization in which diversity of racial or religious or ethnic or cultural groups is tolerated
---the doctrine that reality consists of several basic substances or elements
---the practice of one person holding more than one benefice at a time

source: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The current political and social climate in the U.S. is fraught with contention and polarity. The concept of bipartisanship in Congress is spoken of as a mythical Holy Grail. Social issues of gay-vs-straight marriage, religious-vs-atheist thought, color-vs-white racialism, native-vs-immigrant citizenship threaten to mire progress for all on any social or economic problems.

Pluralism, as defined above, is seen by some as a remedy for this dichotomy-based quagmire. In other words, "Can't we all just get along?" I tend to agree, to a point. My ongoing question is this: When does pluralism blur into moral/ethical equivocation, as definition below? This is the inherent challenge of pluralism, in my opinion.

---evasion: a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth
---intentionally vague or ambiguous
source:wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

So, it is my practice to carefully gauge pluralist rhetoric against a standard of universal human rights and global peace. For example, while I do not feel it is my place to determine whether or not an adult woman wears a head scarf or a nose ring, I do feel it is my responsibility to stand against these symbols when they mask misogyny and the abuse of women's rights of choice over their own bodies. In other words, while accepted as cultural markers, they must also be open to frank inquiry and discussion in a free pluralistic society.

Pluralism has been used in Neo-Liberal circles as a leveling method to create a Big Tent for progressive political movement. But, the Neo-Liberal line often drifts into equivocation as a way to avoid political dissension in the ranks. This sabotages its own effectiveness as a political philosophy. The free market in Reaganite capitalism often thrives on the abuse of social responsibility and individual rights, for example. This is at the core of the current unpopularity of the Obama administration's Neo-Liberal approach to the financial capitalists who have brought on the current economic collapse.

Progress means change. Change often necessitates choosing between those things which are functional and just over those things which are not. Stagnant pluralism can be a drag on change for this simple reason. Pluralism, to be effective at promoting human rights and global peace, must also be dynamic, ever evolving, always examined. This is very hard work, but it can be less bloody and more effective at getting us to where our core human values guide us.

Celebrity

Today's Scott Brown is tomorrow's Tiger Woods.

Birthday

What is the obsession with birthdays about? Why do we choose to forget that every birthday is a sentence to a death day?

Birth is the lottery of the Universe. Where you are born, to whom you are born, with what genetic characteristics you are born, all these determine your life experience to a great degree. Those, for the most part, who are blessed in birth deny this, but it is true, statistically and scientifically.

So, life itself is a lottery. There are winners and losers on an elemental level. One human reaction to this reality is to claim their winnings are deigned by a Supreme Being. Another is to enshrine their luckier ancestors as deserving of great praise and sanctity. Yet another is to establish and enshrine a genetic dynasty. The losers of life's lottery cope, strive and survive as best they can. If they are fortunate enough or aggressive enough, they may find themselves in a society which believes in social security and economic justice for all. If not, they live and die in hunger, pain and misery.

I have always found birthday celebrations somewhat silly. "Look how wonderful I am." or "Look what a wonderful human being I have made." or "Look at what a wonderful person I have employed or found to love." These have been the undercurrents of all too many birthday celebrations I have observed. While I think applauding, supporting and loving people every day is a worthy practice, I feel uncomfortable when I see celebrations that are lies in settings where the daily practice of love, support and appreciation are badly lacking. These parties often ring of hypocrisy and token compensation for neglect and bad treatment.

I happen to believe my death day is a much more important day, of which to be constantly mindful. It may be today. I think of how different human society would be, if we all were aware of this in every moment as part of our human experience.

Part of becoming a true humanist is embracing the reality of the human condition in your own daily life. Every human being you see has been brought into life unwillingly into circumstances outside his/her control. Most have been brought into life by human beings who have not realistically accepted the grave responsibility of reproduction. They have rolled the dice for the unborn, who must then live with the consequences for a whole lifetime and then die.

This brings great sobriety to bringing another human being to life. I have seen those who have accepted this fully. They are the few exemplary parents I have met. However, I have seen many more birthday celebrations where the true children were the parents, still at sea with what their lives are truly about.

As a totally homosexual man, I have won one lottery, I feel, by not having the biological urge to take the vast staggering, responsibility for fathering another human life. This does give me a very different perspective on birth and death. I do not see myself as somehow becoming immortal through my offspring, for example. This is a concept that seems rather primitive to me, frankly.

I am the genetic offspring of two human beings, but I certainly am not either one of them in consciousness or practice. I would not want to be. It is enough of a burden to live with what I have been left genetically and environmentally through their transmission of various challenges to be overcome. Perhaps, if I had been otherwise gifted, I would feel differently. I understand that. But, I have not, and billions of others on this planet have not. My empathy and compassion is with them.

I have struggled with this question for many years now. I no longer see my displeasure over my birthday as simply neurotic, as I have been encouraged to do by many I know. My practice every year is to use my birthday as a time to meditate on these issues again. And, as the approach of my death day becomes more palpable, my perspective becomes wider and deeper on the randomness and commonality of all life. So much of being human, it seems to me, is choosing to do daily whatever we can to improve on life's accidents for all our fellow beings.

Socialism

As I look at the current culture here in the U.S., I wonder if all the hyperactivity I see is a symptom of unmedicated or overmedicated anxiety and/or depression. The obsessive use of smart phones in public by a growing percentage of Americans is disturbing to me as a former psychiatric nurse. I see self-imposed social isolation in the midst of crowds everywhere. It looks like self-imposed autism.

I ride the subway frequently. Subways are marvelous, random microscopes for the scientific and observant. I study my subway cars. I would estimate that, on average, approximately 20-30% of passengers busy themselves with smart phones without eye contact or apparent engagement in their environment. On the posher spans, through wealthier communities, I would up that estimate to 30-50%.

In poorer communities along the subway lines, single passengers who are not focused on their smart phones usually stare blankly ahead and avoid all eye contact with other passengers. Disabled and elderly passengers in the aisles are ignored or buffeted by passengers as they push in or out of the train. In wealthier communities, groups of passengers take over sections of the train car. Often they sprawl over sections of several seats and yell across the aisle, while other standing passengers are packed tightly in the aisle around them. This is overt, antisocial behavior, practiced by the young and middle-aged alike.

I see these behaviors as symptoms of the conscious and unconscious manipulation of the society by financial-capitalist business, government and media. The individualistic materialism of the past two decades has been fostered by media and Reaganite (neo-conservative and neo-liberal) political ideologues, who are hand-in-hand with financial institutions and corporations. The entrepreneurial, anti-tax, anti-socialist messages are unrelenting. Socialism has become a dirty word. Lack of socialism on a very pragmatic, democratic, non-totalitarian basis is a destructive force when human beings are overpopulating their environment. We need look at Haiti for an example of the end point of this.

This trend can take the U.S. in only one direction. Greater class separation, class conflict, violence and the degradation of the overall quality of life. Those with wealth are apparently blind beyond their own greed and need for celebrity adulation by the duped masses. This is not new. It is a sad replay of pre-democratic history. And, democratic socialism is not the cause. It may well be the cure.

Valentine

 "The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle, (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner -- until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor -- whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't finish him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate. Various dates are given for the martyrdom or martyrdoms: 269, 270, or 273.[8]"...Quoted from Wikipedia Entry on St. Valentine.

Now let's get this straight, so to speak. One plausible real person, made patron saint of St. Valentine's Day, the most mainstream holiday of romance and marriage in the Christian world, was a Christian priest martyred for marrying (political) minority couples by an intolerant (polytheistic) state? Well now, I guess we can all take a lesson from that, can't we?

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.

In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.

I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.

The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." Major General Smedley Butler.(1881-1940.) As quoted in the 2/10/10 issue of http://www.globalresearch.ca/

The international decline of financial capitalism presents a crossroads for humanity. Awakened from the miasma of the Bush-Cheney years by sudden financial discomfort, Americans and others find themselves potentially bankrupt and enslaved by large financial institutions, who have robbed national treasuries with impunity.

Perhaps the fog of war-mania will also lift, as governments turn to internal spying, political incarceration and martial law to control their angry citizens. South Carolina's legislature is reportedly considering a law to suppress free speech by forcing critics of the U.S. government to register as dissenters. There has been a general use of 911-ism as an excuse to discourage street protests and marches in the U.S. generally. State police organizations increasingly back neo-con candidates.

To those who are currently untouched by the collapse in the American economy, I say, "It isn't over yet." Ancient wisdom dictates that disaster teaches a society compassion and levels the great economic divide which causes greedy domination by the wealthy. The cycle of history. The financial collapse may well take the bloated wind out of the military-industrial complex which has gotten us here.

It will be increasingly important for each person to adopt a daily practice to get through these changes. That practice may include brave activism for social and economic justice despite potential harm. Clinging to the selfish materialism and blind nationalism of the last two decades will not cut it when the whole world is in crisis and one rising force, China, starts calling the shots.

America can perhaps be resurrected by its loss of its superiority and its acceptance of a place as less militaristic part of a coalition of nations who believe in universal human rights, true democracy and world peace.

Webness

I received a comment (unposted) from a reader today, whose email signature included a link to a Web site. The Web site is a so-called female escort agency. I was blasted with graphic pictures of gigantic naked breasts and bleached smiles. Now, while cyber-pimps and pornographers are often seen as sketchy folk, I appreciated this person's comment. I did wonder why this person was drawn to my rather quiet blog on ethics, politics and practical philosophy. I also wondered if the comment was made by a real person.

I chose to meditate on this during my afternoon walk. I recalled seeing an ad recently for housewives who wanted to make cash working from home. I then researched these schemes and found that these suburban housewives are posting links to pornography sites and offshore casinos through various search-engine advertising programs. Then I wondered how many of these stalwart suburbanites signed petitions against gay marriage or attended yowling Tea Party meetings about family values and getting government out of their health care.

More communication, more information, its all here on the Web. But, what is it achieving? Is it educating? I know it is entertaining at a profit if suburban moms can cash in on porn and gambling. Does that add value to our lives in general? Or does it just make us all a little less accountable, less responsible, less ethical or just plain less caring?

I look across the national landscape as reported in a variety of media. I don't see knowledge, awareness and improved quality in our country. I see terror-phobia, ignorance of how the health care system works, nationalist ego without basis, and a determined, evil movement by some on the Far Right (neo-cons) to undermine the average person to the advantage of the already super-rich.

What can be done about this? There is no Big Answer. We are evolving, and our technology with us. Perhaps one day China, as it takes over the world, will paternalistically guide us back to a more moderate path. Perhaps a Haiti-like apocalypse will wipe the slate clean. Perhaps the U.S. will continue on its Balkanizing descent and become a larger version of Mexico or Colombia. It is obvious to me that technology will not save any of us.

So, while I try to keep abreast of advances in communication and technology, I am very conscious that my touchstone is my daily personal practice. I strive to practice in the virtual world as I do in the real world. That is the best I can do.

Acceptance

The first step to true liberation is acceptance.

It's easier said than done. As mammals with frontal lobes, our considerable evolution has been fueled by individual and group pursuit of The Great Why and The Great How.

Yet, to liberate ourselves, it is crucial to accept The Great Is. I mean to say it is necessary to deeply accept the realities of our own individual human life in this Universe. It is ancient wisdom: I am born; I grow older each moment; I die. This is the Great Commonality which binds us to each other and all life on our planet.

True, internalized acceptance of The Great Commonality erases fear, prejudice, selfishness, hatred, violence, indolence. It removes huge barriers from the useful, creative and shared pursuit of The Great Why and The Great How.

Meditation on hardship. Experience of pain and aging. Inspiring health and joy in others. Focusing on and attending to the immediate needs next to you and gradually more and more beyond your own life. These are some of the ways acceptance of The Great Commonality heals us and could heal our species and our planet. Unfortunately, acceptance of The Great Commonality comes for most human beings in old age and far too close to death for its effects to ripple through the species.

Dithering over the afterlife and things we cannot or do not attempt to plainly, scientifically prove in The Great Is wastes time and human energy. It is the procrastination of the self-centered and those who manipulate and enslave through ritual and religion. Liberated practice is putting acceptance into action from a place of mindful, peaceful and loving compassion.

Detours

As a pacifist and gay man, I find the focus of today's GLBT political community and the press on Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell (DADT) less than inspiring. While I understand the political importance of the issue to some, I dispute its merit as a major focus of the GLBT movement. The premise appears to be that being a soldier somehow makes a person, despite his/her sexual orientation, a more qualified or more respectable citizen. This is an unconstitutional premise in America.

As a political movement, we rejected that premise resoundingly during the Gay Liberation Movement which existed quite healthily before being decimated by HIV. While many in the community of the late 1970s and early 1980s supported the personal struggle of Leonard Matlovich and others who were mistreated by the military, it was not a major focus of the movement. The main focus of the movement was to achieve direct and unqualified acceptance of all people under the law as equal in all rights of citizenship. Period.

DADT follows gay marriage as a wedge issue in Washington and in the media. The current GLBT leadership, Neo-Liberal at its best and Log Cabin at its worst, wants to make GLBT people 'just like straight people' under the law. This furthers the dichotomy of gay-vs-straight. It does not cut through the dichotomy to the core issue, universal human rights under the law. And, one of those universal human rights is the right to not be forced to kill or aid in the killing of another human being. As long as armies exist, so will conscription in one form or another.

The foundation of the modern GLBT movement rested on the peace movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Previous gay rights' organizations did not reach all classes and all segments of American society. They were primarily middle-to-upper-middle-class, intellectual organizations. The Stonewall Riot changed that, thanks to the courageous drag queens and working-class gay men who finally stood up to corrupt police oppression. Demonstration for equal human rights got the GLBT movement where it is today. Not back door legislation and political bargaining.

While I praise and support the GLBT people who strive for their rights in any way, I do not necessarily approve of their techniques. I would not approve of aggressive violence, for example. I do not approve of lobbying our way to freedom in a way that makes us look manipulative and aligned with everything that is wrong with government in the U.S., as it now operates.

I am also quite disgusted by the media's coverage of both the gay marriage and DADT issues. For example, today on NPR, I was presented with a back-and-forth discussion of the DADT issue by military-affiliated personnel, who freely spoke of GLBT people as though they were a different, non-human species. If the word "Jew" or "Black" or "Woman" were substituted in any of the statements made, there would have been enraged howls from all corners. Yet, the interviewers and presenters carried on with an air of everyday indifference.

DADT will not achieve universal human rights. Gay marriage will not achieve universal human rights. These battles, if won, will simply lessen the potency of the gay-straight dichotomy. And, in my opinion as a gay man and humanist, that simply isn't enough.

Uganda

As the Ugandan parliament wavers on passing a law to allow for the death penalty for gay men in that country and Uganda's executive still supports the 14-year jail sentence for being gay in Uganda, the Ugandans rejoice over the potential of massive oil revenues from the western part of that benighted country.

Ah, oil! Now it becomes glaringly obvious why no louder pressure is being put on Uganda by other governments, including the U.S. government, to avert the potential massacre of homosexuals in Uganda. It seems the new Africa-obsession includes good old homophobia and scapegoating, as long as those natural resources keep coming under the auspices of corrupted governments, propped up by international corporations.

Texting

I recently had an experience which baffled me. An old friend posted a comment on my first essay for The New Humanism, a journal of the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy. She was good enough to email me to alert me to her dissatisfaction with the comment on retrospection. When I read the comment, I was stunned. It didn't read at all like her, as I have known her for about 25 yrs..

The comment has been removed with her consent. I have processed my initial feelings of disappointment and anger at the glibness of the comment in the context of a journal, which I highly respect as a serious forum for Humanism. The whole experience has made me think quite a bit.

It seems we are all becoming sloppy with our speech in print. That is, with texting and Facebook-ing day in and day out, our communication is becoming too immediate and uninhibited in general. This is one of very few situations which have effected me in this way, but I hear stories quite regularly in media about cyber-bullying and bad communication in new media. More contact, less quality. I feel the pull of it, the challenge to be who I am with one line.

My own style of writing is frequently criticized in on line situations. I have been told I am too formal, too stuffy, cold, too intellectual, too uptight, etc.. I have stopped frequenting chatroom situations because of this and have no intention of embracing Twitter.

There are reasons why I write as I do. I began my schooling with severe dyslexia in a Roman Catholic school in 1955, when Catholic nuns saw dyslexia as a sign of the devil. I spent many hours crying in a closed coat closet at the back of my first grade classroom. This unintentionally Skinnerian method scared me into reading from left to right eventually. I learned to slow down and ignore the mockery of my classmates as I picked through the words through restrained sobs.

Later on, I had two pen pals. One in Australia and one in France. They were wonderfully encouraging tutors. The girl in Australia, who planned to be a nurse, gave me my first compliment as a writer. She wrote that she waited every week for my letters and saved them to read at night before she went to sleep. My French correspondent, who wrote to me to learn English, gave me confidence by allowing me to explain English idioms to him and coach his study of my language. Since I was useless at French, this was a true gift: I learned that I could communicate intelligently with someone in another culture without having to be discouraged by my deficiency in their language.

My pre-medical course in college was grueling for me. It was a bad fit, but my parents urged me on for their sake. In my sophomore year, I desperately wanted to be an English Literature major. I was immature and seventeen. I allowed myself to be talked out of it by my parents. My English Literature professor at the time became quite upset and ignored me for the rest of the time I was at that campus. In a strange way, I took his anger as a compliment.

The years have given birth to a series of personal journals with diary entries, poetry and short stories. I am a writer. I have been since an early age, but I have only been able to say that I am a writer with confidence for the last several years.

Now I find writing is becoming casual speech, and casual speech is corrupting writing, in my opinion.

I know I am definitely not the first 60-year-old who has felt like a stranger on a strange planet. But, I am not happy or comfortable feeling that way. I want to be in tempo with the Zeitgeist. I try to maintain an interest in expanding and changing technologies.

I guess I have found a boundary which I do not wish to cross. 'It's all good' has never been my slogan, because it isn't all good. Some of it is pretty awful. I will continue practicing considered, honest and mindful speech to the best of my ability. Whether by mouth or by keyboard. It is who I want to be and who I continue to try to become.