Random Thoughts October 2025

Ted Reads Random Thoughts

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I wonder if aging makes words more precious and thus more poetry.  That seems to be happening to me.  A teacher of mine once said something like, “Poetry is prose without the unnecessary words.”

I find myself not noticing the noise until it stops.  And when the noise stops, the conversations that my psyche has been waiting to have with me begin with a whisper.  As I lean forward into those words, they become stronger and move from that whisper to full on conversation.

As I get older, I also find it less and less necessary for me to correct something that someone is telling me if their facts are wrong.  I figure they’ll find out sooner or later and they are not asking me to check them.  Either that or what they are wrong about really is insignificant in the long run.  There are exceptions that I talk about in the Political section. 

My eight-year-old grandson asked his dad, “Why do I have to go to school?  You and mom teach me stuff all the time.”  It was one of those questions that goes deep, past all of the “pat” answers.  He was speaking of wisdom that we really can’t refute.  What he was asking was, “Why can’t we do what our ancestors did?”  The community of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, cousins, etc. for eons have been the educators.  That is exactly who should be the educators.

I think there will soon be an entire generation of folks who will not ever hear a vehicle backfire, or know what it means, or what causes it. 

I’ve shared this before but was reminded of it again recently when a friend suggested that they guess they would “never be satisfied.”  They were saying that in a way that sounded as if they were criticizing themselves.  In my mind, “never being satisfied” is not a character flaw.  It is not something to be overcome, it is to be celebrated as growth. 

It is simply a by-product of what it means to be a human being.  We are human beings, we are always changing, always growing, along with everything else in the universe.  “Never being satisfied” is often used in a pejorative way.  I’ve found that I am better off if I listen to that voice, rather than condemn, or allow others to criticize me for it.  It’s like that moment when I realize that my shirt doesn’t quite fit anymore, to the point where it is constraining my natural movement.

I wonder why other primates laugh, and do they get the same benefit from laughter as we humans do.  Science suggests laughter gives us a good dose of hope and optimism.  One of the reasons one will generally always hear laughter at a wake?  

I was playing Tic Tac Toe with my grandson, and when neither of us won, I heard myself say, “Cat’s got the game.” I immediately wondered where that phrase comes from.”  Followed closely by how did “Tic Tac Toe” become the name of the game?

I was waiting to be seated at a somewhat fancy restaurant.  In this holding area there were two huge fish tanks.  There were, of course, fish swimming around.  Mostly from one end to the other.  It got me to wonder if they were aware of the world outside the glass, or if for them, the world they were swimming around in represented all of reality. 

I have tried to share what happened for me last fall for a couple of weeks, as I was having my near-death experiences, this fish (me) got to travel outside my very own fish tank.  The movie, The Truman Show, represents well what I am talking about.  

I was sitting up in the mountains doing some writing and had this moment of deep gratitude for having the privilege of being able to enjoy such a moment, when billions of other people were struggling to breathe or eat or walk, or see.  And I was wondering if I was doing enough with that granted privilege. 

In the last line of the poem I was writing about the cloud show, I wrote what was unfolding for me and I said “And I, one of the undeservedly privileged ones am able to sit on my duff and consider these things.”  Duff? I wonder where that word comes from.

It seems ironic and sad to me that the best chance to get information about both sides of an issue such as the pros and cons of the current tariff strategy (assuming there is one) is to ask ChatGPT.  Sad, because I make up that “back in the day” one could listen to a broadcast or read a newspaper or magazine and have a chance to get both sides.  As I write that just now, I realize how naïve a belief that was.  Such sources have always been biased in one direction or another. People are made that way. 

I’m Loving a book called The Coming Wave (Suleyma) and another called Mission (Weiner)

Warning: Political Content Below, Please Don’t Read If You Don’t Want To Risk Being Upset

Someone asked why I included some religious comments under the “Political Content Warning.”  Because these days, it is hard to tell the difference - a lot of the time.  The fact that the person who asked about that didn’t know what I was talking about makes my point.  Separation of church and state as the constitution demands?  Long gone.  And along with its demise goes all the protections that our country’s founders were trying to keep from happening that happens when church and state are not separated. 

It would be (and actually was for years) embarrassing to explain to people that the first part of a book that was the centerpiece of my life was inaccurate and was to be superseded by what the second part of the book says.  Why not just throw out what isn’t accurate, instead of trying to rationalize, justify, gaslight, mansplain……of course they can’t do that.  It’s THAT book. 

I spoke earlier in this blog, of the growing ease of letting go of things that people say that aren’t actually factual.  Not needing to challenge something they say I know to be wrong.  Dates, times, people, etc.

The ones I can’t let go of are those who say things and do things that end up with people dying.   I am fulfilling a promise I made to myself 60 years ago, to speak up, rather than see, witness and say nothing.  Something I wished someone had done on my or a loved one’s behalf, or 6,000,000 Jewish men, women, and children.

Speaking briefly about religion, many of the practices, if seen as quaint, would be fascinating and fun facts.  Like the old, so-called blue laws are.  If presented as fact however (in my experience) they can be catastrophic.  They can (and do) easily imprison and kill people.  Their minds, souls, body, spirits, hope, and sense of power. 

What’s the deal when one uses phrases such as something being “just north of” or something “going south.”  I know what they mean when they are used, but what’s the origin? I’m fairly sure that comes from a part of our history that we are supposed to pretend didn’t happen these days.  Another form of inconvenient truths.

Some DT loyalists I know proudly let it be known that they traveled to Canada on vacation this year.  I wonder if they went boldly, proudly, and shamelessly, as in identifying themselves as DT supporter, or if they went, surreptitiously, hoping that no Canadian would ask about their political proclivities.  Knowing them, I would expect the latter.  You might ask, why don’t I just ask them? They have lied to me about this kind of thing before and I have no reason to believe that they wouldn’t do that again.  It is exactly what their leader does.    

I, for one, early and easily make apologies for our country to those citizens of foreign countries I come into contact with, lest they mistake me for a supporter of what our country has become.  Especially those citizens of countries that the current regime has targeted and are being victimized by our country’s policies in one way or another.  I am aware that many who I know didn’t come because of the real and perceived hostility they might experience. 

Mr. Guliani receiving America’s highest civilian honor?  On the same level as the military Medal of Honor.  Would I want my boys to follow in his soon-to-be honored footsteps? 

I was reminded of one of my father’s notions.  “You’ll be known for the company you keep.”  I’d say, “You’ll be known by the kind of leadership you vote for.”  I am guessing that is why so many would rather not let anyone know.  “You see him, you see me.”

I wish I didn’t feel that I needed to include this section of my blog, but I promised myself 60 years ago I’d speak up, never imagining I would ever have to.