I expect there are more than seven reasons that account for the extreme behavior of people who are deeply hostile to wearing face masks, but I think these seven cover most of it, though the word usage varies person to person.

Let me know if you disagree. I write this list in the first person because that is how they stated their point of view. I’ve left out the expletives.

1. I am a free man/woman and you can’t tell me what to do. I don’t care if a bunch of people are dying. They’re not my people.
2. God has given…

The end of summer was almost here. My children had badgered me for weeks to take our usual camping trip, but I had so much work to do preparing the data needed for the tachyon transport. Since it exceeded the speed of light, I had to account for potential anomalies. When I said this to my six-year-old, he asked me how many bears lived in the woods. …

I have been bewildered by the slavish devotion people continue to give to Trump.

Slavish: Behaving in a servile or submissive way…fawning…obsequious…groveling.

Here on Medium and elsewhere I see articles in which people wonder why we have lost common ground, why a difference of opinion, specifically political opinion, has been so incredibly divisive in our country.

Slavish devotion requires absolute commitment to the object of the devotion — in this case, Trump. The slightest deviation from this emotional attachment to him not only causes backlash, but leaves the sinner alone and lonely. …

I remember reading a comic strip that was widely syndicated in its day called “There Oughta Be a Law!” It dealt with the minor mishaps, frustrations, absurdities and fake news of everyday life, as well as how hard it was to stop people from behaving badly. This comic strip existed for almost forty years, until 1985.

In today’s social media the idea of having license to say whatever a person wants has taken hold. Too many comments come from people who do not take responsibility for their words anymore. Where did this feeling they were free to be trolls of…

It is generally assumed if you have not achieved your dream by a certain age, you must have missed your chance. After all, a calling is a calling is a calling, and only those with the good fortune to recognize this can make their way in the world by being entirely devoted to bringing their dream into their reality. Everyone else gives up, thereby revealing the difference between them.

That is a rather gloomy picture of human aspiration, as well as inspiration, for it would seem to apply to only the few.

It is also untrue.

What exactly is a…

I was talking to a woman I admired a great deal. She has advanced degrees, a loving family and runs her own company. She is fifty-three. She blew me away when she told me that every birthday she mourns the passing of her ideal age — thirty-six.

That was when she was in her prime, she said. Given she did not really achieve much until her forties, her comment bewildered me. Then she explained. After thirty-six, she began to lose her looks, she said. This was what she mourned.

In actual fact, my friend was stunning, aging gracefully, full of…

After twenty-three years in the business world, I let go of it for good. I had tried to do this several times before without success. What changed?

I stayed in business for the money. Hands down, that was my primary motivation. Whenever I took steps to leave, I knew a very different economic lifestyle awaited me, one far less full of money and perks — things I had come to call “corporate welfare.”

So, I stayed.

I was all too aware, though, of Henry David Thoreau’s observation that most people “lead lives of quiet desperation.” He wrote those words in…

The fortune-teller’s tent was set out on the pier at twilight, just as the crowds thinned. Janine was going to love it. The interior was dimly lighted, the table draped in velvet, and long, diaphanous veils caught the candlelight. I stepped out of the tent, replacing the folds covering the entrance, and waited for the love of my life to show up.

I could hear the soft rush of the waves at low tide against the shore. It was a summer night to hold forever.

“Ah, an early and eager customer.” I turned and saw the fortune-teller coming down the…