I was raised in the emotional dark ages under the mantra, "Big boys don't cry!" It is a phrase designed to enforce a narrow idea of masculinity based on the misguided belief that boys should be tough and unemotional, particularly in times of distress when less manly men are prone to emotional outbursts. The phrase was a form of shaming to stop crying or showing vulnerability rather than providing the comfort necessary to help process the roiling emotions. This stoic ideal of masculinity has roots in ancient Greece, with Homer's portrayal of "emotional manliness" in the Iliad. At that time, being stoic meant being emotionally balanced. It has come to mean being unemotional, especially in a public setting. It is a case of emotional suppression when it was meant as a way to examine and manage emotions.

he impact of animals on the human psyche has undergone a myriad of changes, some more impactful than others. In our ancient, pre-syphilization days, animals were viewed with reverent awe coupled with cold practicality. It was common for the ancient humanoids to request forgiveness from the animal's spirit when killing them for food, while simultaneously imbuing them with mystical powers and as elders from whom life lessons could be gleaned. Cave paintings reinforce that they were definitely more than just ambulatory foodstuffs, but powerful beings with a spiritual significance. These attitudes helped all live in physical and spiritual harmony.

Reality is defined as the state of things as they actually exist, encompassing all observable facts, events, and entities. It represents the totality of what exists independent of human perception, imagination, or theoretical speculation. Ultimately, reality exists objectively, independent of conscious observation or belief. Humans perceive objective reality via subjective filters. Since our senses and brains distort input, we can never see the world "as it objectively is."

One of the indicators that a person will shed the shackles imprisoning them to religion is their level of education. College graduates are more likely than the less educated to identify as atheists or agnostics. It is why the strongly religiously inclined disparage universities that liberate the human mind and, lately, decry them with the latest propagandized and misapplied word, "woke." The word is used as a pejorative for anything seen as overly progressive or performative. It has become a catch-all slur for progressive values predicated on a growing disdain for empathy.

Not being a hunter, I do not generally enter the wilds seeking to find a specific animal. I tend to be content with any wildlife that graces my presence. Living in cities, I don't have to scrutinize my surroundings for large predators capable of felling me in one swipe of a massive paw or a piercing bite from two-inch canine teeth in crunching jaws. There is the remote possibility of death by 10,000 rat nibbles or one if it is rabid. Thankfully, they are typically shy creatures who venture out in the middle of the night when I'm sleeping.

I was struck by a poignant thought last night while crossing the no man's land between wakefulness and sleeping. I was hovering on that silken line beyond awake, before sleep, where all existence is concentrated in the immediate now, when this thought hit me. All we ever live in is the timeless now moment. How can there exist a past if we perpetually dwell in a timeless state? The very definition of past is predicated on time passing, but there is no time in the timeless present; therefore, there can be no past. The same logic holds for any potential future; if there is no time to pull us forward from the present now we are always in.

wonder what the impetus was that shifted the human mind to alter vision solely to detect danger toward an appreciation for beauty. It was a massive change with a potentially detrimental downside. Becoming distracted by the beautiful could leave one exposed, thus vulnerable to menacing actors. The change had to be gradual. If ancient hominids had the same draw to beauty as we do today, they would likely have been erased from the evolutionary tree by susceptibility to predation. There are numerous indicators that our ancient hominid ancestors had a visceral aesthetic attraction at least as far back as our Neanderthal cousins.

As a lifelong learner, I want to know everything about everything. Well, that's my North Star goal that guides my mind. I know it is impossible, given that we can't know anything that isn't yet discovered about life, the universe, and everything. Learning is a process, a never-ending process that can't be expedited by Matrix-style programming, where knowledge gained is limited only by the speed of a computer download. It must progress step by step by step. The most challenging headwinds in the process are those hurricanes that originate from within my psyche.

When I was a young lad, the only ginger in my neighborhood and schools, making me a target, altercations arose between mismatched combatants that generally used words as weapons, with occasional flare-ups into fisticuffs. We attempted to ward off those words with the trite saying: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me." I think the saying may have been a shield, a psychological shield protecting our vulnerable psyches from the effects of warfare as old as humanity itself. I've learned over the years that the saying is half true and half utter nonsense.

he USA's most enduring mythology, one the citizenry loves to chest-thump, is that we are the land of the free and home of the brave. That we are the last bastion of liberation in the increasingly repressed world. That we are a beacon of hope in a raging sea, guiding the masses suffering from psychological incarceration and servitude toward salvation, toward autonomy, toward emancipation, and the God-given right to live in the absence of tyranny. How does this mythology stack up against reality?