The most important thing we do in life requires no test, no training, not even a certificate of sanity.

When you buy a car, it's a very straightforward business deal. You put down your money, transfer the title, make sure you have insurance. And that's it. It's understood, of course, that you can't drive it unless you have a license that you got after taking a driving test and paying a fee.

But suppose you want to have a child? A much more risky and problematic, and long-ranging deal than buying a car, right? I mean, you can't unload a troubled child like you would a bothersome car. If things are bad enough, you can abandon a balky clunker of a car, but you can never walk away from your own children, however irritating they are. Actually, you can -- and too many people do -- but it's obviously wrong. After all, you brought them into the world -- they had no vote -- and so you're responsible for them until they're grown. What's that you say? You can't support them any more? Can't even buy them food? Well, why didn't you think about that before you had them?

Let's suppose, for ever reason, you decide you want to have even more. Well, here's the good news. Have at it! No background check! No credit check! No essay exam! Go for it, boy and girl! Whoever you are, wherever you come from, if you can breathe and get it up, you're qualified to be a daddy! And any girl you choose, however young, can be your partner! Together you can have another beautiful baby!

Isn't it interesting that the most important thing we do in this life -- bringing others into it and rearing them into responsible adults -- requres absolutely no kind of credentials? Are you fit to raise children? Do you even have a solid relationship with the father/mother? Will you swear on your soul that you'll do your best to provide for this child? Can you spell "commitment"? Do you know what it means?

It's a simple fact of nature that anyone can have a child. There is nothing more amazing in our world than the birth of a child -- and nothing more natural. A new human. More amazing is that that monumentally important function is granted to anyone and everyone, even psychopaths and extreme depressives, abusive mothers and absent fathers. It's the one great democratic right, biologically guaranteed. The right to reproduce. Granted by God, by God. Case closed.

So what can be done to prevent young girls -- and deranged people (not developmentally challenged but outright criminals)-- from having children? Nothing. You knew that. This ability to give birth (maybe to make up for death), is bestowed on the least of us as well as the best of us. Anybody can impregnate, and anyone can give birth. A God-given right, right?

I guess all we can do is try to educate our own young, to counsel them about the awesome responsibilities of parenthood, and hope they listen, while all the time knowing that there are lots of mothers and fathers who aren't going to be doing that kind of counseling and who are going to be exhibiting inappropriate behavior for their kids. There is not one thing we can do about that. Those parents, just by being human, and by being parents, have immunity.

In fact, almost anything you do to your kid short of outright injury -- a broken arm, for instance --is safe-guarded. You can be a totally negligent parent -- not buying your kids new underwear when they need it or leaving them alone because you can't afford an after-school baby sitter -- and no one will say a word against you. (In extreme cases -- and yes, they do exist (in the newspaper almost every day) -- you can secret one or more of your kids in a basement or even some kind of cage. In the privacy of your own home, you can do pretty much anything to your kids that you can do to your pets, short of having them taken to the Humane Society to be "put down". But kids all over the world disappear every day and are never heard of or from again. So if you have children you don't want, it's your right. No one is watching. At least no one who's going to try to stop you.

The only time we, as a society, start watching is, sadly, after something has gone wrong and has been brought to our notice. A child has been starved to death or mysteriously buried or whatever. Someone blows the whistle. Then we move in and do an investigation that shows -- voila! -- that this was a family or a day care center that should never have had any children in it. And that, yes, there were clues -- some that stared us right in the face -- and yes, there were people, from neighbors and family and friends to authorities, who should have done something. Anything. But we/they didn't. And now, as usual, it's too late.

But how do you regulate a natural function: getting pregnant, having kids?

Unfortunately, you don't. You can't. You might as well outlaw eating Cheetos. Hey, we're programmed to eat them. And to have babies. They come whether we decide to have them or not. The only time they don't come is when we consciously do something to prevent it. Like birth control. Or abstinence. Or trying to guess when we shouldn't have sex. But none of those methods can be forced on anyone, and lots of people, men and women alike, don't use any of them. So here come the babies, one after another, tumbling out into a world, a family, that may or may not have wanted them and that may or may not take of them.

As I mentioned in another essay, I wish there were a way to implant something in girls' arms -- or boys' arms -- that would, by default, keep them from getting pregnant. When they met the person of their dreams, they could have it removed -- and get pregnant. I think it would avoid much of the anguish young -- and not so young -- girls have to go through every day. But our society would never allow such an invasion of a person's privacy with regard to reproduction. And of course many of the world's religions forbid any kind of birth control.

No, alas, we seem, as a species, just as doomed as the rest of living creation to keep popping out offspring willy-nilly, with utter abandon.

So until someone devises a universally-accepted standard or test or set of guidelines that would screen out those who really shouldn't have children, all we can do is keep preaching the gospel of good parenthood: Think about it. Plan for it. Commit to it. And all ahead of time!

Of course there are plenty of unwanted children who grow up to be loving, even successful adults, but I'm willing to bet there are a lot more who live short, brutish lives they wouldn't have chosen if given the option.

There is nothing more important we do in life than creating and nurturing new humans. It shouldn't be an accident when it happens. We're smarter than that. We're not ants or rabbits or jackals in the wild. We know how to keep it from happening -- or at least to control when it happens.

And when should it happen? You know the answer to that: when we're ready for it.

If you're not ready, or if you aren't sure if you're ready, don't do it! Not yet.
Tell others you care about the same thing. Make the gospel your own. Spread the word, rather than your seed. Or, not to be too crude, your legs.

Give at least as much consideration to it as you would buying that new car.

One good thing can make your day.

Yes, of course, if you can buy a lottery ticket at your neighborhood 7-11 and win a million dollars, that will turn your day around in a hurry.

But let's get real. Probably you've had a more or less typical day, full of hassles and rejections and maybe a few smiles and a smattering of good conversation, but you're pretty much ready to go home and thaw something for supper and just chill. Or you may have had a truly rotten day, getting chewed out or dumped or even fired. You may be downright miserable, thinking that life is not worth living. Lord, if this is the way the rest of your days on this earth are going to go, you'll be needing more stimulants -- which, of course, will likely make things even worse.

So where's that lottery ticket when you need it?

Forget the lottery ticket and start to pay attention to good things that happen during your day. Probably there aren't that many, but once in a while -- not often enough -- something really good happens to us, totally unexpected, and it can turn a whole day around.

It can be as simple as a phone call. A friend of mine who hadn't heard from her son in Iraq for weeks got a call from him that said he was okay. No matter what had happened to her up till then -- the humiliations from the boss, the tacky comments of co-workers, the unreasonably angry customers -- she was in a good mood when she went home. One piece of good news had redeemed her day.

We humans are unique in that way. We can endure all sorts of pains and indignities, again and again, over and over, but just give us a glimpse of hope, a sign that someone cares, that we have a chance, that our luck is changing, and we're as resilient as any species. More so. We can't re-generate new tails when ours are bitten off, but we can make remarkable recoveries from the depths of despair, rising to unreasonable heights of optimism. We, as a species, want to believe.

Another friend of mine who was going through a not-nice divorce, and was doubting herself all around, received notice that her garden had been selected for the annual Tour of Gardens. She'd forgotten that she'd even entered the competition! So now all her attention was spent on getting her garden ready. Forgotten, at least for now, was what's-his-name and all that sorrow he had brought into her life.

It can happen any time, this gift of something going right. It may be one of your kids announcing that he or she has been been picked for some athletic team he or she was dying to be on or was named a cheerleader or got a part in a play or even a scholarship to a prized college. Or just the election of the candidate you voted for, and worked for, for Congress or even the Presidency. Election night has turned around lots of bad days. (Or not.) Good news is a shape-shifter.

On the whole, I'd say that most day-changers often fall into certain categories:

1) Something unexpected that buoys your spirits.

2) Something that you've been pinning your hopes on falling your way.

3) Something that has been hanging over your head suddenly being resolved.

There are more, of course, but these can get you started thinking about your own day and how it might be brightened at any time, without warning.

The unexpected includes not just the winning lottery ticket but also that welcomed phone call from someone you really wanted to talk to or from someone telling you what you had hoped to hear. Good news can come by phone, so stay connected.

Just as easily it can be a good deed done for you -- someone chasing after you in a parking lot to hand back the wallet you dropped, or the waitress who tells you that you don't have to pay because your steak wasn't cooked right (and who you tip generously anyway), or a mechanic who says he didn't find anything wrong with your car and so there's no charge (despite the time he put in trying to find something wrong) -- or a good deed you did for someone else in need, anything from lending a stranded person your cell phone to making a call to be picked up to giving that same someone a ride or . . . you get the point. Almost anything good that happens to you or that you make happen can lift your mood, even improve your day.

Then there's that something you've been pinning your hopes on, putting all your energy into, to the point that you're afraid you're losing your grip on sanity. It may be a job promotion you desire, a novel you've slaved over for years and finally sent to publishers, or even a relationship you've been cultivating forever. All it takes for your day to suddenly seem golden is for the boss to come out, all smiles, and shake your hand, or for a special letter to appear in your mailbox, embossed with the name of a publisher, or for a special someone to appear at your door, pizza box and ring in hand. Bad day at the office be damned!

Sometimes it's just something ominous that has been weighing on you being lifted that can make you say "Yes! There really IS a God!" One of my relatives had a renter file a lawsuit against her, claiming he'd hurt himself because she hadn't kept the house he was renting in good shape; she knew she was right but was looking at huge lawyer costs -- not to mention sleepless nights -- and then one day she heard that the lawsuit was history, that the renter had moved on -- with no forwarding address -- and that was that. She told me she un-corked some champagne that night that she'd had chilled since her wedding day. Or it can be the report from the doctor that says you don't have cancer. Or word from an abusive ex that he or she isn't going to pursue joint custody after all. It can be anything, as long as it lets you -- finally -- off the hook! At least for now.

But are there even simpler things that can make a difference in how you feel on any given day? You bet! A smile from a cashier who has always seemed cold to you. The thanks you get from a neighbor for throwing their newspapers onto their porch while they were away and forgot to cancel: too many papers in the driveway tells thieves that no one is at home. The first tulip of spring. A bird singing outside your window. (Okay, let's not get maudlin.) How about the thanks someone gave you for helping him get unstuck during a recent blizzard? Or if you live where there are no blizzards, how about the time you called 911 to rescue someone from a flood? If even those are too extreme, how about when you agreed, at the last minute, to bring thawed shrimp, patted down and dry, to the neighborhood party, along with cocktail sauce. And when you got there, everyone was singing your praises! For what? Hey, who cares? They love you.

It may just be a gesture. It may be a smile or a hug. Or a word, said just the right way. But almost anything can turn a day around.

You just have to watch for it. And wait for it. The clock is ticking. The day is almost done. Always look back over your day to see if there is something you might have missed.

And don't forget that you can sometimes make someone's day yourself. It doesn't take much.

Wait! Is that your phone ringing? It's so late. For God Sake, answer it!

This may be the call that makes your day.

Smart is not wise, but ignorant can be stupid.

If you decide to jump from a third-story building, expecting to fly, you're stupid. Science tells you that you're going to land in a lump, probably injured, maybe dead. But what if you thought you'd crafted wings that would let you do the same? You would still be sort of stupid, but mainly you would be ignorant -- of the basic rules of aerodynamics -- which should have told you that you were too heavy to make that flight. Being ignorant is not always the same as being stupid, but ignorance can make you do stupid things.

You can be smart (grasping the concepts) but ignorant (not possessing the facts), or you can be any combination of the above. For instance, you can be someone in charge of our nation's foreign policy but not knowing all the facts. That ignorance can lead you to make really stuid decisions that results in lots of needless deaths of young men who weren't you and who likely weren't yours.

That's what happened in Viet Nam. No one can accuse Lyndon Johnson or Robert McNamara of being stupid. They were very smart men. But they kept sending young men into a war they knew was lost. They are personally responsible for a good many of my friends being killed. LBJ refused to run for office again because of it; his Defense Secretary, McNamara, took decades to admit his mistake. They were both smart men who either didn't understand the data they were receiving -- that we were losing the war -- or chose to ignore it. In any event, it resulted in more than 58,000 young men being killed in a losing cause.

I think they chose to ignore it, which brings up the question of hubris: thinking that you know more than anyone else. Arrogance. I'm right no matter the facts!

So here's the way it works -- tragically. Smart men who are ignorant of the facts make stupid decisions. When they are finally made aware of the facts, but choose to ignore them, then they are not just stupid but arrogant. And, in the end, arrogance is the worst sin of all in a leader. Arrogance is the real killer.

The same is true in Iraq, where we sent troops with scant evidence that their leader meant any harm to our country. Three thousand young men and women have been killed over there, not to mention many thousands more coming home with crippling injuries. We didn't need to fight that particular war -- we started it, for the record -- and I place all the guilt for those deaths and the disfiguring injuries squarely on the doorstep of President Bush down there in Texas and his Vice President Mr. Cheney and his Department of Defense Secretary Mr. Rumsfeld. Shame on all of them! I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat: they ought to be held to account.

Excuse me, Mr. Rumsfeld or Mr. Cheney: how about you give up a foot or two or both arms or part of your brain -- not to mention the pain and trauma -- and try to go back to living life as usual? How about you, Mr. Bush? Try transversing your south Texas property on some kind of vehicle that only moves because you're breathing into it with a straw, having lost all use of your limbs? Give that a try, okay?

And then tell me that you did right by sending all those young men and women into a war you started and that didn't need to be fought.

Wise is not smart. You were smart but not wise. You were ignorant -- you didn't have all the facts. In the end, that made you stupid.

But arrogance trumps all: you thought you knew better than anyone else, but you didn't.

History will decide. My mind's already made up.

There's something to be said for the ordered life.

Yes, it's kind of boring. The same thing every day, day after day. Breakfast or lunch at such or such an hour. Dinner at six. Maybe a movie or something on TV. Blah blah blah. Yawwwwn!

But what if you'd come from a Nazi concentration camp, where people died of starvation every day, to the point that you stepped over them or walked around, but with no more thought than you'd give to a mud puddle. Suppose you'd been freed by the Allied forces and eventually found your way to, say, Cincinnati. Not speaking any English, maybe with some of your family, maybe not, haunted by all that horror . . . and you're supposed to fit in?

Wouldn't you welcome an ordered life? Breakfast, lunch, dinner on a given schedule? Bedtime not full of nightmares (but probably so anyway)?

Okay, that's an extreme case. Consider this one: You've retired from a high-pressure job you didn't like but endured -- and maybe even did okay at -- but now you're a certain age, ready to cash in and sit back and relax. You've got a measly pension and Social Security, plus what you've managed to invest. You and your mate -- maybe just you -- can now afford to get out of the rat race and do nothing. Whew!


This is the ordered life, deserved. The right to travel -- as money permits -- or play golf or just sit on the porch and read newspapers all day. I know a retired guy who said that someone asked him what he planned to do with his free time, and he said, "Not that job." For lots of us, that's enough. To just not do what we've been doing for twenty, thirty or more years. No boss, no appointments, no quotas (if we were in sales), no travel to places we don't want to go, no nothing that we don't want to do. In short, the ordered life for the retired is just relief from having our days and weeks and months and years laid out for us by someone else. Our retirement means that we will determine our own schedules in the future, for better or worse.

At last!

Interestingly, we all start out life -- unless we're from dysfunctional families -- pretty much taken care of and with life ordered by our parents. We don't have to think about anything. We get dressed in clothes laid out for us, take lunches prepared for us to school, come home to our rooms and all that familiarity we take for granted.

That ordered kind of life frees us to grow.

When we hit our teens, and then later, our twenties, life gets less predictable, less orderly. We meet and date and have sex with all sorts of inappropriate people. We start one thing and drop it and start another. We graduate high school -- or not -- and then try to find a job or go to college and not get pregnant or get a disease. We set up a checking account and struggle with credit card debt. We may have to buy and insure a car for the first time, unless our parents already took care of that for us (which is just delaying the inevitable). Everything is new and exciting and scary.

We're young and energetic but not so good about navigating our way through the real world. Life in our teens and twenties -- even into our thirties -- can be chaotic. It is also, of course, when life presents its biggest surprises. Not knowing who or what waits around what corner. Exploring, chancing, just diving into a new experience without looking first. It's when we test our wings, sometimes flying, just as often crashing. But we're young, so we get up and soar again. Nothing is guaranteed; all is possible. Orderly life? Forget it! What happens happens!

Then the work years set in. Our late twenties to who knows when. And someone else is setting a schedule for us. It goes on, I'm sorry to say, for a long time. Decades. Until we have enough money saved/invested to retire. And live an ordered life again. Not theirs but ours! Finally!

It's always tempting to think that there are people who live un-ordered lives of great pleasure. Oh, to just let the tides of fate sweep me away! Be careful what you wish for: It might sweep you under the current and drown you. The un-ordered life is usually the result of poor planning.

Those rich people who live the lives we envy so much and think of as spontaneous are anything but. The privileged live VERY well-ordered lives. They control every aspect of their lives because they can afford to. Do you think any Hollywood celebrity wakes up in the morning and strolls outside, unaccompanied by security people, just to smell the air? Not unless she lives in a gated community no one of us can think of approaching.

(But their lives may be TOO well-ordered, don't you think? Wouldn't you feel constrained if you couldn't do your own grocery-shopping?)

On the other hand, think of the CEO of a huge bank. Who is ordering HIS life? He makes millions every year -- yes, millions, and yes, every year -- but can't take off a few days and not say where he's been. No way. Every minute of his time is accounted for. He lives an ordered life but, even at his high level, it's not ordered by him. He'll have to retire to enjoy life on his terms.

The ordered, the orderly, life is greatly to be desired, I think. We all want to do what we want to do, when we want to do it. It's just a matter of whether the ordered life is ordered by you or by someone else. Unless you're born rich or get lucky with some invention or some talent, you're probably going to have to make a living, and you'll soon discover that what you most want is to
be in control of your own life and to have enough money to feel comfortable.

When you're young, it sounds like so little to settle for; when you're older, it's the goal you've achieved.

Perspective is all.

Grow well and prosper. Regret what you must. Love what you can.

Kissing is more romantic than sex.

I've had a number of women tell me this. I always thought it was just romantic hogwash. Sure you remember the first guy you kissed, etc. But these were hot women who had obviously had sex with numerous men. They didn't like to talk about the sex they'd had, but they were all dreamy-eyed when they talked about kisses. They remembered not just their first kiss but others, and with much more affection than they did their subsequent acts of coitus.

And they still daydreamed about kissing men -- men they knew, maybe men they worked with and saw every day, even other women's husbands, or men they just imagined -- much more often than they daydeamed about having sex with those men.

That was my first clue that I didn't understand women. I thought, being a guy, that they valued sex above all else. It hadn't occurred to me that they could stop short of it and still have a serious relationship with a guy. They could kiss a guy, and it would mean more to them than all the sex they'd ever had with anyone else. One good kiss could undo all that other bad stuff. What they were looking for were guys who knew how to kiss them.

Here are some other things I've learned:

(1) A girl (meaning woman) can kiss a guy she's not planning to have sex with.

(2) A girl can have sex with a guy she doesn't kiss.

(3) A girl can kiss a guy she may never see again.

(4) A girl can kiss a guy as a way of saying, "I'd like to see you again."

(5) A girl can kiss a guy as a way of saying, "I'm with someone else now, but in another life, or if it doesn't work out, please look me up."

(6) A girl can kiss a guy just because it feels good.

A kiss is not like sex. You can keep your clothes on, for starters. And it involves no penetration of your private parts. It can be done in any dark place, away from prying eyes. Or even in public, if neither of you has anything to lose. And it's over in a blink -- or, at best, two blinks. On the other hand, it has no "climax", which means it can go on and on and on until you're both too tired to continue. A kiss is endless.

On the other hand, it offers nothing, promises nothing.

Maybe I kissed you because I like you, or maybe I kissed you because I wanted to be kissed. Or maybe I kissed you because I want you to be the father/mother of my children.

A kiss is like a question asked but never fully answered.

It could mean anything or nothing.

But it's still the coming together of two people who find themselves attracted to each other to the point that they're willing to bring their lips, if nothing else, together, for an instant (or longer).

Most guys -- not all, but most -- probably look at kissing as foreplay: the first step to getting sex later. It's a shame that they can't value it as an event, an experience, in itself. Women seem to.

I had a woman friend who had had many lovers tell me that she still remembered the kiss she'd shared with an old friend who, one night after a few drinks, asked if he could kiss her. She'd never had a man ask that. Usually, as she told me, they just "descended on my mouth". She said okay, and he planted on her such a tender kiss -- reluctant but yearning -- and then one more -- again asking if he could have it -- that, as she put it, "I was ready to take off all my clothes and jump his bones!" That first kiss is the key, it seems. A second one is a bonus.

My second clue that I didn't understand women was that some I talked to said they'd had sex without kissing the guy. This is what a prostitute often does. No kissing, or at least no "deep" kissing -- all that tongue action. They likely have boyfriends, so they let their clients do what they have to do, just for the money, but they draw the line at normal human sexual behavior, like kissing. You can f*ck me, but you can't kiss me. It's a peculiar and even deviant way of looking at things, but that's the way some of us think. Women: Ask your boyfriend if he's visited prostitutes, and then sit back and listen. If he loved his time with them, let him go. You don't want to be that woman in his life.

But normal girls have these relationships, too. They kiss lots of guys, enjoying the sensation but not necessarily looking to have sex. You girls have so many more reasons for kissing a guy than they have for kissing you. Maybe you're looking for a mate (who knows how to kiss), or sex, or an adventure. I think lots of women end up with guys who are good wage-earners, and potential fathers for your children, but who may not have been good kissers (and won't get better at it as time goes on). In a worst-case scenario, they end up looking for other men who are, and that results in adultery and the end of a marriage. Try to avoid it, if you can.

So how do men think about this? Think about it: men pay for sex, not kisses. When was the last time you heard about a Representative of Congress or a Senator being investigated for sneaking a kiss? I would personally put down a few bucks for a kiss from a pretty girl any day before I would pay many times that amount for shove-and-ugh sex with a prostitute. Most guys, even those in high office, keep thinking that a kiss is just the price you pay for having sex later.

Men -- at least most men -- need to learn to appreciate the kiss as an act in itself, or as a promise of goods that may or may not ever be delivered. A token, sometimes, in place of the sex act. "I wish I could be intimate with you," the woman of his lust may say, "but I can't, at least right now, so would you accept this as an I.O.U.?" If more guys accepted this and knew what it meant, then I think we'd have fewer misunderstandings that lead to guys going ballistic on women.

Okay, guys, here's how you do it. Be sure you're in an embrace with someone. She likes you. She pulls back a little but not that much. You're face to face, eye to eye. Lick your lips so you're not all chapped. Dip your face, slowly, toward hers. If she doesn't pull back, or if she moves her face closer to yours, then let your lips brush against hers. Not too much. Pull back. If she's still there, inches from you, lower your lips again, and this time let them linger on hers. Maybe move them a little: kiss her. Then pull back again and be sure you look into her eyes. Does she want more? If she is still with you, kiss her a little more firmly, pressing your lips into hers. You might try your tongue across her lips to see if she opens up. If not, let it go. If she does, if her lips open, insert your tongue, but very gently, probing, looking for hers. If she doesn't respond, pull out. She's let you know that she'll be ready for that later but not now. If she does respond, if her tongue meets yours and does a slow dance, then you still want to withdraw and plant a very tender kiss on her lips. You're telling her that you want her but you're not in a hurry. You're willing to wait for her.
Kiss her again, maybe on her eyelids, her cheeks. Withdraw. Get some air between. You've established a connection.

Plenty of time now. And isn't that where it gets to be fun? The next time you're together, you'll be starting from a different place, one you share. You'll both be full of anticipation.

Love and sex and kissing are intricate parts of our lives, but nobody schools us on it: we're expected to just pick it up somewhere along the way. But ancient societies knew that it was important -- witness the Kama Sutra, with its detailed explanations of sexual positions -- which means that it's been a significant part of our development as humans. But it's not just about sex. Kissing is the portal, the entry point, the place where it all starts. And it's something special in its own right.

More poems have been written about kissing than about sex.

Think about it.

The world is too big to see all at once.

There's just too much going on. Every day. Everywhere. From continent to continent, over oceans, first this country then the next, this city or town, this neighborhood, our block. This house. Wars and crime and big decisions on the climate or the economy that have to argued over and decided. Domestic violence. Our own kids suddenly becoming adults. Us getting older.

We can't keep up with it all. At some point, we have to decide how much of the world we want to be most engaged with and which we would just as soon not hear any more about. It's a tough choice but one we have to make. I mean, we're all allotted just so much time on the planet -- how much we're never sure until it's too late -- and, really, just so much energy to expend.

Where do we direct it?

Well, of course we first have to direct our view to our own family. Be sure they're all okay. Next, we might turn our attention to our job, which may or may not requre us to pay attention to what's going on in the world. More likely it requires us to pay attention to what's going on under our noses at any given time of the day.

So we get off work and drive or ride home. Pay our respects to the husband or wife or significant other or just cat or dog. Eat supper.

And . . . then what?

Here's the big decision most of us make without realizing we're making it. What to do with the off-time we have? Let's say you need to go to bed at eleven to be able to get up at six or seven for work. That leaves you three or four hours in the evening to spend however you please. If you have kids, you may be down to one hour or none. Which means that you may not even be able to watch the news and find out what happened in the world while you were at work.

You may wake up tomorrow totally ignorant of some big event.

So how do busy people keep track of what's going on in the world?

They make choices. Or the choices are made for them. Or the choices just sort of evolve. I had a doctor friend once who told me that since college he had read nothing except the medical journals in his particular field. So much for the wider view to be gained from reading newspapers, magazines and books (including novels). His world view was defined by the career choice he'd made. It was narrow but deep.

On the other end of the spectrum, I've had friends who spent almost all their spare time traveling. They wanted to see as much of the world as they could. Of course that meant that they saw very little of the immediate world around them: their town, their neighborhood (and neighbors), their own backyard. Their view, unlike the doctor's, was wide but, in the end, shallow; they never got to know any country or any place in any depth. You'll notice that anthropologists and sociologists, among others, eventually have to settle on one or a few parts of the world or of society to do their work; there's simply not enough time to study it all.

Even the speculative world, the world of thought, is too big to consider in one lifetime. If you've ever known a philosopher -- whose passion is thinking about thinking -- he or she was undoubtedly an epistemologist or an ethicist or a logician or whatever; again, focus had to be narrowed to keep from going crazy trying to take it all in. Same for psychologists, who are concerned with human behavior: some time in their schooling of careers, they have to decide which behaviors to study, knowing they can't study them all.

But often we don't make those decisions consciously. They just happen to us. Depending on what we choose to do for a living and who we choose to marry and where we choose to live, our world view simply evolves and becomes such a part of us that we probably couldn't describe it if pressed to do so. I'm a liberal not because somewhere along the way I had a revelation that we all need to share our resources, etc. I just gradually began acting that way because it seemed right. You didn't come out of the womb a conservative; the way your life unfolded colored your thinking so that one day you simply found that that's who you were.

But the main point I want to make is that we should occasionally take a look at our lives and our world view and see if there ARE some choices we can make. Instead of letting the world view we've developed determine who we are -- which it will to a large extent anyway -- we should see if there are decisions we can make that will broaden, or deepen, our world view. My son used to study atlases. Why? He liked to. To this day he knows where more countries are almost anyone I know -- and he's hardly been anywhere, except in his own imagination. He traveled in his mind.

The world as we know it is huge. To visit all its parts, you'd have to fly on planes and cross oceans and take buses -- which often fall into ravines -- and even hike, with full gear, for the rest of your life. And you still wouldn't have seen everything. You have to make choices. The world of the mind is just as huge, maybe huger; you have to make choices as to what you read, what you study.

And that doesn't even take into consideration the world of nature, which you also can't live long enough to see all of or being to understand. From microscopic life to black holes -- with giant trees and endangered frogs in between, not to mention us humans -- you can't, in one lifetime, explore that great unknown. That's why scientists limit themselves to the in-depth study of only one or a few things -- often something as seeimingly insignificant as a particular kind of worm or fly or even microbe. Of course that doesn't mean that don't also enjoy a good movie or a meal out of a novel from time to time, not to mention the company of friends, etc. But they do these other things to varying degrees, depending on how much of their precious time they choose to devote to their professional interests.

Choice. It all comes down to choice. And if you don't make those choices yourself -- and aren't aware you're making them -- they'll just happen anyway. You're going to spend a certain amount of time on this planet -- how much of it is spent doing what you choose to do and seeing what you choose to see is up to you.

Take the job of President. He (no she yet) is probably the most powerful person in the world. But he has only a window on the world, too. Granted it's a much bigger window, but it's still not a clear and complete depiction of the whole world at any given time. It was already constructed for him, and when you consider what he has to give up for that view -- time for friends and family, time to read what he wants, time alone -- I'm sure that when his term is over he'll be glad to give it up and build his own window.

Just like the rest of us. We all have to craft the window through which we see the world -- the world around us, the world above and below us, the world inside us. We can try to make it as wide as possible, or we can make it small and put in magnifying glass that lets us see deeper but which cuts out most everything on the periphery.

I guess a case could be made that the astronauts have had a view of the whole world (at least one side of it). They all commented on the beauty of the earth, its blues and greens and whites, but of course what they couldn't see from that altitude was the abundance of life down here, which is the most interesting thing about the planet.

So pick your piece of the puzzle. Decide what part of this immensity you want to study, which is important to you. It may just be your job and your family. You may want to tune out the news of the world. Or you may only be interested in news items that further your cause. In any case, if you don't think the world view you currently have is sufficient, head on down to the hypothetical hobby store and pick out the frame through which you want the world presented to you. Choose carefully: you'll see nothing beyond the borders.

Remember to get the biggest one you can afford. And keep the glass clean.















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You kill spiders or you don't.

My children are afraid of spiders. They see them as intuders into our livng space. I see them as defenders of our space, eating the bugs that would otherwise invade us and take us over. They stomp on them when they see them, while I let them run free, knowing that they're eating the very bugs we want to keep out of our houses.

Granted, spiders are scary-looking. They have eight legs and lots of eyes and don't look anything like us or our friends. But, in their own way, they are on our side. They're out to eat all the bugs we don't want to get into our pantries, our flour or corn meal or whatever. They take out those mites before they can replicate. Sure, they look strange, but they don't do much harm as they scurry across the floor in search of food. And they don't ever look up to us, the humans, for direction -- or mercy.

They exist on a level below ours, eating the bugs that would otherwise be not just in our food but all over our silverware and spatulas. Because of the spiders, our bug count is down, house by house, depending on whether we kill them or not.

So why do so many of us kill them? Stomp them? Swat them? Fear them?

I think we've all heard horror stories about spiders biting people -- remember that movie, Arachnophobia? Spooky but pretty unrealistic. I'm pretty sure most of us have never known anyone who has been bitten by a spider. Yes, it happens, but it's rare.

Come on, admit it: It's because they look so strange -- all those legs and no face. And a propensity for building webs that trap insects. Hey, everyone has to eat, right?

Think about this: lots of our fellow humans are weird-looking, too, but we don't swat them. We tolerate them, if not actually valuing them. Why not the spider?

He or she hides from us -- as if expecting the random swat or stomp -- and eats unwanted bugs, so why not leave him or her alone? They're so tiny -- even the biggest of them -- and so soft and vulnerable. Do we get some pleasure out of squishing them? (That speaks to something in us, not them, don't you think?)

I encounter one occasionally in the bathtub. How he/she got there I can't imagine, but he/she has no way out. The spider happened into the tub but can't climb the slick walls to get back out. And here I am about to turn on the water, which will mean immediately death by drowning.

What do I do? Well, I tear off some toilet paper and try to pick him/her up. It takes a while, but usually I can do it, without squashing the poor thing, and then I toss it, along with the paper, onto the floor behind me. More often than not, the spider survives and scrambles away. Once in a while, it stays crumpled up on the floor: I've killed it. I didn't mean to. But how can you rescue an animal that doesn't know you're trying to rescue it and that has no exo-skeleton to protect it? Picking up a spider with toilet paper is not easy. Venturing into the bathtub often means sure death for a spider.

As I said, I'm a defender of spiders. They have their place in the natural order of things. They eat bugs. And just like the guys who collect your trash, or the morticians who deal with your dead, it's not a job you (or I) want, but it's a necessary one.

Why not just get out of their way and let them do their work?

Maybe you're a killer of spiders but nothing else. You harbor a certain fear/hatred/repulsion that -- like Garfield the cat in the popular cartoon strip -- provokes you to swat them or step on them, often feeling good about yourself for having done so (at least Garfield feels that way). Do you also fear and kill bees and wasps and ants -- all of whom serve a natural fuction and are not much more likely to bite or sting you than spiders? Do you kill them, too? If so, why? If not, why not?

Back to spiders. I think we have a problem with them because they're creepy looking and move in a slow, ominous way on all those legs. And no, they have no face, unless you want to count all those eyes. But have you ever seen the face of an ant up close? At least as surrealistic as a spiders: all chomping parts and no soul. Same for a wasp. For my part, I think a spider has more personality than either an ant or a wasp or a bee: often it seems more deliberate in its actions, not just programmed by nature to follow a certain scent trail or built-in behavior. A spider makes choices.

Maybe that's why I value spiders more than some other lowly creatures, despite their appearance: they seem to be more complicated. Not human, not by a long shot, but moving through their lives -- across our floors, in and out of shadows and crevices -- with real thought (or what passes for it on that level), sizing up situations -- do I run or do I stay? do I venture out onto that web to see if that creature is really sewn up? -- before just scattering like cockroaches or buzzing away like bees. Spiders, like humans, take their time.

My overall theory regarding other creatures is "live and let live". If you don't threaten me, I'll leave you alone. In fact, as with spiders, I may even appreciate you. I'm always reluctant to interfere with the natural order of things for no good reason.

If you bite me, though, or sting me, then it's every man and bug for himself!

Teach your kids sports.

You don't have to be good at sports yourself to expose your kids to them. You may have been a klutz who couldn't catch or throw or kick a ball, but that's no reason to deny your kids the opportunity to give sports a try.

In the first place, you don't have to be the person who will train your kid. It's okay if you weren't good at sports yourself: there are coaches in all communities, and all schools, for whatever level.

Why should you do this? Because you never know what your kid may be good at. You may come from a family of intellectuals or couch potatoes, but you may have a kid who is really good at running or throwing or shooting baskets. You may wonder where he/she came from, but the fact that he/she spends hours doing something you never did ought to give you a clue.

But that's just about the budding athlete, who should be encouraged to pursue his/her dream of playing in the big leagues.

I'm talking about the average child who may or may not show any interest in sports. Encourage them! Why? Because it helps them develop physically, for one. When the schools eliminated Physical Education (P.E.), because of budget cuts, they did themselves, and us, a disservice. Kids need to be active. They need to run and jump and throw balls and compete. It's a big part of growing up. It's also a preventive approach to staving off the sedentary lifestyle that leads us to obesity in later life. Learn to be active when you're young, and you're less likely later to get fat later in life.

It's also helpful for kids to know the basics of our most popular sports. If your kid can shoot baskets or play softball or bowl or even run around a track, he or she is more likely to fit in with a later group of fellow workers or colleagues who do the same. I've been to company picnics that featured softball games or volley-ball tournaments or even just foot races, and there were always those who had to stand on the sidelines, not knowing how to do any of those things. They stood out, and not in a good way. Management notices who participates and who doesn't.

Learning the basics of our most popular sports, whether we're any good at any of them or not, gives us a leg up on those who don't. If you can join a group who wants to ride bikes, you may have the advantage over someone who can't. If you can hold your own at second base in a softball game, you may look better to your boss than someone who stands on the sidelines, cheering on the company team.

And, besides, sports can be fun! I learned to toss horseshoes and got pretty good at it. And once in a while, someone wants to throw them, and I'm right in there. Putt-putt golf? I can putt with the best of them! I'm thinking of taking up disc-golf, which I understand involves throwing those things we used to call Frisbees at targets on a course very much like a golf course. Why not? It's easy, it's fun, and hey, I may be pretty good at it!

Teach your kids sports, or at least expose them to sports. You don't have to do the work. All you have to do is let them do it. They may like some and not others. But if they know how to do the basic ones, they'll never be at a loss at the company picnic or even the family gathering. And, who knows, they may get really good at one!

Life is hard and often tedious. Sports -- physical activity for short -- is a diversion from all that. And it can be rewarding in its own right. Have you ever been to a driving range? You pay a few bucks, and they give you a bucket of golf balls, and you whack them as hard as you can. Very therapeutic. And good exercise to boot.

Your child may be a prodigy on the cello or the violin, or the computer, but if he or she knows the basics of baseball or who is playing in the Super Bowl, he or she will be better able to fit in with peers and the society as a whole.

Sports are not just about doing something with your body. They're part of the good life. Good for your kids. And you too.

If you don't like to travel, you're not aone.

America is a travel-crazy nation. We live in a wide espanse of almost any kind of country anyone could want, from Western coastline to Eastern coastline, and everything in between, but we are, as a group, always looking to travel to places we haven't seen but have just heard of, and we have the means to make it happen. We Americans have money and want to see the world.

And some of us are meant to travel: we are born with our bags packed. It's a truly American kind of thing. We know our country was only lately settled -- long after those of much of the rest of the world -- and we can't wait to see where civilization, as we know it, actually started. We're lured, by books and by our own imaginations, to want to see the pyramids of Egypt, the wild animal savannas of Africa, the ancient cities of Europe, the mysterious capitals of Asia, and on and on. Catch a cheap airfare to anywhere, and we're on our way!


I think it goes back to WW One, and then again in WW Two, when American soldiers saw Paris for the first time. Well, that was the end of barnyard innocence, don't you think? Those freed Parisian girls jumping up on tanks to kiss American boys? Don't you think that moment stayed with lots of those boys?


Women have probably always wanted to travel, but it's when men decided to travel, too, that we all started to go everywhere, as couples. We Americans have been travelling ever since.

But some of us, the stay-at-home types, aren't so enamored of overseas travel. Maybe we've done it and experienced the difficulties -- with visas or jet lag or just small rooms in Paris -- or maybe we just dread it, but we're not as eager to pack up everything for a whirlwind tour of various cities that we think we sort of know by reading about those places. For instance, I'm not sure I need to endure the dust and heat of Egypt -- and the possible terrorist attack -- just to see the ruins I've seen before in National Geographic and have fixed in my mind. And if I'm into lying on a beach, why not do it in Miami or California instead of one of those have-to-fly-to islands? And why not have a big city nearby in case you bored lying on the frigging beach?
Why not just vacation here at home, where you can load everything in the car and not worry about visas?

Yeah, yeah, but I'm being a spoilsport. Lots of us really do like to venture afar for our vacation entertainment. And to those people, I say "Go for it!" You obviously need some new stimulus to keep yourselves entertained. And you love airports and the idea of going somewhere far off.

But some of us don't. It's not that we don't want to see anything new; it's that we don't like the whole travel experience. Again, the airports. But also living out of a suitcase. Trying to find some shop in a foreign country where you can buy toothpaste or booze. Feeling like a rube because you don't speak the language -- or like an "ugly American" for insisting that everyone speak English.

Some of us are rooted where we are and like it. We may like to venture beyond our bounds once in a while -- maybe even overseas, if need be -- but we're most comfortable at home, in our own town, knowing the rules and the roads. A vacation to some of us is just time alone, where we are.

Personally, I like to take road trips, where you load up the car with everything you think you'll need, and driving to places in this country where you know everyone speaks the language and where you'll be able to find anything you need -- and you don't have to worry about drinking the water. I think America is the least explored continent for most Americans.

But that's just me. I'm a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to travel. I do envy all those who yearn to see the whole world, but I've traveled enough to know that it's a great big hassle and, in the end, maybe or maybe not worth the effort. Do I need to see the Taj Mahal? Probably not, as I've seen it, endlessly, in photos and documentaries. Do I need to know how the poor of India live? Maybe I should, but I don't want to. What in the world do I need to see with my own eyes that I haven't already seen via the marvelous media I have available to me?

Yes, I'm that curmudgeon who is happy at home, reading books and sucking down Scotch, imagining myself driving out to Maine someday to catch lobsters in pots, walking the shoreline of Cape Cod, or maybe standing on a rocky coast in Oregon as the wind whips in and the waters threaten to engulf me. I'm that guy who would rather load the car and explore America than spend days getting a passport to stand in line to go to Indonesia and have my bags searched or, at worst, lost, just to see how people worse off than me live while pretending to be impressed by the temples the ruling classes built for themselves.

And beaches? They're everywhere. Lie on one in Thailand, and you've lain on them all. A beach is a beach.

I love the life of the mind, and my mind has taken me to all parts of the world, minus the hassle.
Give me a weekend car trip to the Grand Canyon any day. Or I might fly to Charleston and rent a car and eat great Southern cooking, then drive up to the Eastern coast to New York and beyond. I like having control of my travels.

It's not that I don't think there are parts of the world I'd love to see that I can't reach by car. I would love to see the cold northern European countries like Norway and Sweden and Denmark. But I have a strong mental image of them -- less the trouble of getting there -- and I'm okay with that. And as far as Africa is concerned: intriguing but way too dangerous and depressing.

Sorry, but I'm an armchair traveler. I go everywhere in my mind, some places in my car, and -- every now and again -- faraway places in a plane. Those last, though, are getting to be fewer and further between.

Hey, some of us are born to roam. Others of us like it where we are. Some have to travel. Some resist it like the plague. Some of us love living out of suitcases. Others want their comforts. It's just who we all are, and, if we're smart, we'll choose mates whose preferences match our own.

Anyone up for a twelve-hour flight to Greece and, once we get there, lots of small boats to take us from one island to the next? Plus all that checking of bags? Not me.

Anyone want to drive to Yellowstone for a weekend, with all our gear in the car? Or take a quick hop to New Orleans for oyster po-boys and some gumbo? Count me in!

Travel is a state of mind. You do it or you don't. Or you do to some extent but not as much as someone else wants to. Again, you have to decide what you're comfortable with and try to pick a mate who shares your predilection. When I first saw New York City, I was amazed. I'd go back there in a minute. Same for San Francisco. London, too, but it was very expensive and hard to get to, and hard to find a place to stay. Paris was beautiful -- but worth the expense? Hmm . . .

I was in Australia when I was young and would love to see it again, but Lord, it's on the other side of the world! I'd be half-dead by the time I got there, and what would I see that I couldn't see here in America? Lots of stuff, of course, but is it worth the trip? For some, obviously. For me, maybe not. (But I'm not ruling it out.)

I know I'm boring to travel addicts, but so are lots of other interesting people who choose to bloom where they're planted, as the saying goes. We're home-grown, for sure, but no less fascinating companions if you get to know us. And we do like to see new places, and are willing to travel to get there, but only truly special places, special to us. Now if you'll excuse me, I lost my place in this book I was reading . . .

Bon voyage!

If you're returning from war, the burden is on you to get back to normal. Sorry about that.

Let's assume you served your country in Iraq or Afganistan. You came back either okay or not. Maybe you suffered some wounds, maybe you didn't. Maybe you're missing a limb or two or your sight. Maybe you got hit in the head with a piece of flying metal and can't remember much of anything. So here you are, back from an experience that's all your own. Trying to take your place in that family and that community you left not that long ago. And ages ago.

You've been through so much that no one in your family or your community can ever understand, despite all their good intentions.

Sure, they welcome you back with balloons and maybe even a parade, but once the noise subsides, so does the interest in you. It all starts with everybody saying, "We honor you for your sacrifice," but as the days and weeks and years wear on, you're looked at as someone who needs to get a job, just like the rest of us. Welcome back to the real world, buddy.

But of course you're not like the "rest of us". Even if you lost no limbs, you may wake up to nightmares which no one else understands. Not even that perfect girl you were coming back home to. She doesn't know you anymore. She gets freaked when you wake up at night for no reason, maybe crying out. But she's never killed anyone. Or ever seen a dead person, except maybe her grandmother laid out in perfect reverence in the funeral home -- not rotting in the sun in a swamp. Not missing limbs and lying on the hot sand. She can't understand how you could have. And what if you're missing a damned foot? Or a whole lot more?

There's this barrier between you and your loved ones that will never be connected. They've lived their lives stateside, and you've lived yours "over there" -- and there's no way to make the two come together. But there it is, and it all depends on you. Since they will never understand what you've been through, it's up to you to figure out how to put that you that was at war behind you and become again the same old you everyone knew before and are hoping to see again.

They can't change themselves in a way that lets them understand you because they haven't had the traumatic experiences you've had; they have no way to re-adjust themselves. They're who they were before and remember you as who were then.

You're alone in realizing that you're not that person anymore. But, for their benefit -- and, in the end, your own -- you need to re-connect with that old you, the you before all that horrible stuff which you think changed you but maybe didn't: maybe you just accepted it at the time and now that you're back in another time, back home, you can let it go. It happened, for sure, but not to the you they all remember and that you can become again, with some time and effort and maybe counseling. Can you do it? Yes, you can. Go back and look at yourself in old photos in your school yearbook, smoke some dope if you need to, have a couple of beers, and re-connect with the you who hadn't killed anyone or seen anyone killed so violently. He's still there, waiting for you.

Every war is an exercise in ignorance. Your military leaders knew no more about where they were sending you than mine did when I went into Viet Nam. But that's all water under the bridge. We're left, you and me, with the knowledge that we've been through war, been tested, and survived. I had to piece it all back together when I came home from the Viet Nam war, knowing that I'd done my best, trying to forget the worst of what I'd seen (and done), trying hard to become a "normal" man again, to re-learn how to fit in and smile and love and all that stuff I'd put on hold for a year or more when I was serving my country.

It's us up you, like it was up to me, like it's always up to the soldiers who make it home again.
Know that you'll have to take upon yourself the awesome task of re-adjusting to a world that went on without you and that may have trouble welcoming you back. You've been to a place your friends and family have never been, and they don't understand. And it's not your job to make them live it all over again with you.

But look on the bright side: You're back home. You're done with that. Thank God! A bad dream. And now you're awake again.

Time to go back to being you again. Go for it!