In 1^st grade she said

“let’s pull out your phonics books.”

In junior high he asked

“why would Orwell write ‘All animals are equal,
but some animals are more equal than others’ ”?¹

In high school she opened a book of Shakespeare plays,
told us to do the same, and in her British-born voice said

“Girls, we must press on!”

Another she, at that same high school, leaned over a wooden lectern
breathlessly describing the Russian Revolution and prompting questions
for us to write on.

In college he brought a turntable to Poetry 201,
slid the vinyl out of Bruce Springsteen’s album “The River”
analyzing with us diction, cadence, connotation, and meaning - implicit and explicit.

In adulthood the psychiatrist (an English major at Harvard)
explained emotional captivity by way of Dostoyevsky,
family systems by nature’s fractals, and resiliency by Greek mythology,

Large language, all.


1. Animal Farm, George Orwell, 1945.

My beloved Uncle Bob just turned 90. As we celebrated this past weekend I heard many stories of how Bob, a retired yet still active priest has affected the lives of others.

One could say well that was his job, right? To be there for others. Yet I have certainly met many people whose stated occupation dictated a set of behaviors they didn’t live up to: a veterinarian who didn’t seem to connect with animals, a psychologist who spent the client’s time talking about herself; a physician who looked at the computer more than the human being sitting in front of him, the junior high school teacher who seemed to actively dislike students, not some of us, but all of us.

It is a refreshing and sustaining thing then, to see a person like my uncle who fully embodies the work he is called to do. Who 64 years into it still finds new, provocative, and inspiring ways to express his liturgical gifts. He genuinely seems to enjoy what he does.

At the birthday mass and party afterwards, Bob was surrounded by people he had known for many decades, as well as by those much newer in their mutual connection. He celebrated with those he had worked with in liturgical music publishing, others he’d met in Central Mexico when learning Spanish through an immersion program; and adults who as children sang in his choirs. Relationship building and keeping – perhaps another secret to a life that satisfies, especially when viewed in retrospect at age 90.

“You can’t give what you don’t have” the adage says. So what is the source of my uncle’s spiritual and creative generosity? I can only describe what I have observed. He has had a practice of rising early, for prayer and spiritual reading. He has also, over the years, made regular visits to Hawaii, where my aunt and her family lived, gone on retreats, and periodically escaped to a friend’s house on Lake Michigan in southern Indiana. I went with him once, many years ago, late in the fall. We sat inside by a fire, watching the immense grey waves crash onto the beach. He proclaimed something in Spanish and then translated it: “How good it is to do nothing and afterwards, to rest.” Strategies for inner replenishment are essential if one is to not flame out from relentless giving.

I once asked my uncle what I was like as a small child. “You were evenly disposed,” he said. By which he meant steady, perhaps upbeat. I would describe him the same way. Parish priests, at their best, are with people from cradle to grave and every unexpected turn and tragedy along the way. In a lifetime of accompanying others and giving comfort through unspoken presence and spoken words, Bob has expressed the power of stability. His capacity to abide is to me, evidence of God’s graciousness.

In the New Testament the apostle Luke writes of the walk to Emmaus, where Cleopas and another man encounter the risen Jesus. Their hearts are so lifted by his presence that they say “Stay with us.” (Luke 24:29)

I want to say the same to my Uncle Bob. But all I can do is appreciate walking on the road with him for all these years.

For many of us our lives are increasingly feeling like a never-ending state of emergency not only in the U.S. but in places worldwide. Or as poet Christopher Logue brilliantly put it: “All day permanent red.”

If you are not directly contending with violence or sudden upheaval, you may, like me, be living with the threat of it, thrumming in the background as we attempt to live our lives, albeit in a fragmented manner. In this raw and relentless environment, I find myself wishing for capacities I do not have. Humor under duress, for example.

About a month ago, I was reading a book of daily Christian reflections and listed on February 16 was an excerpt from Alexei Navalny, Russian dissident and political prisoner (1976-2024). What’s he doing here? I wondered. As it happened, that is the day Navalny died in a Siberian prison camp.

I had read Navalny’s memoir, published just after he died in 2024. His book – Patriot- was not only enthralling and disturbing, but also very funny. It opens with his description of being poisoned on a flight from Moscow to Tomsk, Siberia.

“Dying really didn’t hurt. If I hadn’t been breathing my last, I would never have stretched out on the floor next to the plane’s toilet. As you can imagine, it wasn’t exactly clean… I am dying looking at a wall. The voices become indistinct, and the last words I hear are the woman shouting, ‘No, stay awake, stay awake.’ Then I died.
Spoiler alert: actually, I didn’t”

I have always marveled at people who retain and even sharpen their humor in situations of high pressure and high stakes. The characters Hawkeye and Trapper in the 1970s television show M*A*S*H come to mind – joking while bombs are falling outside their makeshift surgery tent: “Radar, whatever it is, sign it, cancel it, or order five more.”

And who came up with the one-liner: “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” In a horrible situation whatever wit I have feels inaccessible. But what a brilliant defense. Laughter triggers endorphins, a naturally-occurring hormonal offset to the cortisol that floods our bodies in stressful situations.

I sometimes wonder how Christianity would have unfolded if Jesus had made people laugh and in doing so, jolted them to a new level of feeling and camaraderie. Maybe he did. But the Biblical narratives reveal instead a mystical and earnest person.

A therapist once told me she believed that babies enter the world with an internal blueprint – a divine design holding specific capacities and gifts. Further, she felt that our life’s work is building on that blueprint.

Humor in adversity is one such gift, and one I wish that I had. Instead of becoming brittle I long to rise above the terribleness of situations and not only laugh but unlock the tension that others hold by making them laugh.

Alexei Navalny was an attorney who was not only well-educated but always reading. In the Siberian prison he was at one point confined to one book – the Holy Bible. I cannot discern if he was atheist, agnostic, or religious in any sense. Yet he wrote:

“I have always thought… that being a believer makes it easier to live your life… Faith makes life simpler… My job is to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else… As they say in prison here: they will take my punches for me.”

Jesus and the rest in the boxing ring with us. I rather like that.

More on “Patriot” from its back cover:
“His prison diaries, seen here for the first time, reflect a man who, even when placed in the most excruciating of circumstances, displayed undiminished spirit and commitment, and serve as a startling reminder of why the principles of individual freedom matter.
Written with the passion, wit, candor, and bravery for which Navalny was justly acclaimed, Patriot is a rousing call to continue the work for which he sacrificed his life.”

Officer, my eyes
aren’t what they used to be

No, I did not see
the porcupine.
I mean I did, but I didn’t. You see,
I thought it was the quilled-up hair of my
nephew, who never speaks to me,
anymore.
I was wanting to catch his eye
Too late.

The orange cones before that?
Why yes
I did see them, but I didn’t. You see,
I thought they were the Rockies, glowing in the sunrise
The very first time I saw them I was 20
It was early dawn, we were barreling in from Nebraska
our blue station wagon the only car on the road
the land so open it was exhilarating
but in a quiet kind of way
I wanted a closer look

My license?
Why yes, here it is. Here is my husband’s too.
He’s gone now but wasn’t he handsome?
Come to think of it, he never got stopped by an officer.

Step out of the car? And come with you? I have
an errand yet to do
About 15 miles north of
this very spot is our old farm
Our dog is buried there, by
the stream. I visit him
every week.
Would you happen to have some coffee?

They are men mostly, on the government payroll, fully benefitted
with a $50,000 sign on bonus,
cruising in dark SUVs and never alone,
for protection.

Waddling around in lethal layers of camo
faces masked, with canisters of tear gas and
the biggest guns I’ve ever seen.

The weapons used to murder Rachel Nicole Good and Alex Pretti
on the streets of Minneapolis.
And there are so many others whose names
we do not know, dying in detention
from stress levels that blow out the human coping system.

Have you seen their gas masks?
Some vendor somewhere is making bank
on the grotesque black helmets that protect and serve
the real domestic terrorists,
who brandish their weapons
and run away from the blood-splattered snow
forever stained by their unrestrained violence.

We are unarmed and standing up,
Shouting out for the rule of law,
and due process, and the Constitutional right to voice dissent.
To protect, and serve the most vulnerable
Which in truth, is all of us
Even the gas-masked men.

That first visit was early fall. We stayed overnight at a local motel very near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, which we planned to see before dawn the next day.

We rose early, putting on layers of clothing and warm hats. My mom suggested taking blankets, so we grabbed those too. Always a careful driver, my mother navigated our car along the empty roadway of the National Park. Dense and dark pine trees stood silently in stucco-colored earth. Pine cones and scattered rock clusters were seemingly everywhere. Side paths off the main road marked places for parking, and paths for walking closer to the Rim.

After parking, wrapped in heavy blankets, we walked towards the Canyon. Close to the edge, we sat down cross-legged on smooth grey boulders. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was already pink, glowing with first light.

We waited. I pulled my hat tighter. It was really quite cold. We did not speak. An immense silence closed in on us. Minutes passed, I don’t know how many. Then, a sound I had never heard:

shwih shwih swihshhhhhh

Again, but this time louder.

shwih shwih swihshhhhhh shiwhhhh

My mom and I looked at each other and then, out to the ledge. Suddenly, a large black crow rose above the rim, so close to us we could see its eyes and the beating of its wings. The bird was flying, then gliding, on the air currents rising from the bottom of the canyon. Our black companion hung in the air, buffeted by the wind. The bird looked ancient, yet timeless, “going nowhere, in plenty of time” in the words of Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday.

Canyon de Chelly National Monument - Navajo Nation

Not long after, on a different visit, my mom and I drove northeast from Prescott to Chinle, Arizona, the town closest to the Canyon de Chelly National Monument.

Situated in the far northeast corner of the state, Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “Canyon du Shay”) lies at the center of the Navajo Nation. My mom again was at the wheel. As we travelled, the topography changed from the crisp, high-elevation beauty of Sedona and Flagstaff to flat, parched scrubland. The clear bright sun and a turquoise blue sky could not hide the dwellings in disrepair with broken, sun-bleached cars parked out front. Whereas I felt a growing sense of desolation, of deprivation, my mom said she loved the landscape, that she had been to Chinle and Canyon de Chelly several times before.

Arriving to the park, we checked into the Thunderbird Lodge, a rustic motel with cafeteria run by the National Park Service. After a dinner of frybread with traditional toppings we walked from the lodge to an overlook near the rim of the extensive, gently winding canyon.

The beauty of Canyon de Chelly is more muted, in part because of its smaller size. Canyon de Chelly is 131 square miles compared to the nearly 2,000 square miles of the Grand Canyon. Its sandstone cliffs and spires are more human-scale and the pueblos and petroglyphs are not readily visible and accessible only by Park Service jeep tours.

And so we sat on a lawn of dried grass just outside the lodge, with our eyes on the rim. We did not speak. The sun had set, yet the sky was lit with soft stripes of orange and rose. Cream colored clouds surrounded us. The quiet was immense. Directly across from us, a full moon began to rise. We gazed at the moon in silence. Then, the sound of bells tinkling began. Where was it coming from? We could not tell. The gentle sound grew louder still.

Suddenly, just to our right, a flock of sheep emerged, poking their heads up from the rim, then moving their wooly bodies up and over the ledge, ambling towards us. Each had a bell around its neck. Following them was an elderly Navajo woman, walking with a big wooden stick, head down, as if in thought. Her skirts were paisley and very colorful. If she noticed us, she did not let on. The woman and her sheep continued past us.

The next morning, we travelled to the depths of Canyon de Chelly on an amphibious vehicle with a Navajo guide. Creeping along the riverbed saw where the Navajo had lived and farmed – places inhabited by indigenous people for over 5,000 years. At one juncture we stopped under a grove of willow trees. The sky had clouded up, and a roaring mesquite fire kept us warm. Colorful blankets were spread on the ground and on them, Navajo artisans showed their jewelry and pottery.

At one time the Canyon was so verdant that the Navajo grew peach trees, along with other crops. But these were slashed and burned, and the people living there starved, captured and forced out, if not killed, by Kit Carson’s siege of Canyon de Chelly in 1864. The attack marked the start of the Long Walk relocation of the Navajo peoples from their homeland to current-day New Mexico.

To visit the Navajo homeland was a privilege. It was there I could feel the tribe’s resilience through time, against forces set against their survival. Beauty endures, even in a desert.

FOL
Fear of Losing
FOW
Fear of Winning
FONHFOMO
Fear of not having FOMO
FOBO
Fear of Being Overwhelmed
FOCAB
Fear of Conventionality and Banality
FOF
Fear of Fear
FOCF
Fear of Cooking Fish
FODYFLM
Fear of discovering your friend likes MAGA
FODIH
Fear of disappearing into housework
FOBJ
Fear of being judged
for not doing housework
for cooking terrible fish

Some of my best memories take place in kitchens.

As a child I’d walk across the street to visit our Italian neighbors, Ann and Silk. What I most remember is the bright yellow kitchen. Ann would answer the door, wearing black cat-eye glasses and a red bandana around her head. She’d smile and pull me into the kitchen where we chatted as she worked. Her kitchen windows faced west, and sunlight filled the room. A pot of beans would be simmering Sometimes her husband Silk answered the door. His lean, tall figure loomed in the doorway, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He’d squint at me and always asked me the same question: “What do ya want?!” I would hear Ann shouting – “Oh Silk, let her in.”

Maybe my love of the kitchen is genetic. My Grandpa Hal proudly prepared his signature dish - stewed tomatoes and fried eggs - in a tiny galley kitchen with black and white tiles. In 1940s Chicago my other grandpa Charles led efforts to organize and advocate for small family grocery stores just as big supermarkets were moving in. When I graduated from college my parents gave me not an engraved pen, not a briefcase, but a Cuisinart food processor.

In the years since, I have gathered and cooked in so many different kitchens. Some gleamed with the latest appliances while others had mismatched dishes and very few utensils. I’ve prepared and shared meals in rectory kitchens, monastery dining rooms, trailer kitchenettes, cozy cabin kitchens, cookie-cutter condo kitchens, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, much more often then I wanted, around a table with just myself and a very large dog who only ate when I did.

Back then, my kitchen experience echoed how it felt to attend church at that time: going through the motions but with too much space, too much quiet, and a noticeable absence of people. As churches grappled with COVID and its variants, fewer people attended. For those who came, even intermittently, we sat in pews spaced far apart, refrained from the sign of peace, and prayed through a mask. Surrounded by a stripped-down sanctuary, it felt like a prolonged Lenten journey with no end in sight. Our altar was altered, and we didn’t know for how long.

What occurred to me then, and has stayed with me since, is this question: What if our kitchens could be satellite sanctuaries? Certainly, the gifts I’ve received in kitchens have been nourishing in ways far beyond the food and drink. What if our kitchens could be sacred space?

In her reflection, “God’s Location,” author Vinita Hampton Wright asks: “Can we bear the glory of an indwelling God? Might we welcome the disruption of God in our mundane thought processes and ordinary conversations? Dare we set another place at our stained and cluttered dinner table?”

How might we see kitchen table as the place where Christ is celebrated?

It starts with invitation. As funny as it sounds, deliberately invite members of your household. If one is living solo, invite a neighbor, friend, or acquaintance. Or much like we deliver communion to the home-bound – prepare enough food to bring to someone in deep need of it. They live closer to you than you might think.

Create a ritual, or two or three, just like church. A set mealtime, phones off and away, a tablecloth. The lighting of candles. A moment to breathe. A designated person to serve water. Preparing and making ready for the “Presentation of the Gifts” which is the presentation of the meal. The food and the drink, the “bread” and the “wine” in all its extraordinary variations. All the while knowing that wherever two or more are gathered, God will be too. Anywhere and everywhere, including your kitchen table.

The place I call home is Minnesota – the “land of 10,000 lakes.” Having grown up in northern Illinois then later living in Wisconsin, I am a native Midwesterner who, over time, has absorbed certain facts, images, and myths about this 32^nd U.S. state.

Fact: Minnesota is only state with a French motto: “L’Etoile du Nord” (The Star of the North). French voyageurs were some of the earliest explorers in the region – traversing the pristine waterways and dense northern forests of the borderlands of the Great Lakes and Canadian provinces.

Images: Before moving here two years ago I associated Minnesota with loons crying out on northern lakes; Scandinavian and Germanic stoicism that endures bitter cold and myriad other pains; “Hot dish” casseroles at potlucks; a largely white place characterized by niceness.

Through his “Prairie Home Companion” radio show, Garrison Keillor played with these elements while also weaving in references to more modern complexity, diversity, and confusion. Yet, he would always end the show with a tale of happenings in his fictitious Minnesota town with the opening phrase: “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon…”

Minneapolis, where I live, is a smaller Chicago, some say, with newer, shinier architecture. For many, it is a highly prosperous place to live. Major corporations are based here and in nearby Saint Paul. Public and private colleges and universities bring vibrant cultural and intellectual capital to the Twin Cities. Friday evenings in early summer through fall, highways north and west of “The Cities” are packed with cars headed to “the cabin” – something it seems a lot of people have, often for generations.

What a wholesome place, you might be thinking. How clean, how safe, how Middle American! Perhaps it was, at one time. Or maybe people who have lived here have wanted to believe it, despite the contradictory evidence that things are continuing to fray. Myths are like that.

It was in May 2020 when the myth of a safe Minneapolis burst apart for the world to see. Ongoing riots and raging crowds called attention to north Minneapolis where George Floyd, a black man, was asphyxiated by a white policeman who knelt on his throat for over nine minutes. For people of color, police violence was not a new occurrence in Minneapolis. But something about this incident, and its capture on a bystander’s phone camera ignited long-held rage not only in Minneapolis but around the world.

When a myth is broken, there’s no going back. Five years later, the Cities seem shell-shocked in many parts and empty downtown storefronts are not unusual. Carjackings are prevalent. The summer I arrived, just blocks away from my home, a young woman was followed in daylight by two men who attacked her, took her keys, and walked back to where she had just parked to steal her car. Meanwhile, steps away, people were sailing, biking, and sunbathing.

Myths can be beautiful. Comforting. Anesthetizing. When shattered, as they now are, the fragments are everywhere – mixed in with the raw and gritty realities they were designed to cover.

The summer of 2025 was incredibly violent. On June 14, Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were assassinated in their home at four in the morning, by an armed man pretending to be a policeman. Another lawmaker, John Hoffman, and his wife Yvette were shot earlier that night by the same man.

On August 27, a midday shooting near Cristo Rey Jesuit High School left one person dead and six others injured when 30 rounds were fired from a high-velocity .223-caliber gun. The next morning, on August 28, a shooter fired into Annunciation Catholic Church during a back-to-school Mass, killing two children and injuring 21 others. What the killer really wanted, we learned later, was to massacre all the kids, but the church doors happened to be locked. So, he rapid-fired bullets through the stained-glass windows instead.

On August 29, we left Minneapolis and headed north and west, to Itasca County and Sugar Lake, for the Labor Day holiday and a break we had planned months earlier. At the two-hour mark, the landscape changed. Thickets of pine trees stood tall and strong while deciduous trees with leaves on the verge of turning orange peeked through. The roadway grew empty, our car the only vehicle. I felt a body-level sense of safety I had not felt since coming to the Cities.

The next morning, I took a yoga class by the lake. A young girl with thick brown braids– perhaps 9 years old – sat on the mat in front of me. She was the same age as many of the kids at Ascension. Next to her, her grandmother sat and stretched. We lay on yoga mats, looking up at an immense blue sky. I could feel the strong, firm earth holding me. The adrenalin in my body subsided with each breath.

Later, I swam in the lake, submerging my head in the cold, clear water. I could have stayed there forever. All was quiet underneath the surface and the tight bands of tension around my head dissolved into the waves.

Lifting myself onto an old wooden dock I sat, looking west onto the lake. I saw a canoe, with two children in it, and it capsized. A child’s voice from the boat called out, loud and clear: “Someone, I need help!” A group of people, young adults, other children, waded and paddled out to the boat quickly, and in unison, their shapes in silhouette in the shimmering light. The boat was righted, the passengers scooped up into caring arms. The group resumed their play, like seals in a sparkling and sunny ocean.

Early the next morning we joined other lake guests for coffee and a pontoon boat ride. Across from us were a girl and boy, in third and fifth grade respectively. I chatted briefly with their mom, learning that like me, they lived in south Minneapolis. (In fact, just blocks away from Ascension.) Did the kids know about what happened, I wondered. If they knew, what were they feeling?

I got to chatting with the young girl, who excitedly told me about Taylor Swift’s engagement. I pointed out the eagles flying overhead and admired her hand-beaded bracelet. We were silent for a good while. Her brother looked half-asleep. As we got up and off the boat the girl said something I could barely hear.

Did she just say Uff da? I asked, smiling at the girl’s mom.
Yes, she learned it from her grandma.

Uff Da is an Upper Midwest expression that has Norwegian origins. It is an all-purpose word used to communicate surprise, dismay, relief, exhaustion, or annoyance.

It got me thinking. What remnants of our histories, in Minnesota and elsewhere, will see us through? How can we imagine and build relationships that are connecting, caring, and calm when our fundamental human need for safety is repeatedly shattered by violence?

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” wrote Frederick Buechner, American writer and theologian. It is hard not to be afraid.

But there are children. In school classrooms. On yoga mats. On slow pontoon boats. Listening always. Not just to what we say, but what we do.

I am the farthest thing from an adrenaline junkie. Yet somehow, in the span of a week, I mega-binge-watched 15 episodes of The Pitt, an emergency room drama set in an urban Pittsburgh hospital. (R. Scott Gemmill created the series, which is executive produced by John Wells and Noah Wyle.)

Lead attending physician, Dr. Michael Rabinovitch “Dr. Robby” is played by actor Noah Wyle. For those who remember ER and Wyle’s breakout role as young resident Dr. John Carter, the show stands in stark contrast. The Pitt shows an overwhelmed, underfunded health care system just emerging from the pandemic whose staff is confronting social, emotional, and physical stressors that are more dark, more raw, and more relentless than anything ER ever portrayed.

So why in God’s name did I spend close to 15 hours watching it? I think it has everything to do with Dr. Jack Abbott (played by Shawn Hatosy), Robby’s peer and sidekick who works the night shift. He appears in the first episode and again only in the final two episodes.

I am not alone in my affection for him and what he inspires in the people around him. One fan has created a mashup of Jack Abbot scenes, captioned with the qualities he emanates: Dr. Jack Abbot being our favorite ER Cowboy.

In a beginning scene, Abbot stands on the roof of the hospital, having just finished his shift, presumably getting some air yet standing very near the edge of the roof. When Robby arrives and talks with him it’s apparent that suicide was on his mind. The men talk, and descend back into the ER where Robby introduces Abbott to a group of new interns saying: “Ignore him, he had a rough night and is having an ongoing existential crisis.” Abbot turns to the interns and says: “Don’t worry, you’ll get there soon enough.”

To an environment requiring uber confidence and command, Abbott also brings collaboration – teaching and encouraging the interns, offering opportunities, giving needed context and acting as a bold and badass mentor. His eye contact and attunement to the emotional state of those around him is quick and laser-focused. Abbot’s competency with and commitment to those in pain pull him back from the ledge, literally and metaphorically.

As a combat vet and survivor, it becomes apparent that his wounds are both physical and emotional. And yet, he has somehow, some way surfaced above his own pain to serve others in greater need than him. It could so easily have gone the other way. I know of people – cousins, co-workers, famous folks who seemed to have had it all who in the end could not withstand the pain. It took them down. I bet you know some people too.

War zones, traumatic experiences and other dark places on life’s journey contain a strange momentum that seeks to strip away our humanity. However, through the messy work of pushing back, enduring, slogging, persisting, call it what you will, a new sensitivity to and service to our own humanity and that of other people emerges.

Jack: “You know me, I prefer working nights.”
Robby: “You’re not sick of working nights yet?”
Jack: “My therapist thinks I find comfort in the darkness”

After Donald Trump’s first term as U.S. President he never really left. Since 2020 his nonsense-filled and lying presence was always on display. On television. In the courtroom. Online. You could not escape it.

In People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, the late psychologist M. Scott Peck observed that “Lying is simultaneously one of the symptoms and one of the causes of evil, one of the blossoms and one of the roots.” And “the central defect of the evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it. Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it.”

We have been awash in lies, from Trump and his supporters.

Now, barely a week into his second term, Trump and his appointees, with their Project 2025 playbook, have already destabilized individuals, communities, institutions, and the very architecture of democracy. In short, Donald Trump is a toxic chaos agent intent on destroying everything he touches, whether his supporters and voters want to admit that or not.

Donald Trump’s record of criminality and abuse that continues to this day affects all of us. If your body holds anxiety, if you have difficulty sleeping, if you feel at turns enraged and yet frozen, you are not alone. And it makes sense, as an abuser is pummeling us. If you can compartmentalize and tune him out, I will not congratulate you, though I do understand you.

Trump’s relentless and repetitive spew of words are in turn dark, cruel, crude, and often straight up lies. Yet the sheer volume of Trump’s vindictive statements, choices and actions threaten to numb out anyone who is awake to what is happening. So, for those of you who are awake, you have my respect and solidarity. I am with you.

If you have experienced trauma through abuse (and many of us have) you will recognize the signs of an abuser and more importantly, their effect on you and the environment they enter and dominate. You will recognize the cruel and crude putdowns; a pattern of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, with a pervasive threat of more to come; living with sheer unpredictability, never knowing what will come next and when. A growing sense of degradation and powerlessness on a personal and community level.

Adding to the psychic burden we neither asked for nor deserve is the role of the denier, and the collaborator. These are people who held power to hold the abuser to account, and who choose not to. The U.S. Congress. The voters who chose Trump. The Supreme Court. The list goes on. Their denial and abdication of their power to stop the perpetrator inflicts another layer of psychic violence that is often covert yet supremely damaging.

For those of us who have fought hard to heal from abuse it is enraging to be put upon once more with the same dynamic – and this time on a national and global scale. Trump continues to speak of America as a bleak, dystopian, and violent place. What I really think he is describing is the inside of his head. You see, abusers are experts at projecting their wounds and their darkness on to others. But they are not ours to take. I say no.

Enough is enough.

In December 2018 a play I wrote was performed by students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was called From Object to Subject: Vaclav Havel on Politics, Democracy and Hope.

An esoteric subject? Perhaps. But Havel as a writer and as a leader inspires me greatly. The play has an introduction. Notes really, on why Havel, and why this play.

It seems timely to bring it to you again, now.

AUTHOR’S NOTE
It was two years ago, just after the U.S. Presidential election of 2016 that I ran across the phrase “the power of the powerless” – the title of one of Vaclav Havel’s earliest essays.  It was a provocative juxtaposition. (This trailer from a documentary of the same name gives a preview of Havel and the “Velvet Revolution.”)

During the election and the long build-up that preceded it, I sensed that tremendous forces were at play in the American political arena. Complex economic, cultural, and global crosscurrents seemed amplified through a mind-boggling array of technology and media platforms. Such a landscape dwarfed the quaint image of individual citizens casting their votes by coloring in ovals at libraries, town halls and other polling sites. Powerless? Oh yes.

I am not a political scientist, nor do I consider myself especially political. Even so, I will be forever grateful that I discovered Vaclav Havel. He is perhaps best known as President of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). Yet Havel was much more than this. In his life as a playwright, artist, and political dissident Havel wrote plays, manifestos, essays, and speeches on topics still very pertinent to our current time.

What I find so inspiring is Havel’s deep humanism. He observed that political systems have the potential to dehumanize and freeze us into submission. In such systems withdrawing from community can seem the safer option. But Havel would say that is precisely the wrong answer.

Vaclav Havel was a man of hope in a country and at a time that seemingly offered no possibility of change. Havel believed that each of us has power to make a fundamental choice: to be an “object “of external events or a “subject” capable of thought and action based always on truth. His insights, courage and love inspired many and continue to do so today.

My lived experience reveals that the first step in solving a problem is naming it. But what happened Tuesday November 5 with the election of Donald Trump (again) and his crony JD Vance defies naming.

For their part, this election, and its leadup, were not and were never intended to be a display of policy positions and priorities for the voting public to evaluate. Instead, both Trump and Vance and their many surrogates lied repeatedly. When called out for lying, they freely admitted it.

JD Vance, for example, was criticized for spreading the lie that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs. Vance admitted that he knew this wasn’t true but refused to say so to keep the migrant issue in the public eye.

The problem here is, there was no issue. Haitians are lawfully living in Springfield. But that’s the point. Truth doesn’t matter to what now passes for the Republican party.

You may remember inauguration day of Trump’s first administration when dead-eyed spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway defended the press secretary’s use of “alternate facts.” That is to say, lies.

What’s more, in this election cycle many Trump supporters admitted they knew they were being lied to, but they continued with their support. If so much hadn’t been at stake I would call this a head-scratcher. But because so much was at stake, it was terrifying. And for good reason. As now we have a president-elect who is deeply corrupt, criminally convicted, mentally unhinged and vindictive. The vice-president elect has shown himself to be politically ruthless, cruel, and misogynist.

I still don’t know what to call the dynamics that created this election outcome. It defies naming.

Quite often, metaphors help me unpack concepts I want to understand.  So let’s go with “house.” Think of our government, our constitution, our rule of law as a house that protects us, and that we have ownership of.

Then imagine this:
A travelling salesman, sloppy but charismatic, holds forth in a neighborhood, where owners are standing in front of their homes. He shouts in a strangely hypnotic up-then-down cadence:

“I’m going to burn down all of your houses, collect the insurance proceeds and skedaddle, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. In fact the insurers and the fire department are getting their cut too.”

As he rants, the owners rant back: “burn them down!  burn them down! burn them down!” Somehow the owners miss the fact that these are their houses, they’ll not get a dime, and they’ll lose everything.

The salesman shambles away, smiling to himself. Suckers!

This dark and depraved scene captures what just happened in the presidential election. Moreover, the ways in which the 2024 Republican campaign (if you can call it that) unfolded was in stark contrast to what many Americans in both parties hold to be true:

• that fact-based objective reality exists and it is not subject to debate

• that truth matters

• that there are moral and behavioral boundaries that should be defended; there must be real-world repercussions for lying, verbal violence, physical violence, sexual violence, and the scapegoating of individuals and groups of people

• that people seeking leadership roles and the privilege of elected power are not exempt from any of the above

How can we respond, resist, defend, and uphold the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, civil discourse and repercussions for violence and criminality?

I intend to get to work and find out, and I hope you will too. You will be needed.

Once she was new
my blue steed,
coming to me in 1997
Both of us riding the rainy streets of Portland
Where darkness came early
and her headlight shone
Slow was fast, with her.

We travelled east, that bike and I
to Madison where her saddlebag was a white plastic milk crate
lashed to the fender with a striped bungee cord,
holding down binders, books, a thermos
cantering through neighborhood streets
as her rider rushed to class
and after, cruising back home,
the streets dark again, her lights flashing red in back, white in front
If she had had hooves they would have been clopping,
steady on girl, we’ll get where we’re going.

A silver stallion joined us in 2007
A different breed altogether
In certain light her frame looked pale lavender,
Skinny by design, made for speed and long-distance riding.

More than once she bucked me off:
When I geared down too fast,
or the times I kept my bike shoe clipped into the pedal
just seconds too long
She was a  bronco of a bike that I needed to handle with care
and when I didn’t, I ended up on the ground, looking up at her.

She almost never travelled alone, preferring the passel
of other bikes and their riders
on early weekend mornings with gears clicking
and conversation floating in the summer air
 as we passed faded red barns,
small country churches,  interminable fields of cows and
red wing blackbirds atop cattails, that wheeled overhead
as we approached.

Colors fade from weather and sun
Yet with enough chain oil and annual checkups
Both blue and silver bikes were aging well.

When not tasked with riding
they hung out in the garage
on a metal rack high above the ground
easing the weight from their rims
resting, as older things tend to do.

A year ago they rode in tandem
on the back of my car, headed for Minneapolis
Another garage, this one locked
Gentle riding now, and more rest.

A month ago both were stolen from that locked garage
Lifted off, by who knows who.

I called my bike shop to retrieve serial numbers for the police report.

The technician expressed sympathy
He knows what bikes mean
Their design so simply elegant, yet functional,
requiring only human presence and a spirit  of pedal-adventure.

Bikes don’t surprise you
They just are
Steady as she goes
Unlike life
Unlike me
But people can surprise,
with their ugliness and
their greed.

“Here's what you do,” his voice dropping to a whisper.
“Scan Facebook and Craigslist. If you find the bikes, go
with a friend and ask for a test ride
Check the serial number. If it matches, steal it back.”

Imagining the scene I savored the revenge
Of claiming back what was mine
But so far, it is only that – imagination.

On foot now, I trudge the neighborhood daily with my pup
No longer riding, gliding and wheeling
like those red-wing blackbirds.

By training, I am a marketing and communications professional. Consequently, I’m always keen on discerning what lies beneath messaging and what the intent and effect may be.

So, with my jaded eyes I note that Google is launching Project Astra – its AI Assistant. (You can see it in action here.) The teaser copy says: “it's easy to envision a future where people could have an expert AI assistant by their side, through a phone or glasses.” After watching the clip and its cadence of human/AI interaction what I envisioned is a world where people become more technology-dependent and less dependent on their own brain. And this is good news? 

Shiny AI marketing aside, follow me here and think for a moment about flywheels. A flywheel business model is a cyclical growth model often visualized as a heavy wheel that takes effort to start, but once in motion, it maintains its momentum and continues to spin at very high speed. “Remember the words ‘unstoppable momentum’ when you think of Flywheels” wrote researcher and business consultant Jim Collins in his book Turning the Flywheel.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the level we’re seeing today is very much like that. The initial slow turn of the AI flywheel can be seen in the 1980s Terminator movie franchise in which Skynet- an AI system- is deployed to destroy humanity. What was once dystopian entertainment is now penetrating virtually every aspect of our lives – and the digital ecosystem we all rely on to navigate life in the 21^st century.

What’s my beef with AI? For starters, there’s the problem of the Black Box. AI programs are fed massive data sets culled from the internet and human “trainers.” ChatGPT, for example contains more than 500 billion words from the Internet.  This mass of data has no identifiable link or trail to the source from which it was taken. Not being able to verify a source of information leads to disinformation on a massive scale. In fact, this is already happening in elections worldwide. 

On April 24 the Washington Post published  “AI deepfakes threaten to upend global elections. No one can stop them”  - a piece profiling the work of Divyendra Singh Jadoun whose work with AI for creating Bollywood sequences is in high demand during India’s campaign season. Jadoun reports being asked by prospective clients to make fake audio of competitors making gaffes on the campaign trail, to superimpose competitors’ faces on to pornographic images, and to create low-quality fake videos of their own candidate to be released if needed to cast doubt on any damning real videos that emerge during the election. “The only thing stopping us from creating unethical deepfakes is our ethics. But’s it’s very difficult to stop this,” he says.

To Jadoun’s point - what little AI governance exists is currently patchy at best. The implications of this are breathtaking.

Can you imagine a new drug discovery that didn’t go through clinical trials and an approval process? A substance that its developers were initially very excited about, but didn’t quite know the effects on the human body – and whether the observed side effects were outweighed by its beneficial attributes?  That’s why the FDA exists – to assess the ramifications of a product before it’s released to the public at large.

Much like a human body, our digital ecosystem is an environment virtually all of us rely on. Yet AI has been and is being pushed out rapidly with a profit motive at its core.¹ There are, today, in the U.S. no binding AI regulatory guardrails though many are in development, especially in Europe². We, all of us, are guinea pigs in this most dangerous of experiments.

Compare this to the development and deployment of the Internet which was a highly collaborative, open, and international endeavor lead by the W3C – World Wide Web Consortium. W3C is an international standards organization founded in 1994 and still operating today. A core driver of their shared work was accessibility of the Internet, and agreement on established protocols and uniform practices – such as the use of URLs and appending suffixes such as .edu, .com, .org – as signifiers of where information was coming from. Critically, the underlying structure of the Internet remains open source. Not so with AI.

The early signs of AI impacts are concerning.  AI is accelerating trust collapse and reality collapse –  terms used by Tristan Harris who with Aza Raskin founded the Center for Humane Technology.

In his piece “Ready or Not AI is Here: What if Therapy Bots Become Too Good” psychotherapist Matthas Barker cites the work of Harris and Raskin who describe algorithm-based social media platforms as the ‘first contact’ our culture had with AI:

  “While we readily embraced the benefits… we also opened the door to… social media addiction and doomscrolling, influencer culture, QAnon, shortened attention spans, heightened political polarization, troll farms, and fake news. “They further describe AI-enabled automated loopholes in laws, automated fake religions, exponential blackmail, and scams, automated cyberweapons and exploitation code, biology automation, counterfeit relationships and Alpha Persuade.  ³

The product Alpha Persuade is called out specifically, I believe, because of its scalability and power to match the language or content of a message to the psychological profile of its recipient (known as “personalized persuasion”) A study published in Nature in February of this year states: “On the one hand, such personalization offers tremendous opportunities to promote desired behaviors, including a healthy lifestyle, financial saving, or support for environmentalism. On the other hand, it can have a pernicious effect on societies, for example, increasing the spread of disinformation, manipulating political preferences or promoting maladaptive consumer decision-making.”

Misinformation and intentional manipulation is not the point per se. History is full of this human behavior, unfortunately. What is notable is the ever-accelerating flywheel that is AI and the ease and access with which its mashed up synthetic content can be developed and pushed out.

 AI is, and will be touching virtually every major aspect of our lives, with impacts already evident in our work, healthcare, social life, finance, education, and even climate change.  Turns out, the huge datacenters AI requires are also having significant environmental effects.

What is most problematic to me is that all of us are increasingly affected by AI, but none of us had a say in it, either literally or by proxy, i.e. through a regulatory body. Unlike other technologies – smartphones, iPads, streaming TVs – there is no opting in. By default, AI is embedded and invisible.

Will regulation emerge that requires universally transparent sourcing?  While I am an optimist by nature, it seems much too late for that. AI is here, with more vendors, partnerships and products coming online almost daily.  AI shareholders and corporations are benefitting greatly. But what if you’re not part of that privileged group? We are captive, watching those flywheels chewing up our collective digital information structures faster by the day, while simultaneously  dismantling the rules of digital engagement with no accountability and traceability. I find that terrifying.

An early reader of this piece commented that I sound angry. And I am. The digital ecosystem is to me like a freshwater lake, or an ocean. We cannot survive without water, and we cannot survive in the 21^st century without digital engagement – even if it is just to pay our taxes, check the weather, or read an opinion piece (like this one). In practice, very few of us use technology in such a limited way, however.

I am angry that a select and growing group of tech-bros have constructed a proliferating number of pipelines that are churning out a digital garbage mix of who-knows-what into our collective digital resource – the Internet. Meanwhile, they are pocketing their money and wishing us luck in sorting it all out. Which as I have pointed out, is not possible to do. Though Europe is trying.

Sources & Notes

1. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT is in fact not open but proprietary, and moved from a non-profit to a for-profit model in 2019.
2. A partial list of European initiatives include Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, European Commission AI Office, How Europe became the world’s top tech regulator, and Apple delays launch of AI-powered features in Europe, blaming EU rules
3. Matthias Barker, “Ready or Not AI is here,” Psychotherapy Networker, Jan/Feb 2024
Barker cites the work of Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin whose description of persuasive technology describes what many of us increasingly experience online.
4. Conversations with and appreciation for Ed Walker, Ph.D., former Vice President of BBN Systems and Technologies and former CEO of IMS Global Learning Consortium; Naveen VK, Technical Director, nvisia; and always the Publishing Posse (you know who you are!)

On Father’s Day we reflect on the legacy of one of our first, and essential relationships.  My late father John, at 6’3  was both physically and emotionally large. My passion for learning, and for books came from my dad.  So did my love of the outdoors, and of the Upper Midwest. Through him, I came to know and embrace monastic communities, starting with the Trappists and later, the Benedictines. But there were other darker sides, which are still very hard to reconcile.  I have come to see my dad as a complex mix of a man who in the end, was as harsh with himself as he could be with us. I bless him on this day for offering all that he did.

Scene 1
Summer 1966, Far North Wisconsin

My father is in Long Lake, treading water. The sun is down, yet the sky glows softly peach and gold in the summer twilight.

We children are with him in the cold, clear water, rust-colored from rocks of iron ore. His dark hair is wet and he’s smiling. He was a championship swimmer and water was his element.

I am six years old, wearing a stretched out striped bathing suit. I dog-paddle towards him filled with fear, and fierce desire to reach safety, to reach his arm that is flipping water in confident circles.

My other siblings are in the water too, circling my father like baby dolphins.
I swim towards him, and the others do too, latching on to his arm, his back, his shoulder. He's like a Native American storyteller doll, with little ones attached every which way.

And he was a storyteller. No one could deliver a joke like my dad.

Scene 2
Still in Wisconsin

My father is at the wheel of a green Plymouth station wagon with faux wood panels. Or maybe it was my mother, as my dad always preferred to navigate. And her preference was to not see him reading a map folded out over the steering column while driving at top speed. Or driving at all, for that matter.

It is late. Tall stands of pine reach into inky black sky in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Six small children packed in tight, as the car tires spin and crunch through gravel on a dirt road. Our yellowed headlights catch a black-arrowed sign: STATE PARK DUMP. A park ranger flags us forward on to an even darker road that descends towards a big,  garbage-filled pit.

Other cars are there, engines idling, headlights off. We are all there for the same reason – to see black bears foraging in the wild.

Just then, another sign: STAY IN YOUR CAR. For maybe just a moment our headlights power off. Craving safety in numbers, I nestle in closer to five other squirming siblings – the older ones making sure that all the windows are rolled up, just in case.

Suddenly, at some unheard command, all the headlights flicker on.

Shiny black bears are moving through the garbage, their fur glistening in the lights. Blinking, one stands upright. Unafraid. It seems to be staring right at us. Being from Chicago, this is very exciting.

The inside light of our car comes on. My father has opened his door and stepped out. Dad, NO! we scream. I just want to get a closer look, he explains. He leaves his door ajar.

“Sir, get back in the car!”  a park-rangery voice commands. My father ignores him.

Adrenaline surged through my small body with no means to stop it. From that point on I made a primal, unconscious decision:  to avoid situations that triggered that response, which it turns out, is many parts of life, including work that is challenging and demanding. I struggle still to manage this most potent of chemicals.

Scene 3
In an Illinois forest preserve, many years later

Across the road hangs a heavy metal gate secured with an industrial chain. I am driving and my father, much older, is in the passenger seat.

“I think there’s a way around just over here, don’t you?” my father says. It’s a non-question, if such a thing exists.

“No, it is completely blocked,” I say.

He persists. “Just try it, see, the cut through right there? Another non-question.

“Dad, it’s a private road,” I point out. He has a rebuttal. Always he does. “We won’t stay long, just try it.”

Adventuring with him leaves a grimy residue of adrenaline, boundary-breaking, and fear. I am powered over.

A non-shared experience, if such a thing exists.

We call it a phone
yet
we are mute,
Our unblinking eyes stare at images and words
not our own.

It doesn’t matter where you are
because
you’re anywhere
but here.

Crouched over
head bowed before the
all-giving cloud
that spills out a surfeit
of lives, and feelings not your own.

You are drenched
with products and custom graphics
created for the newest
grotesque attack.
You hold your breath
your imagination freezes.
immobilized by chronic reactivity.

You’re everywhere
but here.

Surrounded by faces
contained in a screen
Profoundly alone
Eternally consuming
while an inner emptiness
deepens and widens.

Anachronism now- the corded telephone
A curly line buzzing with signals
connecting voice to voice
Coiled like an umbilical cord
Our very first connection.

In the flow of taking in
and pushing out
An exchange of profound creativity.

We are cord-free now
but we are tethered
our free range of emotional movement restrained
giving us too much, and so little.

Kale sauntered in front of the photographers first, dressed in a bespoke outfit. His curls were not too long, yet not too short, in a style known as “baby kale.”  He was everywhere now. At any given moment he might be crisping into chips, diving under mild salad greens, swimming in miso soup. Where once he lived hidden in a musty garden pot, he now headlined menus. Word on the street was that even McDonald’s^® wanted him. Every day it seemed their food scientists pitched him with new ideas: be a milk shake for St. Patrick’s Day? We’re so over the faux mint-green shake. How about you mix it up with russets, mayo, and garlic for emerald frites?

Just then Sweet Potato rolled her way through. Fries? Please, that is so early oughts.  With her plump muscular shape and all over tan, she had busted out of her Thanksgiving chains years ago. Now she could be found on the hottest grills, or shapeshifting into uniform cubes for a cold corn and black bean salad, bathing in olive oil with sprinkles of southwestern spice.

Next up was Arugula who strutted in, her leggy stems on display. The crowd clapped long and loud – unable to contain its excitement. Her confident vibe all but saying “It’s so good to be Italian and part of the discerning crowd. “No longer confined to metal salad bowls, she now competes with Basil in the pesto wars. True she’s peppery but also strong. With a name like rocket is it all that surprising? She’s polyamorous – here with cavatelli, next with polenta, then rolling with juicy tomatoes in a hot pot of meatballs. Her vegetarian fan club begged for more and her star turn in a velouté previously reserved for animal-based stock was, well, critics agree, delicious.

The applause was suddenly overpowered by the sound of a broken muffler belching out smoke and the whine of timing-chain misses. A beater car pulled into view with Okra (behind the wheel) and Lentil (slouched low in the seat).

I wanted better for myself, Okra was saying. But it’s tough man, when I get featured as one of the 12 best foods for constipation. Yeah, I’m short and kind of bumpy but why is that held against me? I’m just as eligible for a makeover. Am I right?  Look at corn on the cob. Now he’s showing off at festivals as Elote - Mexican street corn, dunking in melted butter, and rolling in shaved parmesan and red pepper flakes. But hey, not that long ago he was simply buttered and salted!

Lentil was quiet, sinking into his greyness. He gathered what little confidence he had and spoke.

“At least you’re not called the nerd of the food world.” Okra nodded. “Go on.”

“I mean, everyone respects my substance, right?  I am packed with nutrients and so many people are into me, but they don’t happen to be on the A-list. Canadians, for example.”

Okra, lighting a blunt, blew out his match. I hear ya man. Those hippies grabbed on to you for their lentil loaf, and then they abandoned you, for what? KOMBUCHA!?!?  What a slap down.”

Increasingly, my brain feels this way on a daily basis. My mind holds an exponentially growing number of visual scenes that contradict each other. I see myself shopping for food in a well-stocked, peaceful grocery store. Yet people in Gaza are starving as aid convoys are blocked and their workers shot and killed. Clean sheets and warm blankets cover me in bed while people of all ages worldwide are on move, fleeing from their home in search of safety and security. A young woman I know recently went to Israel for a group cultural immersion experience. At the same time, a bloody war zone surrounds her. Walking on a lakeside path I see people together and alone, walking, running, biking, breathing in the cold spring air, their footfalls steady and rhythmic. Back on the news screen images rotate through on a faster and faster cadence.

Yes, we live in a complex world. This has always been true. Holding multiple realities in one’s mind while functioning well is an advanced and important adult skill. But what I am describing is something quite different. This unfettered access to images, voices, and text every minute of every day brings with it adrenalized newscasters revving up their speed to squeeze their presence into the very few minutes they think we have to listen.

Think just a minute on a big issue that cannot to be squeezed into a PiP box. Climate change comes to mind. Recently I attended a presentation by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland sponsored by the University of Michigan. Her remarks were comprehensive, speaking not only to the urgency of the problem and its many facets but crucially, the key work underway nationally to address it. I genuinely did not know that wind farms are operating off the east coast of the United States, and that collaborative meetings are happening between the states and tribal nations to address severe drought and water impacts. President Biden’s Investing in America Act has been a key driver of these and other climate change initiatives. That too, I did not know. Perhaps it is because the “news” that day was a story on repeat: a pickup truck driver who had attached a life-size decal to his vehicle of President Biden gagged and hog-tied.

This is the trash and trauma that passes for news now.

My point is, the flood of image, voice and text is in part due to our technology and the access it affords to corners of our world that were never visible before. But equally true is that others are curating what passes for news. Have you noticed how almost every single clip of Donald Trump shows a flushed-red face, mouth open and downturned, seemingly enraged? Our brains register his adrenalin, shifting us into high alert (for what?) whether we are aware of it or not.

At what point do we hold a physical and emotional line? How willing are we to be repeatedly flooded with other people’s trauma (often curated) so that in the end, we no longer feel agency and influence inside ourselves and with those around us? Or will we choose instead to watch compulsively and passively, our energy depleted by near chronic flooding of cortisol, isolated, of little influence, and confronted by a growing inner emptiness. That is what chronic looking out at the screens in our lives will do.