Here Lies Common Sense

Let us gather here today to mourn the loss of one of humankind's greatest gifts, which has guided us through some of our darkest hours—simple common sense—whose loss has significant and increasing consequences on our society.

I think, being honest, that we are all complicit in its loss by increasingly ignoring its value and doing little or nothing to come to its aid when under attack. However, politicians are at the vanguard of the assault.

Though Michele Bachmann, that great humanitarian and scholar, has blessedly departed from the spotlight, who can possibly forget her single-handed war on the most elemental forms of logic or common sense? She tells us that a trip President Obama (a.k.a to Republicans as "the Antichrist") made to Japan cost taxpayers $200,000,000 a day; that he took along an entourage of 2,000 people, who stayed in 735 luxury 5-star hotel rooms (at least that comes out to nearly three people per room—a sure sign of frugality ignored by Ms. Bachmann). She also told us, with the deep sincerity and profundity for which she is known, that our founding fathers worked tirelessly (this is in 1776, mind) until slavery was eradicated from the land. And the protest against her utterly egregious nonsense was a deafening silence.

But her exit from the political stage merely opened the door for the likes of Donald Trump, who no longer feels it even necessary to even mention common sense. He boasts of huge plans…HUGE!…to “make America great again” without bothering to give a single example of how this would be accomplished, and we all “oooooh” and “aaaaaah” and cheer in response. 

Are Trump and the other embarrassingly self-serving candidates laughed off the stage and forbidden to play with sharp objects? No, they are running for the office of President of the United States, and their every vacuous word is greeted with applause and knowing nods of total agreement by their followers.

As our society becomes more and more ruled by technology—the workings of which are unintelligible to the average human—we feel, correctly, that we have less and less control over our own destinies. As even trying to figure out how and why things and institutions work the way they do becomes increasingly more difficult, more and more people are throwing up their hands in frustration and saying to self-proclaimed pundits, "Okay, you tell me what to think," and those pundits, whose motivations are based far more on greed for power than altruism, are more than happy to oblige. 

That old saying, “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost,…” is as true today as ever; maybe even more so. And with every patently false and misleading statement issued, another nail is pounded into the coffin of common sense.

Can this trend be reversed? Possibly, but I fear it would require more time and effort than most people are willing to devote to it—there’s a football game on tonight, after all, and priorities are priorities.

But just because we've tossed common sense into the back of a sock drawer doesn't mean we can't take it out and start using it again. First, we must all realize that just because something is said on TV or read in a forwarded email or seen on Facebook does not make it true. As someone once said, if ten million people believe a lie, it is still a lie. Before passing something on a gospel is to ask the simplest of simple questions: "Does this really make any sense?" President Obama plans to give every illegal immigrant $400,000 a month, free health care, a new house, and a new car? Forget that even if he wanted to he could not get it passed through a congress which, if he said the sun was shining, would run for their umbrellas. Hey, a friend sent me an email of an article he saw in some magazine, so it must be true.  Muslims use a melon scoop to remove the brains of Christian babies? They said so on Fox News, so it has to be true.

Politics, of course, is not the only thing lacking the nail of common sense. Internet spam is obviously unaware of its existence. After railing against Spam endlessly, I still cannot comprehend it, let alone how any rational human being could ever, under any circumstances, believe a word of it.

Television commercials—and especially infomercials and those ads aired late at night—depend on the lack of the nail of the viewer's common sense.

Instances of the effects of the loss of these nails are endless, and to point to them all is like standing in the back yard at night pointing up at the stars.

But the nail's not lost; we can find it and use it. All we have to do is try.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back. And please take a moment to check out http://bit.ly/m8CSO1 for information on Dorien's Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs.

Getting It

Let's face it: when it comes to "getting it"...to understanding something that everyone else apparently so easily understands and takes for granted...I generally don't.

"...for well-qualified buyers"? What in the hell does that mean? I don't get it.

Starlets and (female) celebrities posing with one hand on a sideways-thrust hip is, I gather, the height of  seductiveness? I don't get it. I guess you have to be straight to understand.

"Reality" shows devoted to vacuous, rude, self-centered boors with absolutely no discernible talent who contribute nothing to society and who are famous for being famous? I don't get it. And that they have an avid viewing audience of millions who hang on their every monosyllabic word? Even harder to comprehend.

Presidential candidates who deny the most basic tenets of science yet are firmly convinced they are eminently qualified to lead the country in an increasingly technological ("Technology, noun: the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, esp. in industry") world? I don't get it. And those who would vote for them? Totally incomprehensible.

Internet spam messages from Nigerian barristers, from people dying of (usually) cancer wanting you to help them dispose of their millions, and, recently, shameful posts from United States servicemen and women asking for help...and those astoundingly naive/gullible/stupid people who would consider responding? I simply do not get it.

Anyone with the intelligence of a radish watching, let alone buying into, infomercials and commercials offering "not sold in stores" (gee, I wonder why?) schlock which then say they will double, triple, or quadruple the order for the same price? Sorry, I don't get it.

Organized sports? Organized religion? Cults? Bigotry? The Tea Party? I don't get any of them.

Donald Trump (or any one of the Republican presidential wanna-bes)? John Boehner? Sarah Palin? Michele Bachmann? Rush Limbaugh? Glenn Beck? Mitch McConnell?  Can someone explain what positive contribution any one of these people has made to society or to the furthering of compassion, tolerance, compromise, or to the betterment of the human race?

Those who presume to speak for God who totally ignore all that bothersome "Love one another," "Do unto others," and "Judge not lest ye be judged" nonsense while preaching intolerance and hatred? I don't get them, nor do I want to.

Employees in government offices who act as though they are the government? People who accept the bad service and the most egregious behavior without a peep of protest? I don't get it.

Instruction manuals...for anything...written by technophiles in language only technophiles and those who speak gibberish can possibly understand? Sorry, again. I don't get it.

Restaurant menu and prepared-food-package photographs that bear absolutely no resemblance to what you are served/is in the package?

Perhaps some day a light will go on in my head, and everything will be made clear to me, as it seems to be to everyone else on the planet. But I doubt it.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

"How 'ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm,...?"

The American Civil War began a fundamental, basic change in the fabric of not only American society but of interpersonal relationships. Until that time, the vast majority of people never traveled more than 20 miles from their homes in their entire lives. The average person's total social existence was built upon the rock of family, friends, and neighbors. The Civil war created widening cracks in this foundation when it uprooted young men from the soil of the past. Taken from their farms and villages and transported to places within their own country they'd never been or even knew existed. This trend was vastly accelerated with America’s entry into WWI, and was perfectly summed up in the popular song, "How 'ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?" 

Following WWI, ages-long close-knit bonds between family, friends, and life-long neighbors crumbled rapidly as entire populations moved and shifted and blended.

Family remains the rock upon most people's lives are built, but as distance separated many family members, nearby friends became substitutes for far-off family. But the more mobile our society became, friends, too, like family, began to move away. Face-to-face meetings with friends were slowly replaced, as technology welled up to swallow us all, by the internet, which opened the door to the entire world. In cyberspace, there is no concept of distance. People who normally would never have even become acquaintances—probably never even known of each other's existence—became a new kind of friend: cyber friends who still probably would never meet face to face.

And as technology continues to rob us of our traditional connections to other people, as families and close-knit circles of friends break up into small pieces and scatter around the country and the globe, we tend to rely more on cyber friends. And as age and distance begin to take away our traditional friends and family, cyber friends become a larger part of our social structure.

I've found this particularly true for myself, and on all levels. Much of it has to do with the simple fact of my growing older. Family members and friends die; our face-to-face social contacts tend to dwindle. It's part of being a young adult to cultivate many close face-to-face friends, resulting in an active social life surrounded by people you can—and often do—reach out and touch. I am blessed that I still have a number of friends who date from my childhood, college, and young adult years. But most of them are scattered, now, and we use cyberspace to substitute for face-to-face meetings.

One of the most important and most overlooked casualties of the loss face-to-face contact with family and friends is the loss of physical contact. The emotional/psychological power of simple physical contact—a handshake, a hug, a casual pat on the back or arm around the shoulder—is a too-often-overlooked yet major casualty of our societal diaspora.

For me, right now, in Chicago, my face-to-face social network consists of my best friend, Gary, who I see almost every day, my friend Diane from my earliest days in Chicago, and Sandra, a woman with whom I worked after my return. I have a few people I think of more as friendly acquaintances than true, soul-deep friends, but it is a far different world, on a personal social level, from my 20s and 30s.

I find myself more and more reliant on my cyber friends for a sense of being connected with the world, and for the validation that face-to-face friends normally supply. I quite probably, in fact, have a much wider circle of cyber-friends than I ever had of face-to-face friends. I sincerely enjoy our exchanges (and their encouragement and support). I have been lucky enough to actually meet several of them, either on their visits to Chicago or mine to New York, and now count them as both cyber and face-to-face friends. And I am quite sure that, had we the chance to meet face to face, any number of my current cyber-friends could/would easily become friends in the traditional sense. 

So, as in all things in life, it is a matter of trade-offs. The world continues to change, and there is nothing we can do to bring the past back, other than in our memories. Would I give anything to be 28 again and to spend an evening with my mom and dad and aunt Thyra and Uncle Buck and my cousins, or with friends Norm and Tom and Franklin and Ray and Ace and the other wonderful people who were such an important part of my life at the time? Of course. But I am also truly grateful for the cyber friendship of so many wonderful people I've met on line through my books and blogs.

Face-to-face is great: mind-to-mind and heart-to-heart can be just as good. So let this blog be a form of thank you to all my friends, face-to-face and cyber. And there is always room for more. A cyber-hug to you all.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Writers, Books, and Life

Every now and again, I pull myself up short and realize just how amazingly lucky I am to be a writer, especially considering how generally uncomfortable I am living in the real world. And when that world closes in too tightly, I can...and do...simply step into the worlds of my mind. I am fully aware of how difficult...and probably impossible...it is to explain how real this "other" world—this alternate universe, as it were—is to me.  

As Dorien Grey and Roger Margason, I am two people in one, Roger living in the corporeal world we all share, Dorien in the world of thought and dreams and hopes. Dorien’s world is, to me, almost as solid and real as Roger’s, and I am, truthfully, often more comfortable in it than in Roger’s.

Please let me make it clear, however, that I am always fully aware of whichever world I am spending my time at the moment, and never confuse them. I'm sure there are those who would consider me delusional, but it is a controlled and harmless delusion, and I take quiet pleasure in it.

I've often stated my belief that life and time are in fact an endless loop in which every instant of time, including our lives, exists somewhere, and is repeated time and time again, endlessly. 

Or think, if you will, of life as a book. When you pick it up, every word has been written and cannot be changed. Yet each is new to you as you move through the book. Just as every life has a beginning and an end, so does a book. And just as a book, read from first sentence to last, can, upon reaching "The End," be reread over and over again, so are our lives endlessly repeated. The movement of the reader's eyes over each word in a book is the equivalent of the movement of time around that cosmic loop. Every word of a book is the equivalent of an instant of time on the loop of time: fixed, unchangeable, and yet always new and unknown. 

Even though the entire book has been written and is being held in the reader's hand as it is being read, the book’s characters, unaware that they are not real, are propelled through the book’s “time” by the reader's eyes. The characters are aware of what has happened in previous sentences and paragraphs and chapters, but what comes next is totally unknown. It's all there, in the book, the reader's eyes just haven't taken the characters there yet. 

Each new page is a new segment of the character's lives. But the characters are totally unaware of what the next page has in store for them, though the entire book has been written. And the reader can pick up the book at page one and set the characters off on the same adventure, though again they are only aware of what has come before, not of what the next sentence or paragraph holds.

We move along the loop of time in the same way the reader's eyes move through a book. It is time—and specifically that portion of time we know as “now”—which propels us through our lives, unaware that it has done so before and will do so again throughout eternity.

I've always loved optical illusions...those pictures in which you see one thing, but suddenly, by the slightest shift in focus, become something totally different. Roger's world is the immediately obvious picture, Dorien's the alternate. The optical illusion analogy pretty much sums up and combines my two lives, my two alternate universes and unites my book/endless-loop analogies.

Because I am able to...and truly do...live vicariously through my characters and the stories I create for them, I can have in the Dorien’s world what I do not have in Roger's. One of my most profound regrets is that in the Roger’s corporeal "real" world, I do not have someone with whom I am deeply and romantically in love and who loves me in the same way. I miss it more than I can possibly say. I know that the world abounds with people who are in the same position as I. And yet, in my alternate, Dorien world, I am Dick Hardesty, and I have Jonathan and Joshua and all the marvelous things not available to me in Roger's world. Hard as it may be to understand, their love and commitment to one another are very real to me, and they provide me with an inexpressible joy and comfort.

I am, truly, blessed.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

E Unim Pluribus

I've always been fascinated by historical trivia, and one of my favorites is that, in ancient Rome, as conquering heroes marched in triumph through the cheering crowds, a slave would ride on the hero's chariot, standing directly behind him, holding a laurel wreath over his head while whispering “Remember, thou art but a man.” Wise people, those Romans.

Every human being―I’m sure this was true even of Roman generals―is a mixture of ego and insecurities: they are part of what makes us human. It is the varying percentages of each which helps make each of us who we are and sets us apart from everyone else. I’m not sure what the ideal percentage of each might be, but suspect that most of us fall somewhere around 10 points to either side of the 50 percent center line, with some natural degree of fluctuation between them. Ego and insecurity are a little like oil and vinegar in a cruet, each clearly defined.

I truly admire people with healthy egos, and have noticed that those who have them seldom seem aware of it. But then, that’s the point of a healthy ego: there is no need to question it. And while people who project too strong an ego can be insufferable—presidential candidate Donald Trump leaps to mind—,  it’s been my experience that obnoxious egos are often chimeras, and those who display them often are doing so to hide their insecurities.

But in some people, writers among them, it’s as though someone were shaking the bejeezus out of the cruet to the point where the ego and insecurity are so jumbled as to be indistinguishable. I know whereof I speak, because my ego and insecurity have been in the process of emulsification  in the cruet of my mind for as long as I can remember. My ego tells me I’m great, and that anyone who reads my words will automatically become devoted and adoring fans. My insecurity tells my ego it’s full of crap, and I’m no damned good (on a bad day) or mediocre at best (on a good day) and that anyone who tells me I do have some worth is being either extraordinarily kind or condescending.

Writers’ egos are large enough to assume people will want to read what they have written, while often unjustifiably insecure in fearing they won’t. I am frequently awed by the extremes of both my ego and my insecurities, and frustrated by the fact that they invariable negate one another. It is my ego which writes these blogs, and my insecurities that constantly scoff at how I can have the temerity to think that anyone could actually care what I have to say.

For whatever reason, many writers―and you don’t need a caliper and slide rule to figure out I’m including myself here―have a desperate need for approval, which is a form of validation of their worth. Every human needs validation, but writers…I…seem for whatever reason to be particularly needy. There is never enough love; never enough approval, and a perverse willingness to seek out and magnify faults and flaws. I fully realize I’m an emotional sponge, eager to soak up every drop of approval I can get. And when I don’t get enough―which of course I never possibly can―I chalk it up to my unworthiness and figuratively beat myself severely about the head and shoulders for it.

But underneath it all, or perhaps because of it, I am truly convinced (ego) that I am not alone in the way I feel; that you, writer or not, may sometimes feel the same way, and that through my throwing myself out in front of you, you might find some small comfort in seeing that you are not as alone as you may otherwise think. It is pure ego for me to assume so, but would be nice if it were true. I think they call it “validation.”

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

The Doll House

One of the benefits of an unorganized mind is that memories have the tendency to reappear, unbidden, from who knows where. Why, I cannot say, but they often reopen doors to the past. This morning, for absolutely no reason, I was thinking of how, when I was around six or seven, I asked my parents for a doll house for Christmas. My father, of course, would not hear of it, and my pleadings fell on deaf ears. In his defense, both he and I were aware by that time that I was "different" (I knew I liked—really liked—boys, though I was too young to realize what that meant). He, I am sure, saw my fascination with doll houses as an omen that his son would soon be dressing up in women's clothes and putting on lipstick. 

Of course—and this was something he could not understand and I was unable to express at that young age—femininity had absolutely nothing to do with it. Never—then, now, or for one moment in my entire life—have I ever wanted to be in any way feminine, or ever thought of myself as such. My fascination with doll houses had nothing to do with gender and everything to do with imagination.  

But, to my father, doll houses were for girls, not for boys, and certainly not for his son. I don't remember when or where I first saw a doll house, but I was utterly fascinated.  I was entranced by the reality/fantasy/power aspects it presented. Here was a real (to me) house, with real (to me) furniture, and I was a giant with total control over it and whatever went on in or around it. I had no interest whatever in playing homemaker or inventing some imaginary family. No, what I wanted to do was get the furniture nicely arranged, then have some pretend-battle during which everything was violently knocked over and tossed about. 

I've been given to melodrama from a very early age. The ordinary was, well, ordinary and therefore held relatively little interest for me; it was the pretend, the larger-than-life, the bravely facing adversity and trauma that intrigued me. It still does. 

But back to my story. Christmas came, and with it the usual flood of parental generosity: my family what was then known as "lower middle class." They struggled and worked hard for every penny they had, yet they always found the money to indulge me to the best of their ability. But it was after all the gifts were exchanged and the floor was littered with torn wrapping paper, and the smell of the Christmas tree, warmed by the lights, hung over the room, that my mom called me aside and took me into my room, where, on my bed, was...a two-room doll house she had made out of an orange crate. The few pieces of furniture were far out of proportion to the rooms, but it was a doll house, and it was mine. I do not believe in heaven, or in angels, but I do believe in mothers.

That simple orange-crate doll house, with my other toys and the books I read and the stories I listened to were the razor strops on which I honed my imagination and led me to become a writer. For an insecure child excruciatingly aware that I was not like the children around me, imagination was—and is—my refuge from a world in which I never felt comfortable, or welcome.

Today I consider each book I write to be, in effect, a doll house wherein I carefully arrange the furniture. The major difference being that I also put people in them and watch, fascinated, as they go about their very-real-to-me lives with only an occasional conscious nudge or rearrangement from me.

Every child, at birth, plants a small bag of seeds which will grow to produce the adult that child becomes. The seed of imagination is among the most precious of all. It blooms early, but is too often then neglected and left to wither. But when carefully nourished and lovingly tended it can produce the most magnificent of flowers. And they look very nice on the soul's mantle, next to a small doll’s house.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1)

"Pay Attention!"

Ah, were I to have a nickel for every time I've heard those two words, I would be a very wealthy man indeed. And my only problem with being told to pay attention is that I generally don't. Oh, I try. Really. And I often convince myself that I really am. But ten seconds later, I'm hard pressed to remember just what it was I was supposed to be paying attention to. 

Throughout grade school, my parents accumulated a sizable stack of notes from various teachers saying, in effect, "Roger is a wonderful, wonderful young man, but would do far better in his studies if only he would pay attention." (Well, maybe everything up to the "but" is wishful thinking, but the latter half is almost verbatim.) I think part of the problem lay in the fact that I am so easily distracted. I mean, how can anyone be expected to concentrate on the formula for determining the hypotenuse of a triangle when there's a very strange little insect staggering across the top of my desk. Obviously, it had been out all night and was trying to find its way home from a party, and I had to speculate on how it got on my desk and where it really thought it was going, and.... 

Unfortunately, not paying attention has almost gotten me killed on more than one occasion while I was learning to fly as a Naval Aviation Cadet. The airfield from which I was flying had several runways, each one designated by it's compass orientation, and the runway in use at any time was determined by the wind direction. It was important to memorize the runway numbers so that, when requesting permission to land, we would know which runway to use. But try as I might, I could never remember which runway was which, a problem I solved by simply following whatever plane was preparing to land in front of me. 

But the closest I actually came to death was on a night flight with a dozen or more other planes. We were told to ascend at a set rate of speed, and to descend at another set rate of speed. All was well until the time came to return to base, and we began our descent. I remember the two speeds, but not which one was which. I chose the faster speed on the grounds that at least I wouldn't be plowed into by someone behind me. All was going fine until I noticed the wingtip lights of the plane directly ahead of me seemingly racing toward me. I shoved the stick forward to dive down

and looked up in horror as I passed less than 20 feet under the belly of the plane that should have been ahead of me. I surely could not only have died myself, but caused the death of another pilot. It was one of the most sobering moments of my life. 

But did it make me pay closer attention to things from that moment on? For awhile, yes, but.... 

I never make lists of things I need while shopping because of course I will remember them. And I do…right up to the time I get to the store.

I cannot read instruction manuals of any kind because, the moment I take my eyes off the instructions themselves, I forget what they were. If someone tells me their telephone number, I seldom remember it long enough to write it down, even with a pencil in my hand. Transposing a phone number I did manage to write down into a computer file requires endless going back and forth. The handwritten 773-949-0211 becomes 773-994-0112 or 773-994-0121, or .... 

When I was in service, our Marine drill instructors had a rule for teaching: "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em, tell 'em, then tell 'em what you told 'em." A very wise method. Unfortunately, it never worked for me. 

I have come to the conclusion that I am emotionally dyslexic. 

Now, what was I talking about? 

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Friday. Please come back. And please feel free to visit my website (www.doriengrey.com) and/or take a moment to check out http://bit.ly/m8CSO1 for information on Dorien's "Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs." 

Shells

Every human being is linked to every other human being by DNA and a myriad of complex commonalities  that define us as human. Yet, ultimately, despite all of these links, each of us is on our own when it comes to dealing with the intimidating complexities of life surrounding us. In that regard, each of us is not unlike a single Hermit crab on a vast beach, seeking some a “just ours” shelter into which we can retreat for comfort and security. 

My own little protective shell is composed, not of calcium carbonate as are most seashells, but of logic. Logic is the tether that anchors my view of the world and, in fact, my sanity. 

However, as strongly as I rely on logic to protect me, far too much of my life is spent in frustration which at times verges on being debilitating. It is difficult to cling to one's beliefs and Illogic, clearly demonstrating that logic is utterly worthless when dealing with the real world. I simply cannot comprehend how things which are, to me, so quintessentially logical, are so easily ignored or dismissed out of hand by what seems at times to be the majority of my fellow human beings. The current state of our political system is perhaps the strongest single example of how little power logic has in our world. I firmly believe that those people in and out of Congress who swear allegiance to the Tea Party are far more closely aligned to Lewis Carol than to Boston.

To me, logic is the mind's salvation, just as hope is the soul's. However, to be continually shown irrefutable evidence that what is so vital to me is held in such disregard--and viewed with such disdain and contempt by so many--is truly disheartening. I simply, sincerely cannot understand how otherwise rational, intelligent people can be so totally unconcerned by not only the neglect of logic but its downright rejection. How can the most egregiously illogical precepts/ideas/theories be foisted upon us as gospel and, incomprehensibly, almost universally accepted without question?

It is when I find myself personally abandoned by logic that I am most exposed and vulnerable, and this happens most often when it comes to issues of consistency. Consistency is logical. If I do something in a certain way 99 times and get the same results all 99 times, should I not be able to safely assume that doing the same thing exactly the same way as I've done it 99 times before will produce the same result? Alas, the answer is no. I can never be sure that doing the same thing the same way will produce the same results as the last time I did it.

I've always found my reliance on logic at odds with my refusal to accept reality. Logic is, after all, the ultimate reality. But like most humans, I am quite good at making my own accommodations between the two.

I'm fully aware that my sincere belief in the basic goodness of our species flies in the face of both logic and reality, and marks me as incredibly naive. But it is because I so sincerely believe in the goodness and honesty of others that every single instance of outrageous, blatant dishonesty upsets me so. I walk around like an exposed nerve end.

I simply cannot understand how people cannot be more kind to one another, or more considerate, or how or at what point the Golden Rule metastasized from, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you," to "Do unto others as you would have done unto them."

And yet, in spite of it all, I still find comfort and safety within my increasingly thin little shell of logic, and try to ignore the storms that rage outside.

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please come back. And please take a moment to check out http://bit.ly/m8CSO1 for information on Dorien's "Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs."