I know people who spend more than $200 every month with their television provider. At the end of every day, the people of those families disappear into separate rooms to enter different worlds of television, movies and gaming. They tell me their lives would be boring otherwise. I can’t tell them they’re wrong, but I do know the things that mean the most to me are more analog than digital. Lucy and I just got back from walking through the peaceful downtown of the sleepy suburb where we live. She loves sniffing everything and watching the sights and sounds. Traffic is endlessly fascinating to her. And I get to walk and think about life — about problems and goals and working all sorts of things out. Lucy isn’t concerned with the same things I am, but she’s a great listener. The things that bring us joy and meaning don’t have to cost money. I suspect it’s far better for mental health than more typical modern entertainment. Now if I just had a wife and some children to come along for the walks, things would be even better. There’s a lot of peace to be found in simple joys which are completely free.
The more I understand humans, the less I really comprehend us
Molly sometimes studies me intently while I work. Here she is Monday night sitting on my desk watching closely as I wrote on my MacBook. It’s as though she’s a cat sociologist trying to make sense of these strange two-legged creatures.
I can empathize with Molly and I see why she seems to keep searching for a way to make it all make sense. I spend much of my time trying to understand human behavior — my own actions, the behavior of people I love, and the behavior of people I can’t stand.
A couple of days ago, I had a sudden realization about some minor point of human nature. I was excited to figure it out, but I was disgusted at what I understood. And I had a paradoxical thought.
The more I understand humans, the less I understand humans.
Stop using children as pawns to promote adult political agendas
When I was a teen-ager, I thought I had everything figured out. I had strong views about politics, theology and pretty much everything else. Looking back, I was wrong about almost everything.
Greta Thunberg is a mentally ill child from a very dysfunctional family, although her supporters get angry if you point these things out. She has various mental disorders and her family has many serious issues, but we’re not supposed to mention that.
When she was 8, her politically active parents scared her with stories of the world ending because of climate change. She became obsessed with it and now left-wing activists (starting with her parents) are using has as a pawn, starting with climate change but also encompassing a far-left social and economic agenda.
She’s autistic and suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, and she became so obsessive about her climate fears that she quit eating and suffered various physical problems.
Today, her parents and other left-wing activists are using Greta as a political pawn. Media outlets and politicians who already want governments to take over the world economy are going along with the scam, treating what this child has to say as though there is angelic wisdom in her words.
But the truth is that she is a brainwashed and dysfunctional child who is repeating what she’s been told. Taking her sanctimonious words seriously makes no more sense than it would have made to let me set world economic policy when I was 16 and thought I knew it all.

Briefly: 11-year-old is learning life at her dad’s pizza shop this year
Briefly: As I grow wiser, I regret more of what I said in the past
Briefly: Trump supporters in denial as their narcissistic hero sets the world on fire
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone
Without peaceful breakup plan, U.S. faces violent, angry collapse
I can force child to obey me, but obedience comes with high cost
We live in Reverse World, where black is white and good is evil