The new wireless technology these days means that many birds have some adjustments to make.
Archives for May 2012
How terrified would your child self have been of your current adult life?
Lonely older man finds new life through meeting and loving dogs
Confessing my ego’s old desires reveals hidden fears of my pastSuicide’s what happens when you can’t find reasons to keep living
Whenever a person kills himself, the instant question that everyone seems to ask is, “Why did he do it?” I’m starting to suspect this is the wrong question.
When retired NFL star Junior Seau killed himself this week, the speculation immediately turned to the question of whether he might have been suffering from some kind of brain damage brought on by many years in a sport filled with violent collisions. Did that long-term trauma lead to his suicide?
I’m not an expert on brain injuries, but I don’t doubt that athletes in high-contact sports suffer injuries that affect them as they age. I wonder, though, if there’s a more basic reason why a retired athlete — who’s spent his life as a hero to many — takes his own life.
What if he simply can’t find any reason to keep on living?
I can’t find the reference now, but I remember reading something in a psychology book that made this argument. It said that we all have something like a built-in “self-destruct switch.” The switch constantly flips itself automatically to “self-destruct mode.” If we have a reason to keep living, we keep flipping it off. But if we quit finding a reason to do that, we passively leave the switch set to that mode — and then we destroy ourselves in one way or another.
Correcting an old error: there’s no such thing as ‘We the People’
New information demands that I change some of what I think I am
To the mindless bureaucrats at TSA, a crying 4-year-old is a terror suspectHer cat’s presence brings comfort to grandmother dying in hospital
This is the sweetest picture I’ve seen lately. We all know how strict hospitals can be about anything out of the ordinary, but one hospital made an exception — and it made a world of difference to a dying woman.
This picture was posted by a guy on Reddit. His grandmother is in a hospital dying, and the hospital allowed the family to bring her cat in for a visit. I think it’s pretty clear how happy both of them are to see each other.
Those who don’t have animals probably don’t understand. I didn’t grow up with cats and dogs, so I wouldn’t have understood at one time, either. But there’s a special kind of love that develops between pets and people. I know that if I were dying, I’d like to be surrounded by my furry friends.
I’m happy that this hospital allowed the cat to come visit, and I’m happy that the family shared the picture.
Note: If you’d like to meet some of my cats (many still with me and a few departed ones), you can read about Henry, Oliver, Sam, Amelia, Thomas, William, Dagny, Merlin, Charlotte, Emily, Anne, Molly and Bessie. And if you’d like, you can meet some of their canine friends over the years — Maggie, Lucy, Alex and Munchkin.
End of life brought cancer patient to baptism six days before death
Suicide ends pain of depression, but scars loved ones left behind
Life is too short to hide the love you would regret hiding at death