Saturday December 20, 2025; 1:00 PM EST
2019 on Facebook: "People are too judgmental, which is a shame because in the end, which is coming soon enough for all of us, your opinion of other people doesn’t matter. Sorry if I’m telling you something you don’t already know."#- On the other hand, we can't help but be judgmental. It's programmed into our DNA at a deep level. You have to form an instant opinion of other animals, any delay could cost your life. Better to assume the worst. Fight or flight. This happens esp if you don't know you're doing it, so don't know to watch for it. #
- It isn't until their 40s that most people understand that what they see isn't what everyone else sees. If you think there's an objective truth that we all experience, you're not getting the point. There is no consistent view from nowhere because everyone is somewhere. ;-)#
- I know where I was when I really understood this, not because I read it somewhere, or a teacher told me about it. I was riding on the 4 train north in the Bronx, where the train runs as an elevated on Jerome Ave. I had ridden this train for three years as a high school student, and never thought about all the six story apartment buildings whose backs faced the train. As you went by, you passed by one family for every two or three windows. A whole set of people with relationships, problems, tragedy, joy, dreams, the whole thing. They don't come from where you come from, inside each house there are stories, lives, people. You'll probably never know anything about any of them. I wasn't sad about this.#
- When I was a kid we went to a bungalow colony in upstate NY, around where I live now. I was less than 10 years old, so were my friends. We used to do things together that the adults didn't know about. There was an abandoned house we used to hang out in, mostly open to the elements. We also played in a graveyard and talked about what the families whose names were on the headstones were doing. Having dinner maybe? Listening to the Mets on the radio? (No TV in the mountains.) So the thought had occurred to us at that point in life that behind doors there were things happening that we could only imagine. I guess what you learn later is that you can't imagine, and if you want to know you have to ask and listen. #
- I saw a critique of my writing that said I don't put enough titles in my writing. I didn't want to answer it in context, because I wanted to explain more generally. I tried to write the way the world was forcing me to write for over ten years, between 2006 and 2017, and I came to hate it. My writing is a way of getting things out of my head and into a place where I can find it later. It's more interesting to me if it's published. I am vision-impaired too. But if you account for every preference, as I learned between 2006 and 2017, the writing ends up worse than worthless. It becomes something you have to overcome. In the end you have write about why this is the wrong way to write. #
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