 | Michael Wray April 28, 2024 |
A Meditation Under Gray Skies
MY FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE One of my favorite places to be is at our summer flat in Silivri, about 60 kms outside of İstanbül, where I like to escape to on weekends during the off season to take a break from the constant demands of life in the city. Besides the fact that this small holiday village is…
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| Michael Wray February 17, 2024 |
The Fire Next Time
Broken sky, torn blue. No hail of comets but the dinosaurs shall fall again. You and I, friend, shall fall. Again the world shall shake and heave, the sea all stained and muddy will cast up its dead and the once seamless firmament will tear its stitches. Uproot the trees and rend the Earth yet nature…
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| Michael Wray March 9, 2023 |
GREEN TURNS TO BROWN
Time, he’s waiting in the wingsHe speaks of senseless thingsHis script is you and me, boy Time – David Bowie Now and Then I’ve been thinking a lot about the relativity of time lately – as one does upon reaching a certain age or point in one’s life. How the summer days seemed endless as a schoolboy,…
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| Michael Wray June 10, 2022 |
The Sweet Spot
“If you’re sad today, just remember that the world is 4.4 billion years old and you somehow managed to live at the same time as David Bowie.” Simon Pegg Long Ago and Far Away My best friend and I often discuss how lucky we both were to have been born in 1960. We are united…
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| Michael Wray May 26, 2022 |
America, Whither Goest Thou?
The Fall of Rome I’ve often wondered if the normal citizens of Rome realized that their civilization was on the verge of collapse before it finally came to pass. We’re told it was attacks by the Goths and Visigoths that precipitated Rome’s downfall but what if the mechanisms of state had their own demise hard wired into the…
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| Michael Wray April 27, 2022 |
Overwhelmed
Interesting Times Most of us have heard the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” But I wonder if there has ever been a period of history when people weren’t living in interesting times. It is worth remembering that the grandparents of most Boomers lived through a savage epidemic, two world wars and a global depression. Nevertheless,…
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| Michael Wray March 6, 2022 |
HAVE I BECOME “THAT” UNCLE?
Another Spoiled Thanksgiving A common trope of comedians these days is the cliché of “that” uncle, a close family member who spoils family get togethers with extremist, usually right-wing views. It doesn’t have to be an uncle though but could be any family member whose outpouring of raw, unfiltered, opinionated bullshit throws a monkey wrench into an ordinary…
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| Michael Wray January 4, 2022 |
Happy New Year?
Overwhelmed by Bad News I am generally a positive person; that is, I choose to be positive because it seems much healthier than the alternative of negativism. Nevertheless, I am not a Pollyanna and my positive outlook is tempered by a great respect for science and realism. So at the beginning of 2022, after enduring the past…
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| Michael Wray December 14, 2021 |
THE BLAHS
LIFE IS ELSEWHERE One definition of existentialism is that it’s a loathing of repetition. This has stuck with me over the years, as I’ve tried over and over again to prove that the grass IS actually greener on the other side of the fence. Thus, I started out on one path in university before taking a four-year break…
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| Michael Wray October 13, 2021 |
MY DREAM JOURNAL
Dream Power When I first came to Turkey back in 1994, my life was in a bit of a confused state. Around that time, my roommate lent me a copy of the book, Dream Power, by Dr. Ann Farady. It describes a way of looking at dreams devoid of all the symbology of conventional dream books, where instead…