 | 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 April 5, 2022 |
A long and Winding Road
A Most Consequential Meeting The main theme of Milan Kundera’s book, Life is Elsewhere, is the notion that the grass is always greener on the other side of the street. That is, that we might be happier someplace else instead of the place we actually are. I live in İstanbul but the circumstances around how I came to…
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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 February 13, 2022 |
FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND CANCEL CULTURE
A Case of Poor Judgement It seems like not a day passes lately that we don’t hear a new example of how cancel culture is inhibiting the free exchange of ideas. Most recently, I learned of how Whoopi Goldberg had been censured by The View due to some misinformed statements she made regarding the Nazis’ view of race….
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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 22, 2021 |
THE SECRET LIVES OF THINGS
BEING THANKFUL I am a big believer in expressing gratitude and appreciation for the blessings in my life and feel this sentiment should also include being thankful for mundane things. I don’t have a lot of them but I appreciate everything I have. I am thankful for my bed, pillows, and blankets, for instance, as well as the…
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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 November 25, 2021 |
Letter To My Son
Love Child I read once that a child born of lust has an undeveloped soul. So at the moment of your conception, I focused the full intention of my love into the act that brought you into being. It’s interesting because your mom and I had been trying to conceive for many months before that one, fateful, late…
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| Michael Wray November 14, 2021 |
THINKING ABOUT FOUNDATION
A Rush of Traffic I was on the balcony listening to the not too distant sound of Istanbul’s rush hour traffic going by, and started thinking about the multitudes of people being carried along, the energy of the vehicles themselves, and the many branches and interchanges of the highway. The traffic racing down the E5 was making an…
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| Michael Wray September 23, 2021 |
Eastern Turkey Part 2, The People
Previously In a previous blog, Journey to the Center of the Onion, I wrote about the trip my son and I had taken to Eastern Turkey last August. I described the places we had visited and the incredible historical and archaeological sites we had seen. In my next blog, Eastern Turkey Part 1, I went on at…