 | 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 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 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 October 25, 2021 |
GRATITUDE
It’s an Outlook Ever since I embraced positivism, the practice which has had one of the biggest effects on my outlook is expressing gratitude. I remember an episode of Battlestar Galactica where the Cylons showed how they could project any reality they wished upon their ship so that instead of drab metal corridors, they walked through lush forests…
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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…
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| Michael Wray October 3, 2021 |
ON DEATH AND GRIEF
Slow Awareness “Pity not the dead. For the dead, being dead, feel no more fear, pain, or unhappiness. Pity those who are left behind.” Michael Wray Growing up in Canada during the 60s and 70s was a peaceful experience for me and most of my friends. The murmurs of war in faraway lands on the evening news went…
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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…