To Say or Not to Say

September 7, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It seems funny to think of all the years I’ve been struggling with the issue of how safe it is to say what is on my mind since it seems such a “today” issue. More than that, though, I’ve pretty much forgotten all the other posts where I talked about the same thing. Each day, though, WordPress (the company that hosts this blog) gives me a list of posts that I published that date in previous years, and I’ve been surprised to learn how often I’ve spoken about this same subject.

In fact, exactly six years ago today, I wrote about Malcolm R. Campbell, author and fellow blogger, and his article entitled, Are you afraid to say what you think?

He mentioned, among other things, penalties imposed on people for exercising their right to free speech, the lack of civility, allowing violence under threat of more violence, and mob-enforced political correctness. He was also brave enough to say that “most of us see and hear enough stuff daily to know how and why the problem is larger than what can be put in single blog.” And he admitted that he no longer felt safe enough to say how much larger the problem is.

This was during the Covid years, and back then, I made sure to keep my mouth shut about my vaccine status, as well as my thoughts on how the whole thing started, which recently has proven to be correct. (My studies in biological warfare primed me for the truth. Calling something “gain of function” does not negate its illegal biological warfare status, it just gives it a legal name to experiment under.)

My response to Malcolm’s post still holds true today: I’m certainly afraid to say what I think. I study everything, including both sides of an issue, and often my views end up being on the quiet end of the spectrum rather than the burning-down-buildings end. If people today can get killed by doing nothing but wearing the wrong hat or the wrong tee shirt or the wrong smile, then it’s no wonder so many of us are afraid to tell the truth even in our personal online spaces. (Because when it comes to an online space, there is no personal space with unbounded freedom from rancor to say what one wills.)

I doubt anyone would come after me physically, but still, it’s something I need to pay attention to. I am learning, though, to keep silent, especially in real life. Some of the things I want to say to people I am conversing with aren’t full-fledged ideas, but rather the beginning of a complex thought buried somewhere in the back of my mind, but even the most intelligent person seldom can get beyond my inciting comment, so we end up arguing a point I didn’t even wish to make until I finally tell them to forget it, to ignore what I said, and let’s agree to disagree. This makes them uncomfortable and leaves me with a nest-full of half-formed ideas with no place to fly. (It’s one of the reason’s I blog — to help me figure out those half-formed ideas, which is why it bothers me that I’m reticent to talk about the things that I’m trying to comprehend.)

Beyond my own safety, physical or emotional (I’m really too sensitive to easily accept discord), there is the issue of hurting other people’s feelings. While I might think they are simply reacting to headlines or to group-think, they believe they’ve researched an issue, though how can someone research an issue if they only delve into one side of it? But still, they don’t need me (or want me) to point that out. It’s a good way to end up with no friends.

But whatever . . . This post was not supposed to be a reiteration of my worries about discussing certain topics, but about how often I’ve had this same conversation with myself here on this blog. One of these days I’ll go back to infrequent posts, in which case I won’t be thinking of what to say or what not so say. I’ll simply keep my mouth shut and my fingers off the keyboard.

(I’m still trying to keep to my unofficial New Year’s resolution of daily blogging, but I have a hunch I won’t make it. Not that it matters. As I mentioned yesterday, if an opinion is just an opinion, what’s the point of figuring out the truth.)

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Spinning My Wheels

September 2, 2026 — Pat Bertram

During my years of studying grief, both from the inside and the outside, I learned that anger is not a stage of grief, but an integral part of the process. Since much of grief is visceral — a response to perceived danger — grievers experience a tremendous fight or flight hormonal upsurge. The panic they feel after the death of a life mate is a natural part of this survival mechanism; it alerts them to the danger of being suddenly alone. Anger is the other side of this mechanism, the part that generates the energy necessary to take action.

Sometimes anger is an emotional response, especially if there is a direct action that prompted the anger, such as a doctor who downplayed the seriousness of the loved one’s illness, taking from the griever the opportunity to say goodbye. Other times, even though that anger feels emotional, it’s strictly a physical response to the flood of hormones in the systems of grievers. Their minds scurry around trying to find a reason for how they feel because as rational beings, people cannot accept unfocused anger, so they search for a target, for a reason for the anger. People can always find a reason, which masks the truth that in many cases, the anger came first, and the reason for the anger second.

Listening to liberals haranguing people who believe in a more conservative lifestyle, I wondered if this same lesson I learned from grief could hold true in a wider context. Almost everyone who screams about fascists, racists, whateveraphobias, boomers and even Gen Xers, are left-leaning people. In almost every discussion, it’s those people who descend into name calling rather than trying to find a common ground or to explain why they think the way they do. The hatred and anger is almost palpable, more so than if it were merely an act put on for the benefit of their peers. (Not all, of course, and this is strictly my own experience with people who disagree with those who have a more patriotic outlook and isn’t supposed to be sweeping generality, though why I’m justifying myself, I don’t know except that in this angry age, I prefer to deflect that anger before it gets focused on me.)

Like with grief, could the anger have come first and then only later did that anger go in search of a target? I know that many younger people are angry with their lives and seem to want to tear down the country and the system they think created the situation, but the anger seems so over the top. Are they just angry and their political stance is what they chose as a target for that anger? Although some studies show no real difference in mental health between the rights and the lefts, others show that left-leaning liberals are almost twice as unhappy as other people, and more than half admit to mental health issues. Some say it’s because they don’t have the foundation of religion and family and community that conservatives have, but I don’t know. My main focus today is about whether the anger or the tear-it-all-down ideology came first. If it’s the anger, then once they tear it all down, they will still be angry but with nothing left to focus it on. Then what?

With any luck (good or bad), I will be gone by the time that question finds an answer, but still, I do wonder.

I also wonder if that anger is catching. I do know people who think alike tend to support each other in what seems to be folie à deux, so it could just be that they exacerbate each other’s inclinations. It could be that the anger makes them feel alive, drugged as they are on adrenaline, but it could also be something else. For example, the only times I got blindingly angry, ready to smash someone with a baseball bat, was when my bipolar brother would dump his anger on me, back when we were both stranded in California. Out of his presence, I was fine, but oh, that reflected anger was more than I could handle. Well, almost more. I did handle it, and we all survived that situation, but it sure was bizarre to experience especially since I tend to be a rather phlegmatic person.

None of this matters, I suppose. To be honest, little of what I write about matters since there’s nothing I can do about any of it, but here I am, spinning my wheels anyway.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Pretense

September 1, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It’s funny to think how often I’ve done this: sitting at my computer, staring at a blank “page,” trying to think of something to write about.

Nowadays, the problem isn’t so much what to write, but whether or not I want to write what’s in my mind, but still, whatever the reason, I am sitting here as I have so often over the nineteen years since I started this blog, just . . . staring.

You’d think this would be my prompt to forget about trying to blog every day, but then, what would I do with all the time I would have spent staring at the blank page? I’m already spending less time playing the hidden object game that once fascinated me and spending even less time reading news commentary articles, which leaves me with a lot of free time already. Giving up blogging would add even more free time to the free time I already don’t know what to do with.

Oddly, the days still pass quickly, perhaps because the early mornings are spent outside working on the yard, which takes at least a couple of hours. And then, of course, I need to get cleaned up and cooled down, and that adds to the gardening time or subtracts from the free time or whatever the math might be.

Periodically, I toy with the idea of not paying attention at all to the larger world (that is, the world larger than my own enclosed space) because really, it gains me nothing other than a deep-seated sadness at what I fear could be coming. (The fear isn’t irrational since the globalists and the sell-out politicians have been pushing us in a collective direction for more than a hundred years, but still, what good does it do me to give it mental space?) On the other hand, if I could forget about the outside world, I’d miss out on learning such things as “sciolistic.” What a lovely word! It was used by a cabinet member and refers to people who pretend to knowledge they don’t have, and that does describe too many of the folks in Congress. They seem to have perfected “pretense.” Not just the pretense of knowing what they don’t know, but also the pretense of working for the citizens they were elected to serve. (Too often the citizens they are serving are themselves.)

Of course, who am I to denigrate anyone for pretense, since here I sit, staring at the blank page (well, it’s not so blank right now, come to think of it), pretending for all the world I have something to say.

I suppose I should give myself credit for at least trying to say something, no matter how inane, but all that the effort really says is, “Look at me!”

And maybe that is good enough. Since I spend so much time alone, there’s no one to see me. Well, except for me, of course, and I’m not sure that counts as being seen. It also assumes that being seen is important. Perhaps it is. Though, of course, it could just be more pretense.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Prime Season

August 29, 2026 — Pat Bertram

A couple of years ago, I clicked on the wrong button when ordering from Amazon, and ended up with a free trial of Prime. After a moment of panic, afraid that after the first month I’d be stuck with that exorbitant charge (exorbitant for me since I so seldom order, and when I do need something, it’s easy enough to wait until I can make the minimum to get free shipping and then wait a week or two until it arrives), I found the prime settings and immediately discontinued it.

They still gave me the free month, but with daily warnings that my benefits would be ending. I was relieved it was that easy. Since I had the membership, I made use of it — ordering whatever and whenever I wanted, mostly small things just because I could. It was a fun game to play, but when my benefits expired (oh, horrors!), I barely noticed.

Last week, I placed an order for some books, and when that free membership deal came up again, I went for it. I wouldn’t have had to pay shipping anyway, since those books more than met the minimum, but I was seduced by the thought of getting them in a couple of days.

The next day, I was mentioning to a friend another book I found that I wasn’t sure I wanted to read but thought she might like. It’s a fantasy, “a novel of an ancient China that never was,” and I am currently (and have been for decades) underthrilled with all things Chinese. (Except my friend, of course, who is of Chinese descent.)

Still, just because I am no fan of Communism and resent heartily having to support China rather than my own country, it doesn’t negate my early studies of ancient Chinese culture, myths, and legends. So I backtracked my online footsteps, found the book for just a few dollars, and a couple of clicks later the book was on its way too me. I could get addicted to that! A little later that same day, I checked on a product I’ve used (it helps kill spurge, and though I really do not like using poisons, spurge takes over if nothing is done about it — sort of the kudzu of the weed world), and though I hadn’t planned to buy spurge killer again until next year, the price was right and so — click, click, and it’s on the way.

Normally, after I place an order, I immediately remove my credit card information from the site since there’s no reason for them to have it considering how little I order, but I am letting them keep it for now, though I will remove it a few days before the end of my Prime season to prevent them from accidentally charging me for another month. Meantime, ordering this way feels like getting free stuff. Of course, the reckoning comes later, but until then, it’s a fun game to play. Unfortunately, I am running out of things to buy, though without having to deal with a minimum order, I’m sure I’ll find some other small things I can’t do without.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Time to Fill

August 26, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I thought I’d have trouble spending way less time on the internet, but the only problem I have so far is what to do with all that free time. There’s only so much work I can do outside before the heat makes being out there a dangerous folly, so I’m not doing too much more than I had been. I did clamber about my back garden patch, the one where I planted a pumpkin vine that is creeping over the entire area, to do some weeding. Luckily, I was able to do most of the work near the fence, so I had something to hold on to as I worked my way through the jungle. To my delight, I discovered a pumpkin hidden back there! It’s still green, so it will be a while until I can harvest it. Meantime, the first pumpkin I found has turned a luscious orange. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it. Maybe cook it, peel it, puree it, and freeze it. The best part is that the work will take up some of my free time.

And I will have to find things to do to use my reclaimed time. Although I’d just as soon not play the game I’ve been fooling around with for the past six years (being at home during the Covid mess and needing something to do is what got me started with it), it’s hard not to want to log in when I get bored. So I do. Log in. Not to play. Just to check to see what’s going on, maybe play one of the less irritating side games for a few minutes, then I’m finished. Anything more annoys the heck out of me. It’s a simple hidden object game where you look for hidden objects in pictures, and yet they act as if each move is a major casino-like win, with all sorts of lights and flashes, and whirling objects that seem to fly out of the screen. Luckily, I have nothing invested in the game, so whether I play or not is no big deal.

I also check on the news aggregator I follow, but even that now is a quick in and out. To be honest, I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to know what’s going on out there. I’m so much better off in my own little world. Or in the magic worlds of the two fantasy authors I like. It doesn’t even bother me anymore that the books were never finished. Well, I suppose The Wheel of Time was finished, but since it was finished by a terrible substitute author after Robert Jordan died, to me, it is unfinished and will always remain so.

I did find another series from that same era (before Woke hit the fantasy genre), though who knows if I will like it — the reviews are mixed. Still, I’ve read about a third of The Dragonbone Chair, and so far, so good. Best of all, it’s a million-word novel spread out over four different books, so even if it turns out that it’s not my sort of story, it will keep me company through thousands of meals.

Although I don’t particularly like fantasy, in fact I can’t stand most of it, there is a genre within a genre — a coming-of-age/hero’s journey story in an earthlike world, where much is familiar though skewed with a bit of strange — that I do tend to enjoy, but so far, I’ve only found three such series that appeal to me. Luckily, these stories are all very long with multiple books in the series and deserve more than a few readings. In fact, it was only during the second reading of The Kingkiller Chronicles that I realized that much of the dialogue is in rhyme or seven-word sentences depending upon the character. Something to go back and pay attention to. Best of all, none of those books has much to do with our world today except in an allegorical or fable-ous way, which is good for my peace of mind.

Still, as with working outside, there’s only so much reading, and working puzzles, and such that I can do in a day, so there’s still a lot of time to fill.

Luckily, as I find myself reaching for the keyboard to offset an upsurge of boredom, I remember what is waiting for me, and that makes it easy to stay away.

At least for now. Who knows what I’ll get up to in the coming days.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, books, history/myth, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Complicating My Life

August 23, 2026 — Pat Bertram

If everyone were honest, just think how different life would be. No need to protect yourself from theft, fraud, scams, hacking, and any number of other dishonest occupations that complicate life for the rest of us.

My brother called me to warn me that Microsoft Windows does automatic encryption when you close down your computer so that if it’s stolen, thieves can’t get into your records even if they can figure out your password. The problem is, if your computer is dropped (for example) and you get it fixed, the encryption goes into force, and you need your encryption code to get back into your own computer. Apparently, this code is about 40 characters long, so isn’t exactly memorizable by most people.

Anyway, since it took him hours and a separate computer to finally get his encryption code so he could get into his own computer, he thought he’d save me the same hassle in case I ever needed the code, and so he tried to walk me through the process of finding out what my encryption code is.

As it turned out, I couldn’t get into my Microsoft account because they wanted to send a security code to a defunct email. I was able to change the email to a current one, but meantime, they have placed a hold on the account for 30 days. I can still do things like check my email, but nothing beyond that until the end of next month.

So why was that first recovery email incorrect? I didn’t realize I’d ever given them a recovery email, so I didn’t change it when Microsoft made it near impossible for me to access that recovery email account.

And why was it impossible to access that recovery email? A year and a half ago, Microsoft informed me I would have to download an authenticator app to my phone so I could continue using that email account, the one associated with my webpage. The bizarre thing is that this particular email was never able to be downloaded to my phone, and the authenticator doesn’t work for PCs, so they were demanding something utterly unnecessary. Since I didn’t want to clutter my phone with something so ridiculous, I ended up having to go through the insanity of updating my accounts with the new email. Except, apparently, for Microsoft.

I wondered if anything had changed, so I tried to log into my webpage and check the status of the email from there. First, they wanted me to download an authenticator app, and when I passed on that, they sent a code to my phone, which I used. Then they again told me to download the authenticator app, and when again I didn’t do it, the same page came up asking for my phone so they could send me a second security code. I gave them the number again and they said, “You already used that number. We need another one.”

So, since I don’t have another phone, I still can’t access that email, and now I can’t even access my web page. You’d think I was big business rather than a solitary person with almost nothing to protect.

My webpage is paid up for five more years, and who knows what might happen. Considering that my online presence as well as my following is steadily shrinking (in fact, probably because of my recent political commentary, I’ve lost three-fourths of my readers), I might let the site go rather than go through all the foofaraw to pay for additional years. Luckily, my website was updated a couple of years ago, and nothing has changed since then, so I’m fine. And who knows — in five years I might be finished with the whole online thing. (If, in fact, in this world, anyone can be finished with it.)

So, after all that hassle, with nothing accomplished, I asked my brother what would happen if I just turned off the encryption. My computer never leaves my desk, so I’m not in danger of inadvertently losing it, and if someone breaks into my house and steals the computer, I’ll have more troubles than an encryption code could solve.

As it turns out, it is possible to turn off the encryption code, but it takes perhaps 8 hours for the computer to completely unencrypt everything. So I left everything as is until next month at least.

Why does everything have to be so complicated? Oh, right. It’s because of all those dishonest folk who are so willing to trespass on the good graces of the rest of us.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Young vs Old

August 22, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been playing a hidden object game for a while now, and every time the game updates — about once a month — I think it’s time to find something else to do because every month, they add annoying effects. For example, a couple of months ago, they added an effect where when you clicked on the found object, it flashed a bright light. Yikes. That’s enough to give a person migraines, to exacerbate epileptic tendencies, to aggravate people with the beginnings of cataracts, as well as create a whole bunch of other problems. Apparently, enough of us complained, so that they removed it. All went okay for a couple of months, but now they brought it back. It’s not as much of a bright flashing light, but it’s still a quick flash of a light, which is just as bad. Even worse, it slows down the game, especially if you have to close your eyes every time you click on an object to keep from being hit with the flash.

From what I can tell, the game players are mostly middle aged and older, not a whole lot of young folks, though I imagine the people who write the code for the game are all young. (Or AI for all I know.) Still, we older folk don’t need flashing lights to hypnotize us into playing. We do better in a staid atmosphere, but apparently, that’s not fun for the developers. I also bet they’re trying to attract more younger people, but it doesn’t seem a good business model to upset the older folk before they attract the younger generations.

Usually I can get used to the changes, especially since I turn off the annoying sounds, but those flashing lights are a deal breaker. So I’m going to have to find an alternative to the game as a way of wasting my time. Reading used to do it, but I still haven’t been able to force myself back to the library. I simply do not want to read romances or mysteries or thrillers or pretty much anything written in the age of AI, so I read and reread the books I have — a couple of fantasy series. I did order another series that seemed like one I could read, which surprised me — both the ordering and the finding. Most of the books in that genre are written by writers I don’t like who use bizarre names with bizarre spellings that leave me totally confused, and I’m confused enough as it is. (Not really, but it sounded good.) So finding something I might like, something, moreover that I’d never read, is appealing.

I’m not only going to have to step away from the game, but the internet in general. For a time, I liked seeing that the United States was actually working to break the globalist hold over us, but now that the midterms are nearing, the part I’m interested in is being drowned out by the horrendous specter of a communist takeover from inside the country. Not that I think they could do anything permanently — the whole reason for the second amendment is to prevent that sort of thing — but it could be a sad and depressing time. Even if by chance those so-called socialists are voted out, which I don’t think they can be since the blue states simply arrange the votes so they get who they want, it’s still sad and depressing to think that so many United States citizens hate this country and want to rip it to shreds. And I simply don’t want to see that hatred anymore.

It seems as if I got way off track. Or maybe not. Maybe the game and the politics are simply two sides of the same issue — the young vs the old.

Today, while trying to play the game, I understood why so many young people have no use for us older people. They need the lights and sounds and constant changes while we prefer a quieter game. For us, time goes so fast, it seems as if the changes come in a constant flash, while for them, the time must drag between the changes. We also don’t need the changes — we’ve lived through so much that it’s a comfort to immerse ourselves in a slowly evolving game instead of one that changes rapidly. But for younger folk, it’s all new and exciting and a thrill to be able to constantly think of new ways to “improve” the game.

It’s the same with the greater world. For us older folk, at least those of us who are not imbued with a savior complex, we’ve experienced way more than the younger people, and prefer a slowly evolving political scene, not the rapid and rapacious one we have right now. But for them, it’s all new. They are caught up in the whole “change the world to suit me” mystique without ever realizing the damage they could be doing.

So my solution? (For me, that is. There is no solution for the idiocy of youth except time, and no hope for the older people who should know better than to root for communism.) It’s a matter of my trying to find something else to do to shut out the outside world. The problem with that is that I risk becoming too insular. So, I guess, I’ll just do what I always do but just be a bit more circumspect and a lot more protective of myself and my peace of mind.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Creating a Whole New Reality

August 18, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Despite my extensive research in previous years into ancient civilizations and the mysteries they left behind, I’d never heard of Tartaria until recently. Some days, my online feed is filled with tantalizing tidbits about a super-advanced civilization that lasted until around the turn of the twentieth century when it was buried by a mud flood in a great global reset. To prove their theory, they point to such things as the massive fortress-like buildings that were erected to house the insane, or rather, according to the story, to house those who still remembered the Tartarian world before it was destroyed. Also “proofs” are the incredible cathedrals and government edifices that were seemingly impossible to create in horse-and-buggy times. Those buildings were supposed to be conductors of earth energy, a free energy source that was known once upon a time. Also, so many of these buildings all over the world were created in similar styles, which leads people again down the trail to Tartaria.

As much as I enjoy fun theories, I couldn’t get behind this one. Oh, I do believe in earth energy (something Tesla supposedly proved, though that “proof” disappeared after his death), and many researchers have found connections between cathedrals (if you’re familiar with The DaVinci Code, you know as much as most people about those connections). The half-buried buildings could have come from settling over the centuries (much in the same way that Venice is sinking), rather than a single mud flood.

But despite the cohesion of the theory, I couldn’t buy into it. How could they make a billion people stop believing in what they knew happened?

Well, I have my answer. All I had to do was pay attention to what’s going on today, how the liberals in particular are rewriting history and teaching kids things that simply are not true, or at least not the whole truth. (I’ve written and deleted several examples because all of them would get me called a liar and a racist and a bigot and a whateveraphobic and a bunch of other unsavory things, which would prove my point, but proving a point isn’t worth getting curses called down on my head.)

So, let’s try this one: kids are being taught that this is the worst country in the world, that we are an oppressor civilization, which leads kids to believe we created the whole slave trade when in fact, it had been going on for thousands of years before anyone in this country held a slave, and it continues to this very day. What this country did was make slavery illegal. You can’t teach kids one thing without following through with the rest of the story. Nor can you ignore the hundreds of thousands of white Americans who died to free those slaves. Nor can you shame a country for things that happened before anyone alive today was born, without balancing it out with all the good things that the country subsequently did. We are a country in progress, with each generation trying to improve their lives, their family’s lives, and the lives of their fellow citizens. You leave those important parts out, and what you end up with are a couple of generations who want to tear the whole thing down and make the billionaires pay for everything. And though there are some rich folks using their money to sow discord in this and other countries (and somehow, the money those billionaires have is sacrosanct) others are simply working, providing jobs for people, creating wealth. Wealth is not a pie. When someone creates a successful business, it adds to the prosperity of everyone. But that, too, is something that is left out of the discussion.

So, there begins the erasure of the truth. In future generations, assuming this current crop of neo-socialist/communists don’t rip the country to shreds, that’s what people will believe. They’ll sit on top of the destruction of a country that was built to serve the individual and protect individual rights because they believe the government needs to be in control of everything. (Which is utterly insane. The more money the government has, the more it squanders, the more fraud there is, and the worse off things are.)

Anyway, those future folks will be digging through the ruins, and they will find the Smithsonian Institute and the exhibits (paid for with our hard-earned money) that instead of celebrating this country, tell the story of how terrible we were. And those folks will nod in self-congratulation, and tell themselves that, even though they ended up in rags, they did the right thing by tearing it all down.

This is an exaggeration, of course, and with any luck, we’ll never see that destruction, but my point holds — it is possible to create a whole new reality within a short time. So who’s to say that there wasn’t some kind of great reset that lies forgotten in the not-so-distant past, just as people today are rewriting our own history.

There is one lingering question I have that mention of Tartaria brought to mind: in 1900, our population was only 76 million people, so why were there so many immense buildings erected all over the country to house the insane?

 

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in culture, history/myth, internet. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Self-Censoring

August 15, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been sitting here for a while, trying to figure out what — if any — of the many thoughts and worries going through my mind I want to write about, or if I should keep them to myself.

I hadn’t realized how much I censor myself, both in speech and in blogging, but I do it. A lot. There are too many triggering topics where a single remark or a simple question gets the full hate treatment. If you don’t believe what a certain group wants you to believe and dare to say so, it seems to unleash the beast that people try to hide offline. Or maybe they don’t hide it offline. Maybe, because I spend so much time alone in my little corner of the world, I’m just not seeing it. It does seem, though, that people are too willing to accuse others of hate speech, racism, fascist, or whateveraphobia. (At least one of those “phobias” is a realistic fear and shouldn’t glean the hate that it does, but still, in this political activist climate, you’re only allowed to say what is “approved.”) To those people, there is no rationale for a different belief. It’s all emotion, all the time.

Luckily, I don’t get a lot of that blowback, but that’s mostly because I tend to stay in the middle where I open myself to getting bashed from both sides.

I could still write about my concerns, of course, but the unpalatable truth is, although I like getting comments, I don’t always want to know what other people think about what I think about if they disagree with me, especially when it comes to certain hot subjects. Like “gender-affirming care” for minors. I’ve already been shot down more than I care to be over that one. And even merely asking questions of adults who have transitioned has left me with fewer friends. And when it comes to transwomen in women spaces, there again, I have questions that bring me no answers but accusations of cruelty, since the transwoman I know still prefers women. (Something no one talks about, and no wonder, if everyone gets shot down for simply asking a question.)

There are also people I admire, but since I know too many people who hate them, there’s really no point in trying to explain the good I see because . . . well, just because.

And then there’s all the truly insane political stuff — people who hate this country are being elected to various offices. How is that even possible? But oops. I shouldn’t have mentioned that. Just the question itself earns a person one of those whateveraphobia slurs.

The way I used to deal with uncomfortable issues was to write about them, but nowadays I need to be careful what I say, not just because the internet is forever but because I’m a lot more sensitive to censure than I like to admit.

So here I sit, rejecting one topic after another as I try to figure out what to blog about today.

I guess the answer is I’ll just post this discussion I’m having with myself about whether or not to continue self-censoring.

The answer, apparently, is yes, I will continue to try to keep my mouth closed and my fingers off the computer keys when it comes to certain topics.

Besides, there are enough opinions floating around; the world doesn’t need mine, too.

[What’s truly amazing about this post — to me, anyway — is that exactly ten years ago today, I posted an Open Letter to Blog Readers where I said that this was my blog, “If you are upset by anything I say, remember, this is not necessarily about your truth. . . . It’s about my truth and I cannot sort out my truth if I don’t mention the things that trigger a spate of emotionalism.” Apparently, things have changed so much in the world, or perhaps just in me, that I’m not comfortable talking about my truth. Though truly, in a lot of cases, I have no truth, just a lot of questions that seem to prove to people that I am not on the right side of the issues today. Well, I do tend to point out hypocrisy and irony, but that’s to be expected when there is so much of it going on, where they want us to believe things that are not true and to believe things that once were touted as good but are considered evil now that a different group is running things.] 

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, blogging, history/myth, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

So What?

August 10, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I came across an article where someone had asked the millennials why they hate the boomers and then shared the responses. Quite frankly, the responses seemed to me to be reasons to hate the millennials. Not really, but not “not really,” either. Most of the answers seemed to revolve around how older people use their phones. For example, they hate that “boomers” call instead of text, stop by instead of text, email instead of text. To them, all those things seem rude, but the only reason they would be dealing with these “rude” boomers is if they were related, in which case it seems to me as if they are too self-absorbed and not at all interested in reacting with those older folk in a way the older folk might appreciate.

I understand that mores have changed, and the phone generations think that not texting first is rude, but if someone calls, and you know who they are, it’s just as easy to ignore a call as a text and then call back when you have time. So what’s the gripe?

They also don’t like how “boomers” text, such as writing out whole words rather than using the made-up text language. What possible difference can that make to anyone? One millennial didn’t like that his father signed every text with “love, dad,” but so what? Apparently, they see these things as older folks not caring enough about them to learn the younger people’s way of doing things, but that works both ways: they don’t care enough about the older people to be grateful they at least are communicating and showing that they still care.

And they don’t like that “boomers” don’t want to deal with new apps. And if the oldsters do have to deal, they ask for help, which apparently the bratty millennials don’t want to give, even though trying to learn a new app would seem to be a way of connecting with the younger generations.

There were some other bizarre things they hated, such as older people not being frantic about “climate change” and the way they shrug it off with “the climate always changes,” when, in fact, in this case, the older people are correct. By now, most people have figured out the whole green movement was a scam, that climate is simply changing as it always does, so anyone who is still berating “boomers” about the climate are themselves now part of an older generation that isn’t keeping up with the times.

Other things they hate are that older folks share things that are not true, which is such a joke. Younger generations do that even more, secure in their arrogance that they know what is true when, because of their indoctrination, they haven’t a clue what is true. They only know what they know. (As does everyone, actually.)

They also don’t like that older people prefer cash or a check rather than “tapping” a card, but what business is it of theirs?

And, like everyone, they don’t like advice or back-handed compliments, or questions about their sartorial and body-decorating choices.

But basically, what they don’t like are the way their parents and grandparents use their phones and computers. I imagine, if I had kids or grandkids, they’d hate that I blogged rather than communicated with whatever app it is that they use nowadays.

It’s this sort of thing I started hearing from the older millennial commentators I used to check on occasionally but don’t anymore because who needs that attitude?

I guess this just proves I’m old, but so what? At some point, everyone grows old, at least, those who are lucky enough to live that long.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, blogging, culture, dealing with old age, internet, life. Tags: , , , . 11 Comments »
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