Would-Be Fantasy Writer

January 28, 2026 — Pat Bertram

The Wheel of Time book series has apparently inspired as well as created a couple of generations of fantasy writers. Although I have never been able to get into any of those other stories (the books may have been inspired by Robert Jordan, but their worlds and their writing styles fall vastly short of his example), I can understand the urge to create one’s own world. I’ve thought about it myself, perhaps continuing the story I began in Bob: The Right Hand of God. Although Bob: The Right Hand of God is a stand-alone novel, it does seem to lend itself to a sequel since anyone born into that re-made world would have to start developing a new civilization (or not), but I don’t have any interest in writing the sequel. To me, the interesting part of the story was the de-creation of life on Earth as we know it. Anything further seems as if it would be just a ho-hum book. A been there, read that sort of thing.

So, if not Bob: The Right Hand of God, then what? Create a whole new world and culture as so many fantasy writers do? I considered that possibility, thinking a world of my own would be a place to escape to in my own head if not in fact but, though I hate to admit any failing, I don’t have the imagination for such an undertaking. (Although I’ve written two novels that could be considered fantasy, both took place more or less in our own world.) Nor do I need to live any more in my head than I already do. Besides, the truth is, so-called real life is fantasy enough for me.

There are theories that all time exists at once, so we are living our past and our future at the same time we are living in the present. My very first book, the terribly written one that no one will ever see (mostly because a few months ago, in a fit of decluttering, I threw away the only copy of the manuscript), was the story of two people who meet and fall instantly into if not love, then an incredibly deep connection, only to find out that they are reincarnations of each other. My question (and hence the premise of the book) was that if everything exists at once and if there is any validity to reincarnation, could this happen? There is an obscure theory that we are all reincarnations of one another. That not only is there a single electron that moves so fast and through so many dimensions and quantum processes that it creates the entire universe (or even multiple universes), but that there is also a single soul that we are all part of. (Yeah, I read weird stuff, which is inevitable when one reads almost anything almost all the time.)

Other theories say we are creating the world as we live it, that nothing exists yet but possibilities we haven’t yet encountered or envisioned. Other theories suggest that everything exists in our thoughts, that we are thinking into reality the world we live in. The reason we are such a mess is that everyone is thinking of different things and wanting different things. If everyone thought of the same thing at the same time, then that thing would come into fruition. Of course, the chances of that happening are nil since whenever you have even just three people together, one will always be thinking of something else, daydreaming or disagreeing or whatever goes on in people’s heads, and the other two will be saying they are thinking of the same thing, but that thing could be completely different for each of them. (For example, if they are trying to envision an apple, one might see a green apple, another red.)

Am I getting too silly here? Well, not too silly for a fantasy writer, but except for Bob: The Right Hand of God and Light Bringer, I probably will never be a fantasy writer. Probably will never write another book, either, but who knows. I could get bored with the books that currently exist and need to occupy my mind another way.

 

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

 

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Point of View

January 27, 2026 — Pat Bertram

The Wheel of Time culture shows me exactly why people can’t agree politically on . . . well, on anything.

By Wheel of Time culture, I don’t mean the various cultures in the books, though there are many, but the real-life culture surrounding the books. There are hundreds of websites devoted to discussions of the books, many websites that offer encyclopedias of Jordan’s world, other sites that offer snippets from Robert Jordan’s notes showing the development of his ideas and that sometimes include answers to questions fans ask (his answer most often is, “read and find out,” though sometimes he does elucidate). There are also companion books to the series that offer more information on characters, motivations, glossaries, a dictionary of his made-up language, explanations of things that don’t show up in the books like outlying cultures that have little to do with the story and things that Jordan never wanted people to know.

His subtlety (which it seems he prided himself on) is such that often there is no way to find the truth in the books themselves. In one case, we don’t find out who killed a particular bad guy until we see it in the glossary of the following book. I understand that he wants people to think about the issues and the happenings in the books, tries to get them involved in his world, and accords them the intelligence to be able to fill in vague lines. (The person who finished the series after the death of Jordan had no subtlety, no granting readers a modicum of intelligence, and explained every little detail.) I can also understand an author wanting people to figure things out on their own, such as Frank R. Stockton did in his 1882 story, “The Lady or the Tiger,” but at times it also feels a bit like a cheat. If it’s important, it should be in the books somewhere. If it’s not important, it shouldn’t be treated as if it’s some sort of mystery. (Though as Jordan admitted once in an interview, he was surprised when these — to him — throwaway incidents garnered much discussion.)

Still, as long as I can find out the information I want by checking online sources, I don’t really care that much if such particulars aren’t in the books since I certainly can’t remember every single detail of a 4,000,000 word story. I often end up checking on characters who showed up again after 1,000,000 words and I needed a refresher on who they were and what they had done. Sometimes if I can’t find an explanation for a certain minor point in any of the encyclopedias, I end up reading various discussions to see if any reader had figured it out.

All this to explain why I get caught up in other people’s opinions of the various aspects of the books.

It makes sense, of course, that people would have disparate opinions about the unsaid bits, but what’s really interesting to me is even when the story is explicitly laid out, when the characters’ actions are visible to everyone, when the motivations are obvious, that readers all see something different and are vocal about defending their point of view.

And this is just a story. The words are static. There are no edited versions of the sentences making them seem to say what they didn’t say, no edited videos making us see a different version of the action. It’s all right there in the books. And yet, the interpretations are wildly different. Some people hate a couple of the characters because their plot line goes on and on and seems to accomplish nothing. Other people love those characters and hate other characters. That makes sense to me. Some people even hate the main hero while loving the books, which doesn’t make sense to me, but it doesn’t have to make sense. It’s about preference.

But misinterpreting the story? Seeing what isn’t there? Not seeing what is there? That doesn’t make sense to me since we all have access to the exact same words. I suppose it’s possible that it is I who is misinterpreting the story, since after all, I am totally the wrong demographic (older by decades!) but even that would prove my point, which is . . .

Hmm. What is my point? I suppose it’s that if people can’t even agree on what they are seeing in a book series, can’t agree on what is right and what is wrong when it matters little, it’s easy to see why there is no agreement about what is best for us individually and ultimately the country.

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

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How Fast Time Flies

January 26, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What do you complain about the most?
View all responses

I wasn’t going to answer this particular blog prompt because I don’t think I complain all that much. I suppose it’s possible I do complain at times to other people, and it might seem to them that I complain a lot, but since I spend most of my time alone, to me, those complaints seem few and far between. I do, however, tend to mention how fast time is passing, which could be construed a complaint.

January especially seems to skim by me with barely a nod to the passing days. By the middle of the month, I’m usually bemoaning the speed which the year is passing, and by the end of the month, I figure the year is all but done.

But not this year. This January seems interminably long. It feels as if the month should be over, and yet there’s still most of a week remaining. I don’t suppose it matters how fast the month seems to be passing except that it screws up with my internal clock. Also, I am trying to do a “dry January,” and having to be extra cognizant of what I eat is wearing on me.

[I learned of Dry January (a program started in the UK in 2013) from my sister who follows this program, and since I don’t drink, I decided to show my solidarity by eschewing sugar and wheat, with of course, the goal of trying to reset my metabolism and eating habits. (I always try to eat as healthy as I can, but I find as the year progresses, I slip more and more from my goal, and I wanted to give myself a good start to the new year.)]

I suppose my starting Dry January early (the day after Christmas) could be making the month seem longer, but the Christmas treats were gone, and so was the tree. (I wrapped the fully decorated fake tree in cushioning packing materials, stuck in in a heavy trash bag and took it down into the basement, ready to pull out for next year. It makes it so much easier to put up a tree when it’s already decorated!) So there was no reason to wait to start that particular resolution. But even given that I started the “dry” month early, there’s no reason for January to seem so long.

Oh, well. It will eventually be over, February will fly by, and I will soon be complaining again about fast time is passing.

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

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A Sort of Apology

January 25, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I feel as if I should apologize for all these Wheel of Time posts, and yet, here I still am.

In an effort to find an alternative to posting here, I looked for book discussions, thinking it would be fun to talk about the story, characters, and implications of the various events with other students of the work, but the discussions fell into a few distinct categories:

Discussions during the long years while fans waited for a new book to be published, most centering on where they thought the story was going, and which are now defunct because the series of books is finished and the ending, or at least an ending, is known.

Discussions centered on who loved what character, and how foolish were those who didn’t like said character. That sort of non-discussion gets old, especially if you hold a minority opinion and don’t want to be lambasted.

Discussions about the end of the book, and how wonderful the ending was, or if not how wonderful the ending was, how wonderful the substitute writer was for writing it (ignoring the fact that he got paid, and even more importantly, that the project catapulted him into fantasy superstardom).

None of those discussions fit with anything I wanted to discuss, and anyway, most were many years old. Any newer discussions revolved around the now cancelled television series, and how terrible/wonderful the show was. (Terrible because it turned the story into something completely different from the books, wonderful because . . .  well, because it was the Wheel of Time.)

I tried starting my own discussion, but only got the usual fan-type comments such as “I liked character A, I hated character B.”

I considered resurrecting one of my dormant blogs and doing a chapter-by-chapter discussion, but that didn’t appeal to me. I like the puzzle the books present, and I like that in some ways it is (was?) a cultural phenomenon, with many more millions of words written about the books than were actually in the books (the first book was published right around the time the internet, discussion boards, and social sites were just beginning, and the story happened to be geared to the age group that first embraced the online world). To be honest, I didn’t want to spend that much effort on what is really just a way for me to pass mental time. (Physical time, too, but I like having something to occupy my mind, more than the issues of the day or . . . whatever.) Besides, however much I determine that upon this rereading, for sure, I will read every word, I never do. I find myself skimming or even skipping the characters I find annoying and the parts that include too much torture, both mental and physical.

I make sure, however, that I never skim or skip some of the most lyrical of Jordan’s writing. At one point, a character got lost in thoughts of the past, remembering that “They danced beneath the great crystal dome at the court of Shaemal, when all the world envied Coremanda’s splendor and might.” That’s pretty much all we ever find out about the lost nation of Coremanda, but that one sentence is haunting, conjuring in just a few words a long-forgotten time.

And then there’s a song that the same character remembers from long ago, a song that seems to be a theme of the books (NB: the Aes Sedai are the women power wielders):

Give me your trust, said the Aes Sedai.
On my shoulders I support the sky.
Trust me to know and to do what is best,
And I will take care of the rest.
But trust is the color of a dark seed growing.
Trust is the color of a heart’s blood flowing.
Trust is the color of a soul’s last breath.
Trust is the color of death.

Anyway, that lyricism is beside the point . . . actually, no — it’s not beside the point, it is the point of my rereading the books. It’s just not the point of this blog post and my feeling I should apologize for dumping my thoughts on the books here.

So, if you want an apology, you got it, but it’s not truly an apology because a sincere apology connotes a promise of not repeating the offense, and perhaps unfortunately for you, I will continue posting my thoughts until I’ve finished this reread or until I’ve given up blogging again.

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

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Hero

January 23, 2026 — Pat Bertram

When does an author’s intentions become superseded by what is actually in the written book? I tend to think that as long as the book is unpublished and exists only in the author’s mind, then what is intended is what is. However, when a book is published and read, the author’s intentions no long matter — only the story the reader experiences counts.

This is especially true for the Wheel of Time books. I read an interview with Robert Jordan where someone asked if one of his themes was about women looking down their noses on men, and he said, “I’m not certain that I have a women-looking-down-their-nose at men theme; I simply have women that consider themselves competent in and of themselves.” They might be competent, but the truth is, whatever his intentions, almost all his women look down their noses on men, thinking men are nothing but wool-headed pieces of fluff who “think with the hair on their chests.” At best, the women seem indulgent or frustrated; at worst, contemptuous or even hateful.

In another interview, he said, “Egwene has had to give up the life that she’d assumed that she was going to live, and to adopt this other life in the name of the greater good.”

Some people do see Egwene as a heroic character, one who does give herself to the greater good, as Jordan apparently intended, but others see her as the embodiment of the dark triad of personality traits: narcissism (entitlement), Machiavellianism (manipulation), and psychopathy (lack of empathy). She pretends otherwise, of course, and sees herself as better than everyone else, especially better than the men heroes of the story. The men are all reluctant heroes, and they did have to leave the bucolic lives they led to save their village and ultimately the world. She didn’t have to leave. She just couldn’t stand that they were going to have adventures that she wouldn’t have, so she forced herself onto the expedition. All through the series, she lusts for power, seeks knowledge for the power it will eventually get her, and envies anyone having power she can’t have. Her ending is one of the few that actually makes sense in that senseless ending: She takes on more and more power (the power of the universe) until she destroys herself because she can’t let go of the one thing she wants. (Like the Gollum and his “precious” in The Lord of the Rings.)

Any good she does is purely accidental, a side effect of her power grab. Since she so often opposed the main hero, the one who was actually going to fight the last battle, once she gathered her forces, those who also opposed him, all he had to do was convince her of the rightness of his path, and then he held both sides (those who opposed him and those who were for him) in the palm of his hand. So in that case, she fulfilled her destiny, and died for the greater good, no matter what she was truly after.

And who knows, perhaps that was Jordan’s intention after all. To show that the reluctant hero ends up purposely choosing to do the right thing, and the gung-ho hero ends up only accidentally doing the right thing.

It’s funny that I think about these books so much. Most books are out of my mind as soon as the covers are closed, and rightly so. With too many novels, what you see is what you get. There is nothing beneath the thin veneer of the story, nothing to puzzle out, nothing to gain by ever thinking of them again. I’m still not sure if I like The Wheel of Time. There is so much that I don’t enjoy reading at all, such as anything about Egwene, not just her own point of view chapters, but also the chapters where other characters extol her (non-existent) virtues. Still, there are many, many layers in these books and I find it interesting to try to peel them all away to find the truth.

Assuming there is any truth.

Actually, that’s just specious. One particular truth shines all the way through the books, a truth that seems to fit our world as it exists right now. As Jordan said in an interview: “What you know as truth is not the whole truth. Sometimes it’s hardly the truth at all.”

Or as one of the hero’s mentors tell him: “You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway.”

Or, as Bernie LaPlante says to his son at the end of the movie Hero, “You remember when I said how I was gonna explain about life, buddy? Well the thing about life is, it gets weird. People are always telling ya about truth. Everybody always knows what the truth is, like it was toilet paper or somethin’, and they got a supply in the closet. But what you learn, as you get older, is there ain’t no truth. All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life like when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that’s your bullshit, so to speak.”

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

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Books I Want to Read

January 21, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What books do you want to read?
View all responses

The books I want to read are novels with a new story (which is hard to find since it seems so many novels repeat the same old stories with minor variations) or a truly different twist on an old story. The characters in these new — or old — stories are loyal and kind, nice until it’s time not to be nice, have integrity, do their best and when they don’t succeed, try to do a better best in some way. Often these characters have a talent or skill, but the story challenges them in ways that those abilities don’t help, and in fact force them try to find ways to use their lesser abilities. (For a simplistic example, a person with great eyesight would be at a disadvantage in a lightless cave and would need to rely on their perhaps diminished hearing.)

These books are also all written with clarity and grace using words and phrases that are sometimes lyrical or out of the ordinary, but always clear and understandable.

The books are of various genres, but at their core they are all great stories with relatability and depth, a sense of wonder and perhaps a touch of strange. No category romance! And not much science fiction or fantasy, either. (A lot of fantasy starts out very confusing and quite frankly, I have enough trouble sorting out the confusion in the real world. I don’t need to bring more confusion into my life.) Some speculative fiction would be on the list of books I want to read, especially if the stories are rooted in an everyday world and only after the story is established does it branch off into extrapolated plausibility (or implausibility).

The books also keep me absorbed without nail-biting tension. Curiosity about what is happening is better for me since tension, like confusion, is something best left to the real world. In fact, if a book makes me too tense, I read the ending, and if the ending fulfills the author’s contract with the reader, giving a satisfying and fulfilling resolution (another thing that’s in all the books I want to read), I’ll go back and finish reading the book with a deeper understanding of the situation.

I’m sure there are other characteristics I’m looking for in the books I want to read, but for now, this will do.

Oh, you want the titles? If I knew the titles of such paragons of the written word, I’d have already read the books!

The truth is, although the books I want to read have all the elements I’ve just described, I read just about anything as long as it engages my attention enough to get through the first chapter. Besides, somewhere in all the sludge are gems just waiting to be found.

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

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Emergency Library

January 19, 2026 — Pat Bertram

When I was young, I often reread books, but in my middle years, I discovered I didn’t like rereading, didn’t like the echoes of previous readings reverberating in my head. Like most readers, I’d accumulated shelves of books, but when I realized I didn’t want to reread any, I gave them away. The only books I liked having on hand were those I hadn’t read, what I called my “emergency stash.”

When the quarantine hit, and the library was closed, I quickly used up my emergency stash, and ended up rereading The Wheel of Time series. I found I liked living in Jordan’s world, one that purported to be both our distant past and our even more distant future. Well, I liked the parts when they were traveling, not so much the parts when they were manipulating each other, torturing each other, bending each other to their will. When the reread seemed to work out, I started searching for other books or series I could keep on hand to reread. Although I tried, I was never able to get into any other fantasy series, could not relate to any of them. There were too many ridiculous unpronounceable names and even more ridiculous situations in never-were-could-never-be worlds, to say nothing of the often-execrable writing. I did enjoy Ender’s Game and some other of Orson Scott Card’s science fiction books, but none I wanted to re-reread.

Recently, I went through series I’d previously read, but this time, instead of picking up books haphazardly, I read them in the order they were written to get a better idea of the character’s story. Most were mysteries, most I’d read so long ago I didn’t remember the story, but none caught my imagination enough to want to ever reread again. Others were stories I once loved, such as the Mrs. Pollifax books, Dune, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but although I liked the first book in all three of those series, the rest didn’t hold up to my adult scrutiny.

I did order the Noel Barber novels — I couldn’t get Tanamera, Sakkara, and Farewell to France from the library and I thought a friend would like to read Tanamera since she’d grown up in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. I ordered the others because at one time I’d liked them, and as it turned out, I still do.

So that’s the extent of my emergency library — Robert Jordan and Noel Barber. It turns out that no matter how much I once liked a book, few of them have the depth or sink-into-ability that I need to enjoy rereading a familiar story. It’s just as well. I don’t like having a lot of clutter, and books I don’t want to reread seem clutterish to me. I do have a stack of books about alchemy that I inherited from my brother and haven’t yet read, but I’m saving them for . . . actually, I don’t know what I’m saving them for. A time when I have the mental effort to expend on them, perhaps, but at least they are there as an emergency stash for my emergency stash.

Come to think of it, I also have the books I’ve written, but I’m afraid to read them in case I’m no longer proud of them. But someday I might read them. Or not.

Are there any books you enjoy rereading? Any you love? Any you’ve read multiple times?

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

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Uninventing

January 18, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
View all responses

I spent a lot of time thinking about this question because it seems as if there should be things in our lives that need uninventing, but I can’t think of any. There are a lot of things that have far reaching ramifications that I don’t like, such as generative artificial intelligence, but since it’s a direct result of computers and the internet, if it was un-invented, it would simply be reinvented.

There are things I don’t like, of course, but I try to stay away from them. It’s easy enough to do, most of the time. Keep the computer off, put the phone on airplane mode (as I do at night since no one is depending on me, and even if there were, there is nothing I could do about it that late anyway), don’t read books published after 2022 unless I’m familiar with the author.

Even though in some form, artificial intelligence has been around since the 1960s, models for the public like ChatGPT weren’t released until late 2022, and it seems as if the writing world has gobbled up the technology. People like that they can write a book in a day! Yay! Well, yay for them, not for me. I read to connect with the author’s view of the world, to find perhaps more depth to my own world. Connecting with artificial intelligence would not be the same thing at all. I’m sure, with time, generative AI will master even the complexity of human thought and emotions, developing novels that have layers to them, but I’m not interested.

Actually, I’m not interested in most authors who were first published in the past ten or fifteen years. There seems to be an underlying nastiness to so many of them, with unreliable characters lying in their own POV about what they did and about other characters, so the reader doesn’t know and can’t guess how appalling the unreliable character is until the end when you find out they were the bad guy all along. Eek. I don’t know if this is the sort of story new writers prefer or if it’s what editors are looking for, but either way, I don’t like being left with a feeling of squalor, as if there’s a thin film of filth on my soul.

But I am getting away from the point of what I would uninvent — nothing. On the other hand, if I could get rid of some policies, that I would gladly do.

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

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Mission Statement

January 9, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What is your mission?
View all responses

For a couple of decades, my mission was to write the best books I could, to get published, and ultimately to make a living as an author. I succeeded in the first two, and despite my focus and determination, I never figured out how to accomplish the third task.

Eventually my focus shifted, and I felt as if my mission was to tell the truth about grief: that there weren’t any clearly defined stages to climbing out of the pain but instead was a chaotic spiral of never ending and ever recurring emotions, physical side effects, and mental fog; that grief lasted longer than anyone could imagine; and that eventually you would become the person who could handle the soul-searing loss.

I kept at my truth-telling long after people told me I should “drop the mantle of grief” because so many grievers were helped by my raw writings, though to be honest, in real life, I did learn to cloak my sorrow, mostly to keep other people from feeling bad about my situation.

As the years passed, and I became the person I needed to be to survive the death of the person who made my life worth living, I felt less need to continue the mission. Those writings are all there for new grievers to find, but I no longer have anything to say on the subject.

Now my focus is taking care of myself so I can remain strong and independent and living in my own house until my road ends. This is not a mission so much as an intention. There’s no feeling as if this focus is a calling, no sense that it’s a quest, just a vague attempt to do the best I can for myself each day.

Maybe someday I’ll find another mission, but for now, I’m just as glad to drift, dealing with what comes as it comes, without an all-consuming purpose.

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

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Days Slipping By

November 12, 2025 — Pat Bertram

The days slipped away without my paying attention, until suddenly, it’s not midsummer anymore, with its intensive heat and bright sunlight, but is now mid-November with its cool days, cold nights, and creeping darkness.

Even worse, I’m not snug in my insulated life, with no real knowledge of the world around me, but have been slammed into the middle of a lot of confusing issues.

It all started with Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Because of my mostly sequestered life (and even, admittedly, because of my age), I didn’t know who he was, so I started watching snippets of his talks. Which led me to more snippets of controversy. Which led to more snippets of life and how scary it is out there. No, not “out there” beyond Earth. Just “out there” beyond my own horizons.

Which has left me absolutely lost and confused and so very ready to go back to my cloistered life.

For example, there is a lot of talk about microplastics and how dangerous they are both to us individually and to the environment. The underlying message seems to be one of blame to us consumers, which is nuts. At least in my case, it is. Whenever there was a choice, I always bought products in glass jars or bottles. Not only did the food taste better since there was no leaching of plastic flavors or plastic particles, but the containers served as food storage containers, which cut down the use of even more plastics. But now almost everything comes in plastic. Whose fault is it that there are no glass containers anymore? Not mine, certainly, and yet there is that undercurrent of finger pointing. Well, point that finger elsewhere.

Then there are crises in energy, as well as crises in water management, with again, the undercurrent of blame on the consumer. If that were all, it would be understandable, but here’s the deal — one generative artificial intelligence data center uses as much electricity as a small city and millions (no, billions!) of gallons of water.

Climate change. Yep. That’s our problem, right? Yours and mine? We have to be economical and conserve water and power, even to the point at times of dealing with rolling brownouts and unpalatable water in our faucets. But oh, yes, those people foisting generative artificial intelligence on us (in many cases, the very people who are screaming about climate change) can do whatever they want, including building their data centers in fragile ecosystems like water-deprived deserts. (Although “water-deprived deserts” is redundant, because what makes a desert is water deprivation, I used the phrase to emphasize the stupidity of it all.)

And oh, yes. Artificial intelligence. For decades, we’ve been told that AI will remove the back-breaking and demeaning jobs leaving us time for creativity. You know, like writing, composing, and art-making. Yeah, right. Generative AI is making inroads into all those creative endeavors. In fact, using Gen AI you can write a book in just a few minutes! Yay! Well, not yay. I’m being sarcastic. The whole point of writing is to write what you need to write as a unique human being. The whole point of reading is to connect to the human experience via that author’s unique perspective. In no way does “artificial” enter into the process. (To be honest, going by a lot of new books on the market, there’s not a whole lot of intelligence entering into the process either.)

I’m sure there are other areas of confusion. Actually, I know there are, but I don’t want to go into the gaslighting that seems to hold true in today’s politics. Nor do I want to get into the whole indoctrination thing and the conformity of thought that seems so prevalent. (When people mention Orwell’s 1984, they always talk about “big brother” but more important are his ministries: the Ministry of Peace propagates war, the Ministry of Truth spreads lies, the Ministry of Love dispenses fear, and the Ministry of Plenty creates scarcity. Seem familiar to the shenanigans going on today?)

Of course, I could be wrong about all this. Maybe it’s only the contrast with my quasi-hermitage that makes the world and its inhabitants seem so insane. With any luck, by writing this, I have excised these dichotomous thoughts from my head, and can go back to my normal, so very quiet and unconfusing life where the days slip by unnoticed.

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

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