Complicated grief

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/health/complicated-grief-so-deep-it-wont-die.html

The death of someone beloved often brings deep sadness. Usually, however, the intense grief of early mourning begins to ebb as months pass, and people alternate between continuing sorrow and a growing ability to rediscover life’s pleasures.

What distinguished Ms. Schomaker’s suffering was its sheer duration. She had been mired in grief for nine years when she saw an announcement from Columbia University, where researchers who had developed a treatment for “complicated grief” were seeking participants in a study.

Maybe this new approach could help, Ms. Schomaker thought.

Complicated or prolonged grief can assail anyone, but it is a particular problem for older adults, because they suffer so many losses — spouses, parents, siblings, friends. “It comes with bereavement,” said Dr. Katherine Shear, the psychiatrist who led the Columbia University study. “And the prevalence of important losses is so much greater in people over 65.”

In a review in The New England Journal of Medicine earlier this year, Dr. Shear listed several symptoms characteristic of complicated grief: intense longing or yearning, preoccupying thoughts and memories and an inability to accept the loss and to imagine a future without the person who died.

Often mourners with these symptoms are convinced that had they done something differently, they might have prevented the death. Severe and prolonged compared with typical reactions, complicated grief impairs the mourner’s ability to function.

“Adapting to loss is as much a part of us as grief itself,” said Dr. Shear, who directs the Center for Complicated Grief at the Columbia University School of Social Work. With complicated grief, “something gets in the way of that adaptation,” she said. “Something impedes the course of healing.”

Living through the loss of a loved one is a universal experience. But the ways in which we experience and deal with the pain can largely differ.

How common is this prolonged grief? An epidemiological study of more than 2,500 people, conducted in Germany in 2009, put the proportion at nearly 7 percent, and at 9 percent among those over age 61.

George A. Bonanno, director of the Loss, Trauma and Emotion Lab at Columbia University Teachers College, said the real figure might be closer to 10 to 15 percent.

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Dr. Bonanno, author of “The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss,” argues that resilience is the typical response to the death of loved ones. Yet, he notes, “we always see a group of people who don’t recover.”

The problem appears more likely when a death is sudden or violent; when the person who died was one’s spouse, romantic partner or child; and when the bereaved person has a history of depression, anxiety or substance abuse.

Defining this sort of grief has engendered some professional disagreement. What criteria distinguish complicated grief from depression or anxiety? When does normal grief become prolonged? Researchers disagree on even the condition’s name.

The American Psychiatric Association, in the latest version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, declined to classify complicated grief as a mental disorder and instead included “persistent complex bereavement-related disorder” in an appendix for further study.

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The fifth edition, published in 2013, sets 12 months as the point past which continued symptoms of intense grief may constitute a disorder, although Dr. Shear and other researchers had proposed a threshold of six months.

Some experts have argued that the available evidence doesn’t support a clear distinction between longer-than-average grieving and mental illness. “Does psychiatry need to continually label the range of normal human emotions as disorders?” Jerome C. Wakefield, a professor of social work and psychiatry at New York University, said in an interview.

By diagnosing complicated grief just six months after a death, he said, “you’ll get a lot of normal people receiving treatment they don’t need,” including drugs.

Dr. Shear also worries about “pathologizing” normal emotions. But when a woman remains unable to leave her home or answer the phone four years after the death of her adult son, as was true of one patient, something has clearly gone wrong.

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“If you’re worried about what you’re experiencing, if you’re not getting more engaged in life and people around you are saying, ‘Honey, stop wallowing in it,’ why not get some help?” Dr. Shear said.

Complicated grief therapy, developed by her center, showed greater effectiveness among older adults than interpersonal psychotherapy in a clinical trial.

Subjects, including Ms. Schomaker, were given a scale with statements measuring responses to loss like “I think about this person so much that it’s hard for me to do the things I normally do,” and “I feel that life is empty without the person who died.” Their high scores indicated complicated grief.

Close to half of the 151 subjects (average age: 66) had lost a spouse or partner, and more than a quarter had lost a parent. More than three years had elapsed, on average, since the death. Most subjects reported that they had thought of suicide.

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They were randomly assigned to undergo 16 weekly sessions of complicated grief therapy — which focuses specifically on bereavement symptoms, and incorporates memories, photographs and recordings — or interpersonal psychotherapy.

Both treatments helped, but in the group receiving complicated grief therapy, more than 70 percent were found “much improved” or “very much improved” in the severity of their symptoms and impairment, compared with 32 percent in the standard psychotherapy group. A larger, four-site study, completed but not yet published, showed similar effectiveness, Dr. Shear said.

To make its method more widely available, the Center for Complicated Grief has published a manual and offers training workshops for therapists; staff members consult with and answer questions from patients and therapists around the country.

Darlyn Reardon of Ross Township, Pa., for instance, sought complicated grief therapy at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 2011. After her husband of 40 years died of cancer, “it was like I lost my life, too,” she said.

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Seven years passed, and “I didn’t take care of myself,” she said. “I didn’t go to the doctor. I stopped going to church. We had a circle of friends, and I stopped seeing them. I stopped everything.”

Ms. Reardon, 72, will always miss her husband, John, who was a firefighter. But she can take pleasure now in a regular movie and lunch with her cousin, in an affectionate pug named Lovey, in her teenage grandchildren.

Ms. Schomaker, too, feels substantially recovered. A volunteer and museumgoer with an active social life, she is grateful for the complicated grief therapy she received.

“It gets you thinking about your loss in a different way,” she said. “It encourages you to move on, because there’s happiness ahead of you.”

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Mindful worrying

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/smarter-living/how-to-worry-mindfully.html

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But getting lost in worries is emotionally depleting, and it interferes with moving forward. That’s why it’s worth improving how you handle this pesky mental habit.

Many of us worry because we feel that it helps us plan. It’s tempting to keep unsettling issues top of mind — the same way we review our to-dos — to prepare.

“Our minds will try to solve a problem, even if it’s a problem that 

Oh,my.

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Show me a poem written in lines with 5 beats so-so poetry is like music it’s more like music than a kiss like a pro
This is really funny what it’s coming out with Siri absolutely hilarious I can’t type my laughter Tim I can hear it myself I can hear it anyway all the different forms of poetry have some of the qualities in music even free verse those although it’s hard to explain it sometimes I remember when I first began writing that all my writing is in free verse and my brother said to me how do you know when to end the line and I said you just get a sense of it the fence and then you go onto a new line but before someone else might disagree with I think when I think back to him as a long ones that I wrote like him but the one about the end man or possibly young woman leaving to join the army because I’m always broken out saying goodbye to her mother and the mother is grieving the Lions are actually very short um which seem to fit in with um the feelings and although I didn’t realise it was on the 11th of September also some people in America route to me to thank you for writing it because it was 9/11 but I didn’t I didn’t contraflow I think a lot of things that we knew my husband is going to die before I even though the doctor salty with left till about November and he died on the 1st of June but we already celebrating 30th anniversary I don’t know whether he really but you know they gave me some tears, a special kind of cake and um at least I felt in myself doing had his and say when it turns I didn’t find it too painful although unfortunately the next year I did find it very painful but then that’s the price you paid until I find that 7 people want to know soon as they seem to be angry when you’re grieving Mr if they’ll never been married or had a close relationship they must be so envious that the fitness think you shouldn’t complain when you lose it and when you’re grieving you know exactly complaining that you lost it but you’re trying to adapt yourself to being one person without someone who is always like part of yourself in some ways although my husband was actually very much further than private and we both work for with another in fish outside of our relationship but you know what is the Silverstone Home and away is scanning emotional security that you know that when you go home with somebody that will listen to you I’m just sending middle of writing a book or something but they will listen to you and possibly come for you if you need it I know that adults can live without having the same with all the time but we are animals and animals tend to like to be with her animals ,animals like themselves because with animals like themselves there is a mate when it’s the right season and the home hunt together and they can now look after their young together this is sleeping it really that they want to which types of Arran to like to do that human being this day seem to like to sleep in the heat not anymore but I think in the past and in the house like the ones where I live out there any similar only had two bedrooms wh for the mother and the father are all the children respect to the dead in the other room at the top of the bottom I don’t know when I don’t know what happened when they reach puberty Avenue in one family only have two children the morning when the children reach puberty they’re all slept with the mother and the boys check with the follow through the mother and the father themselves didn’t after sleep together praxitelous plastic wrap suit practice trip together with me and children at school right now shouldn’t be saying this way if it’s not very nice visit me while I’m just kind of thinking about the fact that turn to be alone in the house in which you lived with your loved ones for many years is quite difficult but on the other hand it’s familiar I don’t think I’d like to go somewhere completely different at the moment but some people my02 you know I’ll get married a few weeks after they’ve been removed because of the contrary to be in the same house all to be alone. There’s an American writer called Joyce Carol Oates and she wrote a book about at the death of Ivan and how it affected her and not matter of fact she got married again and see ya Rafi died and she’s got heavily criticised for having written this week about loss and pain and Mirena when probably by the time it was published showing already remarried but I mean she didn’t mean that she hasn’t started losing the first husband. Actually they do you say that if you been happily married you more likely to get married again but I don’t think that I would like to get married again because it is quite an old phone to get to know somebody and it will be very easy to find someone who sings pleasant it interesting in a certain amount of chemistry how much to tell if you’d expect at this ungodly reason but there are some things I believe that smell is very important that you like the way they smell that that’s so but then you might find out there and all sorts of peculiar habits so light I want to see friends of mine they had a man the friend who is the at the weekend or with whom they went out to concerts and things like that and and left them in the Mail on Sunday but they didn’t actually live together in the same house all the time ironically what are these women displaying Me toys and me because I was talking to her on the phone and my husband will learn quite well I need to cook them in and he came in and he said and they didn’t read it and she said I don’t owe anyone just I thought to myself that’s because you wouldn’t marry your partner who wanted to marry you and you refuse and if you had married him it was very well you could have bought all your food in, you could have gone to a restaurant or you have 2 boxes in Marks and Spencer’s with you and pretending that you can have it or eat it must have been able to cook because it is period wanted split up because of her and then I don’t know what he lived on that Tuesday feeling well Friday Saturday and Sunday so that’s how the leftovers for those when he will need to make himself and me London if you think you’ll be happy until he got you won’t feel and then they laugh died

Emotions overwhelmed before we’d words.

Unable to recount by spoken word
What speechless  infancy endured in fear,
Through the body pain and hurt are shared.

In the doctor’s office, body bared
The blood test and the scan are both quite clear
Unable to express this pain by any words.

“Show , don’t tell” is in this case, absurd.
Wise for writers, not much good right here
The body hurts so human minds are spared.

Expressions on the face are not endured
Affectless  and wooden, yet unfeared;
Emotions overwhelmed before we’d words.

Like the Dutch boy’s thumb held back  the waves
But inner seas are not the oceans fierce
The body jerks , believing minds are spared.

 

Sometimes our defences cost us dear.
Yet floods can kill, destroy, debase and jeer.
Unable to recount by  our own words
With the body, pain and hurt are bared.

How to Be Better at Stress – Well Guides – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/well/how-to-deal-with-stress

With stress, the mind and the body are intrinsically linked. You can view stress as something that is wreaking havoc on your body (and it can) or as something that is giving you the strength and energy to overcome adversity. Here’s a quick way to think about these two very different views of stress. Read the statement, and then think about your own reaction to the biological changes that occur during times of stress.1. When I’m stressed, my body releases adrenaline and cortisol. My heart is beating faster. This means that:

  • Common View: Stress is increasing my risk for cardiovascular disease and heart attack.
  • Alternative View: My heart is working harder and my body is…

Gormless is old Norse

gormless
ˈɡɔːmləs/
adjective

Bio informatics.
adjective: gormless
  1. lacking sense or initiative; foolish.
    “a constantly grinning, rather gormless boy”
Origin
mid 18th century (originally as gaumless ): from dialect gaum ‘understanding’ (from Old Norse gaumr ‘care, heed’) + -less.

Synthetic [from web dictionary]]

tiff infomation

I miss Alfred but he was difficult sometimes as you can see.
synthetic
sɪnˈθɛtɪk/
adjective
adjective: synthetic
  1. 1.
    (of a substance) made by chemical synthesis, especially to imitate a natural product.
    “synthetic rubber”
  2. 2.
    LOGIC
    (of a proposition) having truth or falsity determinable by recourse to experience.
  3. 3.
    LINGUISTICS
    (of a language) characterized by the use of inflections rather than word order to express grammatical structure.
noun
noun: synthetic; plural noun: synthetics
  1. 1.
    a synthetic material or chemical, especially a textile fibre.
Origin
late 17th century: from French synthétique or modern Latin syntheticus, from Greek sunthetikos, based on suntithenai ‘place together’.

He must be right

Too much leisure at leads to sinful acts.

Reading tiny print on bacon packs

Asking us the size we take in boots.

Borrowing guns from soldiers for a hoot.

If you are creative write a book

I fright the young men by teaching . groups

I apologise for that with sultry looks.

As long as the police think I’m a crook

Don’t ask for information in the night

If you’ve gone to bed he must be right

When you go to heaven don’t tip the Saints.

Hell is hot with furnishings quite quaint.

Do you think potato cakes are food

Answer this in every kind of mood l

If you’re feeling hungry they are meat

Yeah when you need some cake they can be sweet.

Cover them in butter and some salt

Give over Mother, we get off at the Holt

I

Stan wears a nightdress in the heat

Photo0426

Alfred my old cat

The weather in Knittingham was rather hot.Mary was away giving a lecture on Dirac’s thoughts  in Oxford and Stan felt lonely.He rang Annie but she was out.
So he said to Emile
I am going to bed early.Have you had enough to eat?
Definitely,cried Emile,who had just licked all the cream off two meringues in the larder.So Stan went upstairs.He took off all his clothes and admired his thin body in the mirror.
Not bad for 97,he muttered.
Now what shall I put on?
He found his pyjamas too hot so on an impulse he opened Mary’s wardrobe and found a cotton nightdress.It was a bit big for him but definitely cooler than  his pyjamas.He cleaned his teeth and washed himself before falling into bed with,The Other Ariel a book about Sylvia Plath’s poetry and how Ted Hughes had altered the order of her poems and even removed some from the book .Ariel,which made her name.The doorbell rang.Each time it played a different tune out of the 90 in its repertoire.
He  ran downstairs and opened the door.There stood two policemen.
They stared a the handsome old man with elegant hands
Hello.Sir.I hope we have not interrupted you?
No,I am just reading in bed. on my own
Do you always wear a nightgown?
This is the first time,he told them humorously.
I felt very hot so I decided to wear my wife’s gown.
And just  where is your wife?
What’s it got to do with you,he enquired  unceremoniously.
Just tell us,the older policeman said brusquely
She’s at a conference in Oxford giving a talk.About Dirac or Riemann or another nitwit.
Can we come in? the policeman said.
May we come in,Stan corrected him;not a good idea on the whole,especially in the USA where the police have guns.Luckily all  our police have  here are rubber gloves in case people ask them to wash up after having a  cup of tea.
What is wrong? said Stan.
We have found a naked woman walking  in the High Street.She says a man stole her clothes.For various reasons we think it might be you.
But  if she was in the High Street she’d  be in proper clothes not a nightdress,surely ,Stan  murmured.
But you like women’s clothes….. we can see.
No,I don’t,  the old man shouted.
I told you I was too hot.And in my own home I can wear anything I like.
Sometimes I wear a  prayer shawl
Are you Jewish? they asked.
Only a little, but I inherited it from a great grandfather who married out.
Out of what? the police asked
He married out of his faith.He was longing  for a bacon sandwich.
Surely marrying  just to eat a bacon sandwich is a bit over the top.
Well,that was his story.Maybe he was tired of obeying the Ten Commandments so he broke most of them.
Which ones?
He committed adultery once when his wife had a nervous breakdown ; he lost his head and went to bed with his neighbour’s wife.
And  where was his neighbour?
At the psychiatric unit visiting my great grandmother.Stan admitted uneasily.
Well,at such times we all do odd things,the  older policeman  advised him.
Thank you for your frankness,Sir.I can see you are not a criminal.
Thank the Lord,said Stan as he went into the kitchen and put the kettle on to make a cup of tea to save ringing 999
I am lucky not to be in a cell and Mary would have had to come home.She would have been cross, he told Emile.Anyway monks wear habits.
But who had stolen the clothes off the woman in town? A mystery  to be studied with Annie when she got home.
At last Stan relaxed and went back to bed with  his books
This is the last time I  ever wear a nightdress he whispered to Emile who was  by his side.
And so hope all of us.

Charles Hermite and transcendental numbers

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The story of numbers is enough to make one believe in a Higher Power or even a transcendental Power?

A Concise History of Mathematics [Fourth Revised Edition] Paperback – 1 Nov 1987

by Dirk J. Struik (Author)
 This topic  will take your mind off Brexit and help you regain a sense of awe and wonder.This cartoon has an equation on it.But some numbers are never found as the answer to such an equation.And that can be proved.And some of the proofs are quite easy.

920mini-08

http://mrburkemath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/x-why-mini-algebra-problems.html

Reggeo1601-21.png

 

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Hermite

Hermite  might not have succeeded nowadays as passing exams was not easy for him.I suspect he was a person who preferred to  spend his time  on his own  interests in Mathematics and to neglect his wider studies

I have referred in some of   my  Stan  stories to the number “e”.Hermite was the first to prove  that e is not an algebraic number.

http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/transcendental-numbers.html

{ see the article].

It may surprise many people that there are different kinds of numbers  ,beginning with the integers 1.2.3…… and the rational numbers  [fractions like 1/2 4/5   89/54 etc.]
The Babylonians discovered  the  ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter was fixed regardless of the size of the circle.We call it pi.It is not an integer nor a raional number.The number of integers is infinite.

“The ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle by taking 3 times the square of its radius, which gave a value of pi = 3. One Babylonian tablet (ca. 1900–1680 BC) indicates a value of 3.125 for pi, which is a closer approximation.” [from link below]

They used 3 as an approximation and  in the Hebrew Bible 400 BCE the Temple was  made using 3 as an approximation. Archimedes got closer.But.   like e, pi cannot be expressed as a fraction.
Some other numbers like the square root of 2 are irrational  [ that is,not fractions[ but they are algebraic.As in x squared =2

Relating to Solomon’s temple.They used pi =3.It is in the  Hebrew Bible

maxresdefault.jpg

Real numbers are all numbers from integers to the transcendental and they are uncountably infinite
Pi and e are called transcendental numbers.We don’t know many other
Yet
“The set of transcendental numbers is uncountably infinite. Since the polynomials with rational coefficients are countable, and since each such polynomial has a finite number ofzeroes, the algebraic numbers must also be countable. However, Cantor’s diagonal argument proves that the real numbers (and therefore also the complex numbers) are uncountable. Since the real numbers are the union of algebraic and transcendental numbers, they cannot both be countable. This makes the transcendental numbers  uncountably infinfte

Quote from article below {Euler is usually credited with this]

:In 1706 a little-known mathematics teacher named William Jones first used a symbol to represent the platonic concept of pi, an ideal that in numerical terms can be approached, but never reached.

William Jones, mathematician from Wales, 1740

William Jones, mathematician from Wales, 1740

The history of the constant ratio of the circumference to the diameter of any circle is as old as man’s desire to measure; whereas the symbol for this ratio known today as π (pi) dates from the early 18th century. Before this the ratio had been awkwardly referred to in medieval Latin as: quantitas in quam cum multiflicetur diameter, proveniet circumferencia (the quantity which, when the diameter is multiplied by it, yields the circumference).

– See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/patricia-rothman/william-jones-and-his-circle-man-who-invented-pi#sthash.4bbJtftH.dpuf

2012-05-12 10.31.12-44

 

 

http://www.historytoday.com/patricia-rothman/william-jones-and-his-circle-man-who-invented-pi

https://www.exploratorium.edu/pi/history_of_pi/

 

http://mrburkemath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/x-why-mini-algebra-problems.html

This is meant to be humorous

God can pass through walls


Now we live in cubicles voluminous
We cannot kiss a friend to say goodbye
Though some may see or hear the numinous
While we live as separate as our perfume is
God is unaffected by walls numerous
Can visit prisoners without need for lies
Divert lonely people being humorous
As we ‘re locked so separate can you live with us?
We cannot kiss the cat to say goodbye

The face within your face

You revealed the face within your face
Human,lowly,humbler than an ant
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The other face, defended, has no grace
With it ,you appear quite confident.
Yet you revealed to me your hidden face
I know now of the suffering of your days
A fear of tragic pasts feared imminent
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The mental torment heavy all your days.
Yet you must hide from men intolerant
You revealed the face within your face
Like martyrs, you were tortured and disgraced
You wandered feebly,lost, itinerant
The pathos in your eyes makes sad my days
If Love exists then would that not embrace
The lost, the lonely, even the vagrant?
You revealed the face within your face
The pathos in your eyes made me feel base

Isolation makes me feel alone

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This isolation is not good for me
Unless there is a God,how could it be?

The viruses are not like friends who talk
Yet they can come with you on a walk

Invisible to naked human eyes
Viruses are now akin to spies

Who is watching me as I write this?
I’ve now forgotten who Paul Dirac was

Should I block the camera with white tape?
It might bring me some pleasure,ah, too late

Is it wrong for women to read books
New ideas might make us into freaks

Yesterday was warm but now it snows
I’ve got itchy spots and feel morose

Should I buy merino knickers now?
Should I breed some sheep or just a cow?

Why algebra exists is really queer
If you spot it then you are a seer.

Rings and groups and donuts are germane
Topology has driven me insane

What is small yet makes the gradient clear?
Calculus is like an atmosphere

Did you say Eureka in the bath?
It means you’ve met yourself without the glass

The microphone is faulty I proclaim
Perhaps I’m going deaf, we’re all insane

The phone is complex, perfect and effete
I cannot hear the voices when they speak

I got up in the night and wet my pants
That’s my husband’s ghost, the miscreant!

I had to wash pyjamas every day
4 pairs are enough if you are gay

Imagine

The four dimensional shapes in Dirac’s head

broke into four much simpler shapes instead.

How can we dream of 4 dimensions when

The head has only 3 in any man?

The complex brain imagines when it can

We could look inside its wider scan

Dreams bring more dimensions visions grand

then we turn to food like fish and chips

Mathematics tortures as I knit.

In the end it’s patterns that we need

The rhythm of Life a slower nature bteeds

Words matter

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/opinion/words-jews-antisemitism-whoopi-goldberg-apology.htmlThe Talmud teaches, “The world exists only in the merit of the person who restrains him or herself at the time of an argument” (Chullin 89a). Words create narratives. Words have the ability to disrupt, provoke and uproot, and in a world that is divided, they can cause terrible harm. Building false narratives about Jews — or any other group for that matter — can destroy. In Nazi Germany, Jews were dehumanized first by words as they were described as rats, defiling society. Dehumanizing another by using words can help

Our Culture of Contempt

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html

What we need is not to disagree less, but to disagree better. And that starts when you turn away the rhetorical dope peddlers — the powerful people on your own side who are profiting from the culture of contempt. As satisfying as it can feel to hear that your foes are irredeemable, stupid and deviant, remember: When you find yourself hating something, someone is making money or winning elections or getting more famous and powerful. Unless a leader is actually teaching you something you didn’t know or expanding your worldview and moral outlook, you are being used.

Next, each of us can make a commitment never to treat others with contempt, even if we believe they deserve it. This might sound like a call for magnanimity, but it is just as much an appeal to self-interest. Contempt makes persuasion impossible — no one has ever been hated into agreement, after all — so its expression is either petty self-indulgence or cheap virtue signaling, neither of which wins converts.

What if you have been guilty of saying contemptuous things about or to others? Perhaps you have hurt someone with your harsh words, mockery or dismissiveness. I have, and I’m not proud of it. Start the road to recovery from this harmful addiction, and make amends wherever possible. It will set you free.

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Finally, we should see the contempt around us as what it truly is: an opportunity, not a threat. If you are on social media, on a college campus or in any place other than a cave by yourself, you will be treated with contempt very soon. This is a chance to change at least one heart — yours. Respond with warmheartedness and good humor. You are guaranteed to be happier. If that also affects the contemptuous person (or bystanders), it will be to the good.

It is easy to feel helpless in the current political environment, but I believe that is unwarranted. While we might not like the current weather, together we can change the climate to reward leaders — and be the leaders — who uplift and unite, not denigrate and divide. Watch: The weather will start to improve, and that will make America greater. I am dedicating the rest of my professional life to this task.

Mr. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of the forthcoming book “Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt,” from which this essay is adapted.

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Ll

Where Have All the Neurotics Gone? – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/sunday-review/where-have-all-the-neurotics-gone.html

O

Managing Anxiety and Stress

Stay balanced in the face of stress and anxiety with our collection of tools and advice.

Managing Anxiety and Stress

Stay balanced in the face of stress and anxiety with our collection of tools and advice.

The human right to have a holiday

You can’t keep us confined another day
It’s a human right to have a holiday
We read the Daily Telegraph and moan
With hearts so hard they’d break the strongest stone

The holiday must be in somewhere hot
Hells teeth,I need passport, what damned rot
I won’t get Covid,I shall Covid spread
Till all the men I sleep with fall down dead

It’s a human right to make love in a bed
With strangers from the beach, while I’m unwed
But I don’t pay my staff a living wage
If they ask I fly into a rage

It’s well known that poor children don’t shoes need
And if we cut them they will hardly bleed
All they need is Blackpool for a day
Eating pork pies,chips with lemonade

What we need are rights from ethics gained
The right to care for others who’re in pain
The right to help the old folk get some food
The right to help the sick who sadly brood

I see Lord Jesus bathe on Gaza beach
Do they sell icecream and bags of crisps?
God himself has gone on a long Cruise
I know it’s true, it was on GB News

It was on Facebook only yesterday
Humans have forgotten how to pray