Category: carpe bucko

Running away and hiding is, of course, the exact opposite of willingness and perseverance.

It’s not that I don’t have any values; I am simply unable to define them. Which means, for all practical purposes, I don’t have any functional values. This is a problem. Because I have been able to get consistent long-term mental health care through the VA, meeting weekly (via phone thanks to Covid-19), I’m slowly …

When I was in kindergarten, I was sent to stand out in the hall for getting angry during some activity. I don’t believe I had a tantrum; I just got angry. Back then, a time-out was to be kicked-out. This is one of my earliest memories. A few years later, second grade I think, I …

As a former Christian turned atheist, I have a lot of stuff that continues to linger. Perhaps most useful, as compared to the crap dealing with being good, guilt, etc, is the question of spirituality. While I do believe that the universe is an entirely physical thing, not only are there mysteries about which we …

A friend messaged me the other day to chastise me for not turning to them for help when my ex-housemate robbed me of a bunch of stuff, including my entire month’s SNAP allocation. My immediate response was to send a return message apologizing and explaining … but then I stopped, and I understood:

It began with this sentence from the book “The Nurturing Effect” by Anthony Biglan: In the first session, the parent consultant befriended the family and began to learn about how parents were …. And my immediate reaction was: Befriend? Seriously? You could almost see the sneer. But almost immediately, a different thought came to mind: …

YouTube decided I needed to meet Jeremy Fielding. For once, YouTube was right. I did need to meet Jeremy. The algorithm was trying to make me into a source of income, of course, but, by this happy accident, I found something I needed at the exact moment I needed it. Sometimes we depend, not on …

When I was 14, I was a lonely person. My parents had divorced, I had one friend, no real social life. So when I was welcomed by the Wednesday night Bible study at my church one day, I fell into Christianity with the desperate need for something that we all feel and that I felt …

Love needs to go away. Here in Pride Month, the day after Portland’s annual gasm of proud pridery, the message is loud and clear: Feel the love. All this support! all this love! Isn’t it wonderful? Yes, it is; it is wonderful to see so many Oregonians getting over their fears and prejudices to support …