I've been reading

Gustave Klimt's "Mother and Child from The Three Ages of Women," detail, 1905

So if someone is being obnoxious do you let them know? Because they couldn't possible want to be obnoxious on purpose, would they? Where have all the rules gone? Like the Golden Rule. My Mom's rule, which was probably Eleanor Roosevelt's, "if you can't say anything nice about someone....don't say anything at all." So, if you can't figure out something innocuous to discuss...pick a subject that just allows you to be a talented babbler, which is what you are good at. Don't throw rocks, run with scissors, climb too high, touch anything hot, call names, play with fire, drink anti-freeze, run your mouth, or raise your children to be like you if you are obnoxious. So do I let them know? Continue to point out the negative in all around you, so you can............what? Let us know, any ol time you feel like it, how great you are? OK, I'll go with the flow. I will continue to read the fodder blogs only because I want to witness to, sometimes you are mean with the rules and... OH MY GOSH, I'm great too, only nicer.





OK, OK, I took a pill. I'm sorry. I never mean to hurt any ones feelings but sometimes, I just run my mouth. This is a wonderful forum and I love it. I do also now realize that an insipid blogger is given amazing beautiful balance because of followers that comment with grace and an occasional polite 'excuse me?' I'm not obnoxious or innocuous or insipid, am I? I try not to judge so stop saying unkind things about people. We can't all be as good as you.




One of the fundamental accomplishments in life is to develop a sense of self. So there is a poetic justice to the recent findings of David Kahn, Ph.D.: Those who live long enough get to partake of a last stage in adult development-deconstruction of the self.

At once the most subtle and the most striking aspect of the deconstruction of the self, Kahn found, is "a stepping away from time." These people assumed a different orientation to time. They no longer paid attention to things that change in the world, such as technological advances. They wore no watches. The markers of time they did use were different; Wednesday was not "Wednesday" but "bingo day." Friday was not "Friday" but "bath day."

It was obvious to most that they had passed through some change in self. But they were not grieving. They were waiting. "They had no emotional attachment to time or death," reports Kahn, who found himself "surprised by the elegance of how they were able to say things." And saying things-talking about themselves--was one of the few ways they still found meaning in life.

.................................MOTHER AND CHILD