Blog Dis
"Hi honey! I'm home!"
2026-03-05
Hard to believe that I'm still churning out ideas, that even any fresh ideas at all are swirling around in my pretty little head but that's just what it's all about, the sharing of ideas, good or bad. As to whether these are viable ideas and worth your precious time to read, I shall leave this judgement up to your good self.
I don't seem able to step away from blogging, more so now that I'm not required to haul my caboose into the office to handle a 9-to-5 executive assistant role. With more time on my hands, ironically time appears to be moving faster than ever. I'm continuing to work on novel eight, and this is wholly gratifying, as well as to flesh out new blog ideas. But really? With everything that is unraveling in the world, I thought what better subject to blog about than what it must feel like to be young, foolish and up-and-coming in today's world of war and modernity. From my perspective, a woman of wise years, the young have the whole world at their fingertips, because they're immortal. If you dip your baby toe into social networks (TikTok, Instagram; two of the most popular with the young), and then add into the mix X, Facebook, Threads and BlueSky, you'll discover pretty quick that the young have plummeted into a well of despair, who feel there's little point in focusing their efforts to make their way into the world, other than devoting too much time to doom-scrolling. If I may say, "Please take six steps back, to re-think this position, and to know that depression and despair visit us all, and it doesn't really matter at what stage in your existence or when. At some point in time, in this adventure called life, you'll experience mild or severe mental health issues."
These feelings of despondency are part of being human. Depression will drop its load of negativity onto your doorstep, some more than others, sometimes more frequently than we'd care to admit. Know that your economic situation won't save you, nor will it bear resemblance to someone else's position, when doom hits. Because they too will have to deal with depression. What you do with your feelings, and the actions you take, to proceed forward, are the key to managing your despair.
War spiraling out of control in the Middle East is also doing little to calm everyone's nerves. This fact isn't lost on me.
In my late 20s, scud-missiles were being dropped on Iraq in 1991. It was filmed in real time and blasted out to the world, thanks to CNN news correspondents. I was filled with panic, and vividly recall reaching out to my Mom at the time to discuss the Iraq war, to which her reply wasn't as understanding as I had hoped. "I survived World War II and we lost everything." Hers was and still is an excellent distinction — there are levels to loss, much like despair. We tend to view our situation as unique, as the only one suffering the worst. Last weekend, I was drawn to watch an excellent movie called Danger Close (Australian), about the story of how Australia had sent troops into Vietnam to support the USA. Only, these troops were mere boys, most of whom were barely 19 or 20 years of age, and had zero combat experience. The action sequences reminded me of a Terrence Malick movie, poetic, philosophical and distinctly cinematic. After I finished it, I was reasoning how does one capture the loss of life when it befalls the young? Dying young means your future and every potential windfall is now gone. You cannot portray hope when you watch young soldiers dying for a cause that's been championed by old men. Old men are the ones who send young men to fight their battles.
Yet, and when I spoke with women at the professional services firm where I worked, some were born in Iran and moved to Canada with their family when they were very young. Their connection to their home country is strong and viable. These are women in their late 20s, and early 30s, who participated in the demonstrations in Ottawa and Toronto applauding the bombing of Iran, to put an end to the tyrannical rule. They are focused and hard-working, and have put in the years to complete their degrees in business administration, accounting, commerce and the like. But their first-hand experience is what provides context to their positive outlook. In Iran, and with the dogmatic Islamic-Sharia practices, women's rights were non-existent, and had been rolled back despite the level of freedom that was previously enjoyed in the 1970s. A brutal regime in power for 47 years can do a lot of damage to human rights vs living in a democratic country like Canada that embraces diversity, to fight for all persons and their rights. These young female professionals have goals, and they aim to meet them, to excel and to pass on their insights to progeny, if this is something that they decide to pursue.
I take the view now that goals are decidedly one of the most positive influences in your life.
I have goals too, and these goals help me to continue to steer my boat in the direction I want to go. Nobody is going to teach you patience or the will to refuse to give up, more so during despondent periods. Like all forward-moving human beings who believe in the power of setting goals, my goals have become slightly modified but are essentially the same: to bitch and complain about the plight of the world, pointing out the hypocrisy; to write the unwritable rot; to think the unthinkable thoughts and to put them all down in some shape or form where any Jack or Jill can access them for their private consumption. I can't guarantee pearls or poop. I can only assure you that I'll do my best to blog as often as possible but only after I have at the very least written one new page every day, five days a week, for my eighth novel.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and there's a cloud of dark thoughts above my head. I don't call it depression any more. Now I call it cobwebs. I shake them out by moving forward, to work out, to make my bed, and to sit down and write. You'll find your rhythm too, like we all do. And when I can't summon the will to go on, when it comes to the difficult chapters that don't want to be written, I plop a dark chocolate square on my tongue. At least this will never change, my love of chocolate. Believe when I say that I could rub chocolate all over my nipples in the dead of heat in summer and not give a twitch of concern if some total stranger offered to lick them clean.
So what's for dinner?
I don't seem able to step away from blogging, more so now that I'm not required to haul my caboose into the office to handle a 9-to-5 executive assistant role. With more time on my hands, ironically time appears to be moving faster than ever. I'm continuing to work on novel eight, and this is wholly gratifying, as well as to flesh out new blog ideas. But really? With everything that is unraveling in the world, I thought what better subject to blog about than what it must feel like to be young, foolish and up-and-coming in today's world of war and modernity. From my perspective, a woman of wise years, the young have the whole world at their fingertips, because they're immortal. If you dip your baby toe into social networks (TikTok, Instagram; two of the most popular with the young), and then add into the mix X, Facebook, Threads and BlueSky, you'll discover pretty quick that the young have plummeted into a well of despair, who feel there's little point in focusing their efforts to make their way into the world, other than devoting too much time to doom-scrolling. If I may say, "Please take six steps back, to re-think this position, and to know that depression and despair visit us all, and it doesn't really matter at what stage in your existence or when. At some point in time, in this adventure called life, you'll experience mild or severe mental health issues."
These feelings of despondency are part of being human. Depression will drop its load of negativity onto your doorstep, some more than others, sometimes more frequently than we'd care to admit. Know that your economic situation won't save you, nor will it bear resemblance to someone else's position, when doom hits. Because they too will have to deal with depression. What you do with your feelings, and the actions you take, to proceed forward, are the key to managing your despair.
War spiraling out of control in the Middle East is also doing little to calm everyone's nerves. This fact isn't lost on me.
In my late 20s, scud-missiles were being dropped on Iraq in 1991. It was filmed in real time and blasted out to the world, thanks to CNN news correspondents. I was filled with panic, and vividly recall reaching out to my Mom at the time to discuss the Iraq war, to which her reply wasn't as understanding as I had hoped. "I survived World War II and we lost everything." Hers was and still is an excellent distinction — there are levels to loss, much like despair. We tend to view our situation as unique, as the only one suffering the worst. Last weekend, I was drawn to watch an excellent movie called Danger Close (Australian), about the story of how Australia had sent troops into Vietnam to support the USA. Only, these troops were mere boys, most of whom were barely 19 or 20 years of age, and had zero combat experience. The action sequences reminded me of a Terrence Malick movie, poetic, philosophical and distinctly cinematic. After I finished it, I was reasoning how does one capture the loss of life when it befalls the young? Dying young means your future and every potential windfall is now gone. You cannot portray hope when you watch young soldiers dying for a cause that's been championed by old men. Old men are the ones who send young men to fight their battles.
Yet, and when I spoke with women at the professional services firm where I worked, some were born in Iran and moved to Canada with their family when they were very young. Their connection to their home country is strong and viable. These are women in their late 20s, and early 30s, who participated in the demonstrations in Ottawa and Toronto applauding the bombing of Iran, to put an end to the tyrannical rule. They are focused and hard-working, and have put in the years to complete their degrees in business administration, accounting, commerce and the like. But their first-hand experience is what provides context to their positive outlook. In Iran, and with the dogmatic Islamic-Sharia practices, women's rights were non-existent, and had been rolled back despite the level of freedom that was previously enjoyed in the 1970s. A brutal regime in power for 47 years can do a lot of damage to human rights vs living in a democratic country like Canada that embraces diversity, to fight for all persons and their rights. These young female professionals have goals, and they aim to meet them, to excel and to pass on their insights to progeny, if this is something that they decide to pursue.
I take the view now that goals are decidedly one of the most positive influences in your life.
I have goals too, and these goals help me to continue to steer my boat in the direction I want to go. Nobody is going to teach you patience or the will to refuse to give up, more so during despondent periods. Like all forward-moving human beings who believe in the power of setting goals, my goals have become slightly modified but are essentially the same: to bitch and complain about the plight of the world, pointing out the hypocrisy; to write the unwritable rot; to think the unthinkable thoughts and to put them all down in some shape or form where any Jack or Jill can access them for their private consumption. I can't guarantee pearls or poop. I can only assure you that I'll do my best to blog as often as possible but only after I have at the very least written one new page every day, five days a week, for my eighth novel.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and there's a cloud of dark thoughts above my head. I don't call it depression any more. Now I call it cobwebs. I shake them out by moving forward, to work out, to make my bed, and to sit down and write. You'll find your rhythm too, like we all do. And when I can't summon the will to go on, when it comes to the difficult chapters that don't want to be written, I plop a dark chocolate square on my tongue. At least this will never change, my love of chocolate. Believe when I say that I could rub chocolate all over my nipples in the dead of heat in summer and not give a twitch of concern if some total stranger offered to lick them clean.
So what's for dinner?
