Author: John Becton

I was born in Asheville NC in the first half of the last century. At 18, I left for Chapel Hill to attend the University of North Carolina. After graduating with honors in English, I spent three years in the Boston area, earning a Master of Divinity degree, then returned to Chapel Hill "for one year." I'm still here. Much of my public relations career gave me a lot of experience in journalism. Creative writing has been a life-long interest and avocation. In 2016, I published a collection of short stories, "Life Among the Letters," available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I have a wife, three adult children and five grandchildren.

Physical benefits of communing with nature

Most people who know me know of my fondness for sunrises. (See https://johnbecton.blog/2019/11/13/five-days-of-beach-sunrises/ ) Watching the sun rise, as I do often, makes me feel good. I’ve recently been not surprised to learn that the benefits are not only emotional, but also physical.

For me and many others, a sunrise evokes a sense of awe. Experiences of awe, medical scientists tell us, significantly reduce unhealthy levels of cytokines, which are associated with disease, depression and ill health. Sources of awe are certainly not limited to nature (music and art, for example), but here I want to focus on nature.

I recently read about some of the ways experiences in nature have been shown to benefit us physically. There was a lot more to the article — “Rewilding Our Minds,” Lucy Jones, The American Scholar, Summer 2021 — but here are some points I gleaned.

–Exposure to certain chemicals emitted by trees and other plants significantly increases natural killer cell activity, which helps fight infection and cancer. “Even just looking at a natural scene can decrease levels of inflammatory cytokines.”

–Studies suggest that in natural areas, our parasympathetic nervous system is more likely to be activated. This slows the heart and helps us feel calm. It is associated with better sleep, feeling of contentment and safety, as well as high resting levels, enhanced emotional regulation, decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.

–You know how great the air smells after rain? You’re not just smelling the clean earth. Oil from soil and possibly plants is in the air, triggering brain activity associated with calmness and relaxation.

–Getting your hands dirty is also beneficial. When you dig in the dirt, you pick up microbes (mycobacteriun vaccae) that activate serotonin neurons, associated with mood and well-being. “The microorganism also increased stress resilience and could suppress inappropriate inflammation within cells.”

As I noted above the article deals with a lot more than the points I’ve listed here. This is just a brief summary of what I found especially interesting and useful. If you want to read the article itself, here’s a link: https://theamericanscholar.org/rewilding-our-minds/


____________________
Blogger’s note:
The article writer’s source comprises “robust evidence based on countless studies from scientists in various disciplines from countries across the world,” some of which she cites specifically. Were it a scientific journal article, there would have been countless footnotes. Were I writing a graduate-school paper, I would dig down to primary sources, rather than relying only on this secondary source. I think, however, we’re fine in this context. I haven’t been graded for years on anything by anyone, other than myself. And my therapist suggests (and by “suggests,” I mean “insists”) that I stop doing so.

Trying to outrun a scary enemy

Back when I was still physically able to run, I did so. A lot. Sometimes I would describe that day’s run on Facebook. Once when I did, a friend jokingly asked, “Who was chasing you?” My answer: “The aging process.”

With another birthday upon me, I am thinking about how my celebration has changed. In my early 30s, I finally accepted that I’m not immortal and began to get serious about taking care of my health. My primary form of physical exercise was running. Soon, I started entering road races as incentives to run regularly. Over time, running regularly became its own incentive.

I decided I would mark my 33rd birthday by running a mile that day and I would add another mile each year to my 40th birthday, on which I would run eight miles. I knew it would take some work to increase the distance I could run, but surely I could get from one mile to eight miles, gradually building up my strength over that many years.

I ran two miles on my 34th birthday, three on my 35th and so on to eight miles on my 40th. Exactly as planned.

It didn’t take me eight years to work up to being able to run eight miles, though. In fact, I ran a half marathon a few months before my 36th birthday.

After 40, I did not keep adding miles to my birthday celebration. For my 41st, I ran for 41 minutes, then 42 minutes on my 42nd. I don’t remember how many years I continued this specific plan, but for a number of years I came up with something along these lines.

I also don’t remember when I began letting my birthday be a day of rest and relaxation. Probably around 60, which is when my knees began to complain. I still exercise regularly and at a level appropriate for a septuagenarian, but I take my birthday off now.

I’m continuing to run from aging, mostly via a bike in the gym, but certainly not from birthdays. Continuing to have — and enjoy — birthdays is kinda the point.

Faith of our fathers and mothers

Some time back, my kids asked me a series of questions, the answers to which were published in a book for them and their offspring. One of those questions was “How is your faith different from your parents’ faith?” Here’s my answer. As with all my personal reflections, I offer it here in hopes others might find something with which to relate.

My parents’ faith was simple, traditional and seemingly based on a literal reading of the Bible. They attended all activities at the church and had little social life otherwise. Sometimes this need to attend appeared to border on obsessive, though I’m sure they did get a lot from being there.

For 18 years, I bought into all this with little or no questioning. It worked for me. And then it didn’t.

In the journey that followed, I soon realized that music, poetry and other art forms affirmed for me that there is something beyond the physical world. I felt a connection with other people, a connection sometimes called “love.” There was something spiritual about that.

In the midst of all this, the musical “Hair” came along. In it, a character named Claude sang, “I believe in God, and I believe that God believes in Claude. . . .” I had never thought about that relationship in that way. The phrase played often in my head. I was struggling to understand the nature of that which we call “God,” but somehow — maybe because of the power of music and poetry through which the idea was presented to me — I couldn’t help thinking that “God” believed in me.

I spent years redefining virtually every Christian symbol and ritualistic phrase from my childhood. Eventually, not only could I affirm those symbols and say those phrases again, but also they took on deeper meaning. Or maybe, I could affirm and say because they took on deeper meaning.

It wasn’t about merely reading the Bible and mindlessly following it as a road map, never mind that the map was hundreds and thousands of years old. It was helpful to hear someone point out that the Bible is a book of Truth, not a book of facts.

It worked for my parents to view what they read in the Bible and heard at church fairly literally. If the Bible said it, there was no reason to question it, even if you don’t understand it. I think it’s all more complex than that. I want to understand. I don’t think trying to understand denigrates religion. Yet I’ve come to accept that it is not possible to understand everything, and I’ve learned to affirm and celebrate mystery.

I’ve also become able to accept that my parents’ faith was just as real for them as mine is for me.

Embarrassment — a legacy?

A number of years ago, a local classic rock radio station advised, “Turn the volume up and sing along loudly. Embarrass your kids.”


It’s probably in the nature of the job for parents occasionally to do or say something that their offspring find embarrassing. Some may do so more often than others. Usually, it is unintentional. Sometimes the purpose may not be to embarrass the son or daughter, but there’s no thought given to avoiding the embarrassment. I’ve been on both sides of this, as you likely have also.

Sometimes the embarrassment is delayed.


There were two times etched in my memory in which I was laughed at — to the point of mild embarrassment — for doing something I had learned from my parents.
They fixed fried eggs sunny-side up. They cooked them in bacon grease. To get the top sufficiently done before the bottom overcooked, they used the frying pan spatula to splash the hot grease up on the egg. It was a rapid, continuing motion for a few moments.


I was using this method, as I always did, one morning at their house. A visiting member of the extended family observed and said bemusedly, “You’re going to beat that egg to death.” Now, aside from the fact that I was not touching the egg at all, I was blindsided by a critique of my following what seemed a perfectly good way to get my eggs just so.


When my father stirred sugar into his coffee or tea, he rapidly moved the spoon back and forth, making a not-unpleasant ringing sound as the spoon rhythmically hit the sides of the cup or glass. I adopted this same method, it never occurring to me to stir any other way. Until . . . .


Late in my college years, I was about to enjoy a glass of iced tea with a couple of other people. I put in some sugar and stirred as I always had. I had never noticed any reaction from anyone up to that point. This time, however, a peer smirked as he watched (and listened).


After those two incidences, I never again fried an egg or sweetened a beverage using those methods. There have been times when I’ve repeated something my parents said or did something I learned from them that caused me embarrassment, and I’d wished they’d set a different example. Yet, in these instances, I didn’t, and still don’t blame my parents, from whom I picked up the techniques, for my embarrassment in these situations. My resentment is reserved for those who chose to react as they did.

A Friday night college experience

One Friday night, early in my senior year in college, I gathered with four other English majors at a bar across the street from campus to wind down after a long week. (The University still had Saturday classes at that time, but some of us had discontinued them for ourselves.)

After a couple of beers, we were about to leave when two professors from our department made an entrance. I’m pretty sure this was not their first stop of the evening. We were in a corner both. They sat down, one on each side, trapping us in.

They proceeded to ply us with more beer while they debated fine points of English literature, which had not been a part of any of our discussion to that point. One was Irish American, complete with red hair. The other was a transplanted Englishman with a commanding presence. The intensity of the discussion grew with each pitcher. It got personal at times. “Castrated Celt!” “Nerd from Northumberland!”

When they finally left, we sat there in a state not unlike shock. One of my friends broke our silence with, “I feel drained.”

We all enjoyed our classes and were serious students. Yet we valued strategic breaks from our studies.

We stumbled out and wandered through campus in a gentle, early-autumn rain. It seemed to be the best way to recover. The rain eased our minds as it slowly penetrated our clothes. That was good enough for most of us. The two females in the group, however, took it a step further. At the construction site of the new student union, they acted on an impulse to roll in the mud.

It didn’t occur to me until decades later to write about the experience. I wonder what the Celt and the Nerd would think of this meager literary attempt. I don’t doubt they would find a way to argue about it.

What I wish I’d said — round two

In an early post on this blog, some three years ago, I mused about things I wish I’d said in various situations. You know how it is. You think of exactly the right thing to say — moments, hours or days later. Sometimes I’m just too shocked to think of a response. I just can’t believe what I’m hearing. Sometimes it’s not that I can’t think of a good reply, but the opposite: I think of too many appropriate responses to choose just one. So, I stand there running through the menu in my mind while saying nothing.

In that post, I shared a few examples. Very few. Here, in no particular order, are more. I offer them for your amusement. I’m fairly certain you can identify.

During the get-acquainted time at the beginning of a statewide committee serving a charitable organization, I said, “I live in Chapel Hill and work at the university.” The chair was a graduate of another school and lived where it is located. She cynically remarked, “THE university?”

I don’t remember exactly what I said in reply, but what I meant was, “Yes, there’s only one university in Chapel Hill. If I were from Greensboro or Raleigh, I’d have specified which university. If I lived where you do and worked at your alma mater, I would’ve said, ‘the university,’ It’s like saying, ‘I work at the post office.’ “

Unfortunately, what I was able to compose at that moment was not this lucid.

(Later, a guest of our committee was a UNC medical faculty member. He introduced himself, “I live in Chapel Hill and work at the university.” The chair didn’t say anything, but I’d bet she was biting her tongue.)

__________

Some years ago, a friend and classmate was looking forward to a new grandchild. Both the friend and his son had been talented college football players, while the other grandfather played in college and the NFL. I was having lunch with the prospective granddad and dad, and we were speculating about the chances of there being a third-generation football star. Then my classmate said, “Of course, it could be a girl, and that would be fine, too.”

What I wish I’d said was, “Mia Ham’s a girl.”

__________

I was meeting with alums of a group in which I’d been active in college. We were planning a reunion. It was suggested that we have a live performer. Those who knew me in college knew I played gigs regularly, often for pay. I said, I’d be glad to play and sing gratis for a half hour or so.

As the discussion continued, someone said we should hire someone to perform because a freebie wouldn’t be that good.

What I didn’t say, but regret not doing so, was, “OK. In that case, I’ll do it for $100.”

__________

Over many years, I worked out in a gym on the UNC campus. For a couple of years, a graduate student from China had a locker next to mine. He was often there at the same time, and we talked regularly.

Shortly before Thanksgiving in one of those years, he was asking me about the holiday and its traditions. I wish I’d invited him, his wife and their child to our house to share Thanksgiving dinner.

__________

A friend was justifying sending his daughters to boarding school at an early age. “Birds push their babies out of the nest after a few weeks.”

What occurred to me, but I chose not to say, was, “And when those baby birds are a year old, they have babies of their own and after 2-3 years, they die.

__________

When I was in theological school, societal issues of the day were often discussed. Most students and faculty had progressive views, and several could be rather outspoken. This did not sit well with one of my classmates. He referred to them as “prophets,” and he didn’t mean it in a positive way.

To help decorate the student lounge, I hung a collage I had done, using newspaper photos depicting current events, affixed to a large poster advertising a campus symposium in which such events were discussed. I didn’t take sides on any issue, but rather tried to present a slice of history.

After a few days, I found that someone had glued a handwritten note onto the work, referring to our school as a “home of the prophets.” I had a pretty good idea who had done it. I removed the vandalized collage.

A few days later, I heard that classmate lamenting that there were “so many prophets on campus.” I thought of saying, “Yeah, I know what you mean. Some prophet recently destroyed one of my works of art in the student lounge.”

__________

Many more times that I could begin to count, a conversation has (usually quickly) gone in a direction that has made me want to say — though I usually don’t — “Not everything is a competition.”

__________

At one point, I devoted a lot of volunteer time to a charitable organization to which I also gave generous financial contributions. A local church had raised questions about a policy matter. I was involved in a private conversation in which one of the leaders of the organization derisively referred to that congregation as “those Southern Baptists.”

I could’ve said, and wish I had, “The Southern Baptist church in which I grew up is where I learned to be philanthropic.”

__________

I expect a person to be loyal to their alma mater, including supporting its athletic teams. But some fans are just that — fans and nothing more. They choose to root for whatever team for whatever reason.

Often, it seems the supporters who go overboard in expressing their support are not those who in fact went to said institution.

There have been times when such a person has become so obnoxious, I’ve been tempted to ask, “And what year did you graduate?”

__________

In a discussion via text or email, some cable TV show came up. One person stated that they figured they could find it “since we have 120 channels.” After a couple more comments, I mentioned that we didn’t have cable or a dish. That person’s retort? “Braggart!”

What I chose not to type was, “Let me get this straight. It’s not bragging when you say you have 120 channels, but it is bragging for me to note I have five or six?”

__________

After a church talent show, in which I’d offered a song from “back in the day” — maybe “If I Were a Carpenter” — a friend joked, “You must have been a hippie.” If I’d replied, “I’ve been called worse,” the friend would’ve appreciated it.

Another year at the same event, the printed program grouped my performance and a few others under the heading “It’s a Little Bit Country.” Before the show, I was looking at the program with a friend whose group was on right after me. He saw that and said, “Which country?”

If my thinking had coalesced in time, I would have introduced my song — George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” — from the stage by relaying my friend’s comment and saying, “In this case, the country is England.”

__________

Many years ago, at some kind of meeting, I encountered someone who was a friend of a friend. As we introduced ourselves, she said something to the effect that our mutual friend had been right about my being good looking. That’s, of course, not something I usually (or ever) hear, but if I hadn’t been so dumbfounded, I could’ve said, “I never tire of hearing that.”

__________

I think it was at the conclusion of my second year of college, the last year I returned to my hometown for the summer. That first Sunday evening, I attended the summer college-age youth group. We began by going around the circle of 8-10 people to say where we were now in school.

One of the first attended a school that had recently changed from “college” to “university.” She gave only the name, but another person quickly added “Uni-ver-si-ty!” After that, each person was sure to add an emphasized “col-lege” or “uni-ver-si-ty.”

I was last. I said simply, “I’m at Chapel Hill.”

One guy, who attended a rival school in another state, felt a need to add “college.” I think my non-verbal response, just a subtle facial expression, said all that needed to be said. (Translation, “What a pathetic comment.”) Yet I could have said, and considered doing so, “Yes, in one of the many colleges within the university.” Or maybe, “Yes, I just completed the General College and am entering the College of Arts and Sciences in the fall.”

__________

It was a mid-’60s group discussion of race relations. The leader supported integration and was accepting of interracial romantic relationships. He drew a line, however. He had read or heard about some “young people” having an interracial orgy. The way he said it betrayed a belief that somehow this was more immoral than a monochromatic orgy.

My attempted response, something about swinging the pendulum, was a swing and a miss. I couldn’t get my thinking together enough in that moment to speak directly to what I saw as a problem with his comment.

I realized a day or more later that I wish I’d said, “So if I rob a bank with a Black accomplice, is that worse than if I rob a bank with a white accomplice?”

__________

Seeing me with my then-five-year-old daughter, a colleague smiled and asked, “Who’s this?”

Too late to say it, I came up with, “A big reason I bother getting up each morning.”

__________

Many years ago, I participated in church league softball. One Sunday afternoon, I took my accustomed place at third base as warmups began. Someone I didn’t recognize was at shortstop. When the first baseman threw a ground ball over to me, I scooped it up and gently threw it back.

After a couple of these, the shortstop said I shouldn’t play as deeply since my arm (it seemed to him) was weak.

What popped into my head was, “Who died and made you the coach?” I opted only to stare back incredulously.

Another thing I thought about saying but didn’t, because I didn’t think I owed it to him, was, “These are warmup throws. Throwing as hard as you can without first warming up can cause injury. That’s the purpose of warmup throws. And I play back this far, because it’s much easier to run forward than backward.” (I considered throwing the final warmup well over the first baseman’s head.)

Looking back on the incident later, I imagined offering a short piece of fiction: “Well, I made it to Double A, playing this way.”

I think my non-verbal reply was fine, but eventually I came up with one that also would have filled the bill: “No, I’m fine, but a shortstop has to handle a lot of hot grounders and line drives and bad hops. It may be too much for you. Maybe we should switch positions.”

__________

I’ve always looked for underlying meanings in everything, especially music. A high school teacher seemed to be challenging me when she asked what was the underlying meaning of Billy Ed Wheeler’s “Ode to the Little Shack Out Back,” a song about outhouses that was popular at that time.

I thought a moment and came up with something about its being a spoof on people who can’t let go of the past. That seemed to meet the challenge but didn’t feel exactly right.

Eventually, I came to wish I’d said, “It’s just for fun.”

__________

While visiting with some people in Germany, I mentioned that my wife and I often turn on the closed captions when watching a British TV show, because we can’t always understand what the characters are saying.

My hosts seemed surprised. I knew there were many different Duetsche dialects and imagined some might differ from their own as much as British English differs from mine. I couldn’t come up with a reply based on this notion. But maybe I could’ve asked how they fared listening to a German-speaking Swiss person.

__________

At a UNC football game many years ago, Fed Ex Corporation provided free t-shirts with a school-spirited message on the front and a Fed Ex logo on the back. Sometime later I was wearing mine in a context other than a game. It caught the eye of someone who admired it and asked if I’d added the Fed Ex logo. No, I said, it came that way. They paid for it.

He was a Fed Ex employee (or maybe former employee) with such good feelings about the company, the logo was what he liked best about the shirt. He was envious.

When I told someone else later about this encounter, that person pointed out I should’ve offered to give the admirer the shirt in exchange for a Carolina shirt without a commercial ad on it.

Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?

It wasn’t about coffee

As I noted in a previous entry, I used to post good-grammar reminders on Facebook but stopped nearly a decade ago. Since then, I’ve avoided venting openly, despite regular fingernails-on-the-chalkboard reactions to frequent assaults on our mother tongue on Facebook and elsewhere.


I have tried to demonstrate good grammar in my FB posts and comments. When I could do so without being too obvious, I’ve slipped in a response that followed a rule of grammar violated in the original post.


For example, say the post was, “Today’s sunshine made it a nice day for Zelda and I.” After several other comments, I might enter, “It gave Nancy and me a chance to do some hiking.”


Then, in May of 2018, I came up with another way to demonstrate good grammar subtly. As with the pre-2014 posts, I had no illusions of educating anyone, and my entries most certainly were not directed at any individual. It was just a way to vent. Well, maybe I also wished it might be like hiding a pill in a piece of meat before giving it to a dog.


Unlike in an incident I described in another, unrelated post, I was trying to be “sneaky.” Using colorful backgrounds Facebook offers for short posts, I created a series of memes. The first read, “It’s never too late to have two cups of coffee.” There were a number of “likes” and an enjoyable discussion of the wonders of coffee.


But it wasn’t really about coffee. It was about “too,” “to” and “two.” “It’s never too late to have two cups of coffee.” These are among the homonyms that can confuse some people. This phrase showed all three used correctly.


I created the memes while having my morning coffee. So the invigorating brew was a natural subject. The next two also had coffee as a theme.


The second was “It’s time for coffee to work its magic,” demonstrating a difference between “it’s” and “its.”


(In an English-class assignment during my junior year in high school, I wrote an “it’s” that should have been an “its.” My teacher, one of the best I ever had, circled the error and wrote “Ouch!” in the margin. A teachable moment. Since then, when I see the mistake, I think “Ouch!”)


A few days later, I attacked the often confusing (for some) “you’re” vs. “your” with “Early starts can be difficult, but after a little coffee, you’re on your way.” See? You’re on your way.


In the comments, I was able to add a treatment of “they’re-their-there.” I noted, “Not too difficult, though, because I’m headed to 7 a.m. Bible study. Some don’t have coffee at home before they leave. They’re content to wait to have their first cup there at the church house.” (Italics inserted here.)


And then there’s always the apostrophe. Very useful but often misused. I had already addressed the it’s-its problem. Also troubling is that many people seem to think the letter S must always be preceded by an apostrophe.


The Carolina Hurricanes once had a goalie named Peters. In a Facebook discussion, I saw a fan insert an apostrophe before the last letter of his name. His name! More recently, on a Seinfeld-themed page, someone did the same in a reference to Michael Richards, the actor who played Kramer. “Richard’s” either means “belonging to Richard” or is a contraction of “Richard is” or, occasionally, “Richard has.”


One day I came up with a way to show the apostrophe’s proper use in a possessive and its proper absence from a plural: ” ‘Hey Jude’ was 1968’s top hit and one of the biggest for the 1960s.” It generated some discussion of music and memories associated with that song.


At another time — maybe a couple of times — I’ve posted, “If you visit the Bectons’ home, you may see two or three Bectons, and you might get to hear Daniel Becton’s music.”


I don’t know if the subliminal messages about grammar registered in anyone’s subconscious. I’m sure the number would be between zero and “pretty small.” Likely closer to zero. But in any case, thinking up the posts was fun and a worthwhile mental exercise for me.


Hold onto your hats. Chances are you’re going to see more of these nuggets later in the 2020s. They’re forming in my mind, and I won’t want them to stay there.

Mays stole the show at my first MLB game

I had low expectations for the first Major League Baseball game I attended. While I appreciated the sport, it couldn’t promise the action of football or basketball. Still, when the opportunity arose, I didn’t hesitate to add this experience to my list. As it turned out, that game exceeded my expectations — with room to spare.


I was college senior, on the 1969 spring tour of the University of North Carolina Men’s Glee Club, which had evolved from the traditional rah-rah college glee club to a men’s chorale. Our itinerary took us through Atlanta, where some free time was built in.


The San Francisco Giants were in town. A group of us went to the then-four-year-old baseball stadium for the game. We had good seats along the first-base line. When a foul ball disabled a seat on our row, our director joked to the singer sitting nearest, “You should’ve had that.”


Willie Mays came into the game with 299 stolen bases. No one had ever hit 300 homeruns and stolen 300 bases. Mays, of course, had more than 300 HRs by that point, He just needed one more SB to become a group of one.


The first time up, he got on base. I can’t remember now if it was via a hit or a walk. On the first pitch to the next batter, he took off. As the years have passed, the play becomes less and less close in my memory. The game paused while the PA announcer said, “With that steal, Willie Mays becomes the first player in major league history to hit 300 homeruns and steal 300 bases. [Pause] So, Willie, here’s the base.”


A grounds crewman (and they were all men in those days) came running out, pulled up second base and handed it to Mays. Someone came from the Giants’ dugout to get the prize as a new second base was installed. It was the first time — and one of the few ever — I saw a visiting player honored during an athletic contest.


That historic moment made me glad I was there, and there was even more entertainment.


The first time Felix Milan came to bat, he took a pitch to the side of his head. It was obviously an accident. I don’t remember any hint of rancor. He was OK and took his base.


Later in the game, the light-hitting Milan came to bat with the bases loaded. He put it over the fence — one of the total of 22 homers he hit in 5,791 plate appearances in the 1,480 games of his career.


One wonders: If the bean ball had followed the grand slam, might there have been some rancor?


In any case, the game kept me engaged throughout. Instead of the 1-0 or 2-1 score I had expected, Atlanta won something like 8-2.

Random rants for a Monday morning

In no particular order.

–I wonder how many people who seem to take issue with Thomas Wolfe’s book title “You Can’t Go Home Again,” have in fact read the book.

–If a person “wants to thank” someone else, why not go ahead and just do so?

–There is one noun whose plural form correctly employs apostrophe-S: Apostrophes.

–Someone addicted to alcohol is an alcoholic. I hear the terms workaholic and chocoholic a good bit, but I don’t know anyone who is addicted to workahol or chocohol. I don’t even know what those substances are.

–To me, saying “Happy Birthday” means “congrats on achieving this milestone.” The hope is that their everyday is happy, not just that one. Oh, and when the greeting is offered a day or more later, it is the wish that is belated, not the birthday.

— I wonder how often “I hate to tell you. . . ” means “I am enjoying telling you.”

— From time to time, I see in social media discussions, letters to the editor in the newspaper and elsewhere, someone state his/her (I think it’s almost always “his”) viewpoint and then conclude with “end of discussion.” Does this strike anyone else as presumptuous? Close-minded?

–There is an appropriate response to “Thank you.” That response is “You’re welcome.” When I hear “No problem,” I usually wonder why there was ever any question that might be a problem. I read an explanation in “American Scholar” a while back, in which the writer conjectured that human interaction has become so problematic that it must now be necessary to acknowledge those times a given interaction is problem free.

A search for life’s meaning

In a different context, my children are collecting my answers to various posed questions. One of the more challenging ones has been “What do you think is the meaning of life?” Here’s my attempt at an answer.

Now there’s a question that needs more than a few paragraphs. The answer — or, rather, the search for the answer — has filled countless books. I guess one might conclude that the meaning of life for a philosopher is to discover the meaning of life. No, make that “to search for the meaning of life.”

The same also could be true for theologians. Looking at it theologically, the meaning of life might be said to be trying as much as possible to emulate the Creator, in whose image we are created. “God is love” (and thus “Love is God”), we are taught. Along this line of thought, love gives life meaning — loving others, loving creation, and acting on that love. And let’s not leave out embracing the creative process itself. Being creative can also give our lives meaning.

This is consistent with the notion that the meaning of life is to leave the world a better place than we found it.

Searching online for “meaning of life” yields some philosophical links, but at least as many literal explanations: Life means not dead or inanimate. We are still breathing, and we’re not rocks. There may be some food for philosophical thought there.

Yet, we don’t have to be philosophers, theologians or scientists to find meaning in life. We can — and, I think, often do — look for meaning in small ways, seeking answers to small questions that provide some clues to what life is essentially all about.

[Really, many of my posts on this blog speak to the question, “What do you think is the meaning of life?”]

Most of us don’t think constantly about the “big picture,” but rather look for meaning on a daily basis. Something you see, hear, feel, observe, recall or maybe just sense that causes you to feel, at that moment, I’m glad to be alive.