My daughter sent me this link. I hope it works for you to tap into it. I managed to talk a little bit about it in my upcoming How Did These Lovely People Let it Happen: A Psychologist’s intimate Journal, but this is so amazingly complete Im actually excited having read it. I strongly recommend it, with an eye to our current childrearing issues and adult challenges. Good luck in connecting to it, and please stay with it to the end, and even beyond. Besides, it’s fun to read. https://youtu.be/K56rxHctlcE?si=-iuMAOIztYugyNYc
If The link doesn’t work, type it into your search engine. It’s worth it
The creator makes no two humans alike, but, if one chooses to think in terms of the Holy book, then it’s important to note that the hairs on each of our heads are counted and known, indicating that each of us is a treasured product of creation. If I’ve understood the holy writings correctly, no one is rejected by the creator for being imperfect.
Or, maybe like the potter whose bowls all have the stamp of approval, not one is recognized as perfect, but each is recognized for its particular value – even its peculiarities.
We humans don’t particularly like that truth as we try to impose dichotomies like good/bad, worthy/unworthy, normal/abnormal, Republican/Democrat, even male/female. But that misleading convenience can lead us into a cruel trap. Why? Because it just plain isn’t accurate. And no human being has the Godlike authority to make it true by declaring that only two sexes, male and female, will be legally recognized.
I personally am most comforted by, even fascinated by, science — the ability given to us by whatever is our creative source to think and carefully study the product of creation. So I question friends with more knowledge than mine (like Dan Ress), and I read. Right now I’m on page 92 of Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived:The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes. No, I couldn’t possibly pass a test on the content that’s passed through my brain in those 92 pages. What I have learned is that truth is infinitely greater than our feeble human desire to simplify. Like the awe I feel when I read the more-than-I-can-remember content shared by Neil de Grasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. But then there’s an area where I do feel a degree of competence – human personality.
In teaching the psychology of women, I loved learning of the many hormonal response stages of fetal development where things can vary from dichotomous expectations. But these days there is a general enthusiasm for one particular measure of human genetic variety, the X and Y chromosomes. The assumption seems so conveniently simple, there are only two possible beginnings, XX or XY, one developing into a female and the other a male. Those in authority even take it on themselves to declare that those are the only two legally acceptable gender indicators — male or female — anything else being a “hoax.” Taken a step further it’s convenient to conclude that one born with an XX combination is unequivocably a female and an XY is male.
But wait! The creator has given us much more variety. Here’s a list of survivable combinations: XO (a single X), XXY, XXX, XYY, and everyone’s favorite XX or XY. Notice there is no survivable YO or YY combination. That’s because the Y chromosome doesn’t have enough genetic material to support life. It has a very important function though — to create male reproductive organs and secondary male characteristics by having its signals recognized at the appropriate time in fetal development. Occasionally, though, things don’t work out in the usual way and the responsible gene, probably the SRYgene, moves off its intended chromosome. In that case the XY person develops with no scrotum, no fully descended testes, even a vaginal canal. Identified at birth as a female, the XY person has the appearance and mind of a female, grows up as a female, and, to all intents and purposes, is a female, and is still a female after some dedicated chromosome detective discovers the XY source only when some authority deems it necessary to do the test. The problem lies in the reliance on that XY method of measuring gender, ignoring all the other measurement options that define her.
This is just one example of the problem of getting stuck on one dichotomous assumption that fails to appreciate the complexity of humanity. Actually I feel sorry for the folks who choose the simplistic either/or gate beyond which they don’t want to go. There’s so much fun and excitement to be found on the complex other side.
I’ve been engaging lately in what I once thought was the right way to do things – reading and researching to understand what those words “liberal” and “conservative” mean. I confess I’m running into trouble. I just can’t understand “conservative.” All I know is it’s not my father’s conservative, even mine up to and including Eisenhower. I do know, though, what I mean by “liberal.” This is a partial list
- Violence breeds hatred.
- Hatred breeds destruction for the hater as well as the hated.
- Vengeance is violence in any form, physical or other, even ridiculing, insulting, or demeaning.
- Peaceful problem problem-solving leads to fulness of growth for everyone.
- Every individual is of value, deserving of care, appreciation, and encouragement.
- People come in many genders, abilities, and color.
- Freedom makes creativity possible by allowing every individual to grow and prosper.
- Peace makes freedom possible, and vice versa.
- Appreciation, gratitude, and forgiveness clear the path to peace.
- Earth is a gift to be cared for with appreciation.
- Children are a gift deserving birth into a loving, caring society.
- Agape love signifies mental health.
- Good mental health depends on all the bullets above.
- History ignored opens the way to history re-enacted.
This is it for starters. Now I ask for two things,
- Add to my list
- Provide me with a similar list of the current meaning of “conservative.”
Thanks
No doubt my memory or basic information is wrong about the Charlie Kirk shooting, but based on what I remember reading and seeing I’m amazed that a relatively naïve twenty-two year old could carry off the one perfect killing shot characteristic of a well-trained career marksman, then be photographed leaping off the building like a Hollywood stuntman and running off without so much as a limp, somehow handling the rifle which will then be wrapped in a towel.
If it weren’t for the horrible fact that our country has become a killing field it would make for a fascinating whodunnit. As it is, I’m writing this at 3:30 a.m., losing sleep in grief over the world-wide violence passing as news these days.
How I long for that “lost” song I’ve been remembering lately from my high school days (1946):
One world built on a firm foundation
One world no longer cursed by war.
Let no mortal man
Change the master’s plan
In a world where war shall cease.
One world built on love and peace.
Now have at it. Explain to me what I’m missing in the murder details.
Today I went straight to my computer to enter my memory of the song “One World Built on a Firm Foundation.” I was reacting to Trump’s change of name from “Department of Defense” to the “Department of War” and what it implies. I discovered that I had already posted about the song on September 23, 2013.
This link should take you directly to the 2013 original including the comments it evoked.https://monagustafsonaffinito.com/2013/09/23/one-world-the-lost-song/
We met in 1947, the beginning of our four years at Connecticut College for Women. (It went coed in the 1960s). Until recently Harriet and I were two of the three survivors of our group of close friends. In our years together, Harriet was always the one to remind me to do the extracurricular things I’d tend to forget about. That’s what she had been doing recently since I mentioned to her that I wanted to write in my blog every day – reminding me. I didn’t always make it, but she tried. You may have noticed, though, that I haven’t been “on” for a while. On July 30thitting shiva by phone she moved on to whatever is next after this life and obviously stopped reminding me. Instead, I’ve been doing something really weird – keeping a record of my Wordle activities every day – for reporting as part of our daily phone conversations. Maybe I’ll delete them after I send this blog report out today.
But now I’m bringing in the report of our friendship as written recently by her daughter Jan. Thanks, Jan, for the permission to use it.
Harriet and Mona, A story about friendship
In some ways, their story is ordinary. Mona and Harriet (my mom) met in the fall of 1947, their freshman year of college. Each girl arrived from a small town and was ready for a big change. By happy chance they were assigned to the same dormitory, in rooms across the hall from each other. By sophomore year they chose each other as roommates. With their circle of expanding friends, they navigated college life together. They would giggle about the still mysterious “posture photos” required at orientation. The demands of classes, labs, and work-study jobs filled their weeks. Blind dates, dance cards, and tailgating at nearby football games and crew races provided weekend fun. By senior year each girl had her designated study carrel to focus on her studies and prepare for the impending fateful Comprehensive Exams. Every night for three years they would return to their dormitory, fall into bed, recount their day, and rally for the next.
Following graduation, Mona and Harriet travelled by boat, bus, and train through post-war Europe. While there, according to Mona they became “a good deal wiser about war, destruction, horror, poverty, plus generosity, kindness and welcome.” They shared tight quarters and glorious adventures, always looking out for each other.
Returning home to the States, they headed to Boston and searched for an apartment but due to their circumstances they could no longer be roommates. Mona began graduate school and Harriet was a program director for a preschool. Their friendship continued in the real world. They stood as witnesses at each other’s weddings and then shared weekend visits with husbands and children. Mona continued her studies, became a college professor, and eventually built her own successful counseling practice. Harriet found joy in teaching young children, volunteered in many roles, and upon retirement joined the Peace Corps and served in northern Africa. They consoled each other through the loss of a marriage and the loss of a child. Through many miles and multiple moves they stayed in contact with letters, telephone, and eventually email. In 2021, Mona and Harriet adjusted to a new world and attended their 70th college reunion via Zoom.
Early in 2024, Harriet’s husband (my dad) suddenly passed away. Mona was crushed by the news. Now living a thousand miles away she wanted to support her dear friend, as she always had. Though raised in a Lutheran household, Mona admired the Jewish tradition of shiva, the seven day period of mourning to honor the deceased. She called Harriet and told her that she would call every night for the next seven days so that she might sit with her during this time.
After seven days, the phone calls continued, and even today, 550 days later, these two college roommates still talk every night. At 96 years old they are remarkably healthy in mind and spirit. WhSen answering Mona’s call, Harriet’s greeting is often, “Not dead yet”! They discuss politics, current events, and their ever-growing families. They share jokes they have read online, Wordle success, exercise tips, and scenes from daily life at their respective retirement communities. As life-long learners they compare what each has written or read lately. They never lack for conversation.
In some ways their story is ordinary; yet the friendship formed from a serendipitous room assignment nearly eighty years ago is extraordinary. At the end of each day, the dormitory ritual of pajamas and talk before sleep brings comfort and purpose to these two roommates and friends, Mona and Harriet.
After I wrote this story, Harriet suffered complications from a debilitating fall. She entered hospice and passed peacefully. Her last phone call was from Mona.
The assignment for our Writing Group here at the Waters of Excelsior on Friday, June 13, 2025 was to applaud someone. The following was what I presented in honor of a resident whom I chose to leave unnamed, but who represents so much that is good in what seems like a tragedy. Today I was in the process of filing it away when I thought you might enjoy the message. So, here it is.
I APPLAUD YOU.
goodness,At least every half hour.
You ask what day this is.
And in between you.
Inquire about the time.
Then you ask when they will be.
Playing the game you enjoy,
The one you will engage in.
With full understanding.
When it begins.
When nothing else is going on.
You read your book.
I don’t know if it’s the.
Same book over and over.
Like the stories of your life.
family, husband and occupation.
And always you are the first.
To clear the table to make space.
For the newcomer.
Or help place the wheelchaired person.
Comfortably at the table.
And fetch a glass of water.
For the person who wants it.
Even as you pick up what the.
Person with the walker has dropped.
You’re always there to open the door
When you think I want to come in.
I applaud you for all this.
What really matters.
The essence of who you really are.
Goodness, generosity, kindness.
Mona
I’m sure those passing the collection plate won’t miss my piddly $5.00 and $10.00 donations, That’s not really the point. It’s sort of like my long-standing impotent single-person boycott of J.C. Penney back in 1976 because they wouldn’t give me a credit card in my own name when I became newly single. But somehow it’s satisfying just to say my thoughts out loud.
So why won’t I give any more to the democratic party?
- Because it long ago lost the Monopoly game of manipulating voting rights and judicial appointments, apparently not even realizing what was happening. They seem to be playing the same old lost game.
- Because they don’t tell the stories of what the MAGA principles are doing to real live people. I never see ads giving stories of women suffering and dying because of legal controls over medical practice. I never see ads of immigrants (not always, but they look like it) being separated from their families, humiliated by blindfolded captors, sent off essentially to distant prisons even, sometimes, when they are showing up as required to maintain their right to stay in the country. They just don’t show what’s happening to real people. They don’t even show legal and peaceful protestors being attacked for practicing their rights.
Oh, they show the sad, often sickening, stories to us dems when they are asking for money, but we aren’t the ones who need it. The people who should be seeing those scenes are the plain ordinary folks with their hearts of gold if they were brought up to snuff.
Maybe I don’t see any of those things on ordinary TV because I live in Minnesota and they take us for granted. But I think that those behind the providing of information to “real” people just don’t get it.
If you really want to win votes, please, first of all, improve your Monopoly game skills, and second … please honestly report real-people stories. Or tell me who I can complain to.
OKAY, I’m not a political scientist, or a tested purveyor of spin. But I do know something about people.
They claim the immigrants are dangerous criminals, or lazy parasites living off the largesse of the US. But they drag them away from their places of work where, of course, their federal tax is deducted from their paycheck like everyone else’s.
I was on my back, giving it the twenty-minutes it needs every so often since my 2015 accident. This time, though, I was hoping to slip into a brief nap to help recover from a couple of nights of poor and minimal sleep… sorry, I can’t help empathizing with those who are suffering. Instead, I found myself plunging into despair (Loss of hope.) I haven’t been that close to depression since the mid 1970s when the despair was more personal. At that time my 2:00 am moment clicked in and I started the turn-around-conviction that somehow I’d do something to make it better, and I did.
This time two relatively minor straws almost broke the back of my determination. On top of one loss of freedom after the other in the country – women’s rights, physicians rights, gender rights, asylum-seekers rights, health rights, housing rights, food rights, climate rights, even professor’s rights or the right not to be killed by gunshot, were two deliberate insults: the removal of Harvey Milk’s name from the ship that had been christened in his honor and the removal of the bust of Martin Luther King that had been in the oval office. But the major one that almost did me in? – the Supreme Court clearing the way to remove immigrants to countries other than their own origin where a language foreign to them might be the norm. Losing language communication is equivalent to solitary confinement, pretty close to a death sentence.
I solved my own problem by getting back to editing my manuscript, How Could These Lovely People Have Let It Happen? A Psychologist’s Intimate Journal. Really. It helped. By the time I had spent a couple of hours at the computer, walked the halls of the Waters of Excelsior and enjoyed an evening meal with friends, my symptoms were alleviated.
But what hasn’t been helping – and so I’ve stopped it – is contributing to the political party of my choice. (Guess which one.) I don’t see my minimal money being spent to help spread caring and justice. Why can’t they just tell the human stories of people being afflicted by current policies? I do understand it won’t happen with most news media telling them, for various reasons of fear and ownership control. But why can’t some of the party money buy ads just to tell the story of women suffering and dying because of legal controls over medical practices, or of families imprisoned, or of those living with the disaster of violent weather issue? Personally, I don’t know a single person who doesn’t care in one way or the other for the welfare of others. That’s where the truth lies, not in data and graphs and generalized hypotheses.
Oh well. Bottom line I guess we all have to take care of ourselves …
monagustafsonaffinito 