Of Me, By Me, and For Me

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Professor Taboo

In the wake of what has happened here September 10th, 2025, in Orem, Utah, USA, where severe, violent extremism rose another notch, I am begging all Americans, every single one of you to please, please, please, PLEASE prove me wrong with the obvious direction this country is being led. Please prove me wrong! Speak up, do not stay silent… sadly, at the risk of your own life, like Charlie Kirk had the political right to do, whether his world-view, his political persuasion was right or wrong, fascist or American, SPEAK THA EFFIN UP and get active in your governmental process! I cannot emphasize this dire NEED enough, never.

Therefore, let me show all of you Americans the very poor state, the decaying cancer that has become the United States of America due to the apathy and non-participating American public standing up with their citizens of power to the unscrupulous authority, corrupt government, and persuasive mega-wealthy Dark Money into a Constitutional revamp that has been bringing down this republic democracy in which our 18th-century Founding Fathers fought so hard with their own blood, toil, tears, and sons.

Also, on a sidenote I do not mind one bit the length at which I examine and write about this subject of the decaying, cancerous condition and health of American democracy today and of the severe apathy and willful ignorance of American voters/citizens. Thus, if this blog publication becomes 3,000 or 5,000 or 20,000 words long, so be it. This understanding of the scummy, swampy, cesspool that is our nation’s current politics and corrupt wealth in it… is far, far, FAR too important for me to worry needlessly about reader’s short attention spans and shallow comprehension, or more to the point, their shameful laziness to read intently and earnestly what I’ve written here. So grin and bear it if you care about the terminal illness of your country, my country, our country as true Americans.

Let’s get started!

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There is a juxtaposed personality, or a duel and conflicting personality, or personalities in American politics. Not that that is big news, but the reality is that it has been present in our nation (and other nations) since the first cries of our 18th-century independence from Great Britain. 21st-century Americans must wake up and accept the state and condition of their dying nation! The fight to keep this democracy functioning is a DAILY responsibility. Period. Always has been, always will be.

This begs the question: where is the problem? Where is the cancer? I will tell you.

Our politicians and government no longer fear the American public or the American voters. Why? Because the “average American,” the masses of this country can no longer hurt those in positions of power and wealth, or they do not know how. The American public, the ordinary American voter/citizen has allowed this impunity to manifest inside U.S. government and its puppeteers. How? How has this been allowed to happen?

Our Lust for In-Your-Face Entertainment Value

Americans have always embraced affectionally their evil-doers, their entertaining criminals, e.g. D.B. Cooper, Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, Anna Delvy, etc., and the long list goes on. Americans LOVE their defiant icons of cultish personality. Power, wealth, authority, defiance, and fear are extremely intoxicating, addicting to American politicians and the American public. Most of Americans are endlessly tempted and they fall from grace because of the severe pressures that go with a “public image,” celebrity status, and many of us worship them by our obsessive following of them like love-sick puppy dogs.

This too often permeates into our national and state governing as well. There is no exception either as a politician “Of the People, By the People, and For the People,” probably much more than all American voters could possibly imagine that goes on in Washington D.C., or those of us who become addicted roadies, followers, worshipers of them. And those officials/criminals in government roles must live up to a 24/7, 365-days a year, certain public image until they resign or retire from public service whether they like it or not, or whether they can demonstrate the moral fiber, character, and willpower to just say no… repeatedly. They must fake it publicly in order to generate campaign funding to stay in office and maintain their constituent’s support at the polls. Many fail, many are outright hypocrites whether intentional or not, and yet sadly the American people are duped over and over by these sketchy types of political personalities still to this day! This is and always has been the overly glamorized American culture by Hollywood. How? What are they really feeding it?

The Conscious, Preconscious, and Unconscious

Why is this lust for power, authority, and enormous wealth such a regular occurrence past and present with our American political officials? How do they keep getting appointed or voted into office? What is the psychology behind these public figures, and equally as much, with is the psychology behind their constituents and supporters that make them their elected governing officials?

*Sigmund Freud’s model of the human psyche* – *Image from The Living Philosophy, Oct. 2021*

The father of psychology Sigmund Freud, theorized in his 1915 paper that the human psyche had three distinct levels of consciousness, preconsciousness, and unconsciousness using a metaphorical diagram of an iceberg. I personally like Freud’s theory of the human psyche. In several ways I think there is much truth in its content and it is demonstrated every day and night by our human species, particularly in times of crisis. What exactly was Dr. Freud explaining to us?

Freud’s iceberg model was a metaphor for the structure or makeup of the human mind. Above the water was our awake, conscious mind of thoughts and perception that the general public around us witness. Everything below the waterline was the preconscious and unconscious, i.e. memory stored knowledge learned from life experiences and deeper below the waterline our instincts, fears, dark defiant inclinations, and selfish motives of the Me we usually hide from the general public. I believe this blueprint is a very true representation of all human psyches around the world; in all of us like it or not.

More precisely though the “Id” or ‘the It’ and the Ego and the Superego are all in conflict with each other for dominance and according to Freud are the driving forces of all human internal conflict with the bad, good, or neutrally egalitarian human decisions we make throughout our lifetimes.

The Id is the genetic, hormonal, and transgenerational part of the psyche we are born with. The Ego and Superego develop after and from the Id. In other words, the former is all formed from nature and genetics. The Ego and Superego are formed from our immediate family (parents, siblings, etc.), extended family, and our communal environment. There is no nurturing in the Id, but over time more and more nurturing is impacted upon the Ego and Superego. Below the waterline are all of our basic instincts, physiology, primal urges (libido) and impulses running wild inside our bodies, heads or perhaps sometimes manifested in actual behaviors. The Id is not organized or managed by logic and reasoning. According to Dr. Freud the Pleasure Principle rules the Id—it is energized by self-satisfaction and not by what society and others dictate. In my lifetime, I have found this principle, this Freudian theory to be mostly true.

The Superego can be thought of as the counter-balance to the Id and what we have individually learned throughout our own social life experiences. In short, the Id is the For Me, By Me, Of me, and the Superego is the bigger than me and my wants, or the ‘Of the People, By the People, For the People‘ manifestation. Within this third are two subparts: the full conscience and the Ego ideal. The conscience is the summation of what our culture, our parents, family, and community have taught to us and everyone what is right and what is wrong morally and ethically. When we do not live up to that standard or code, we feel shame and guilt, not only from society and family, but the Superego as well. The Ego ideal therefore would be the best internal version of one’s self that family, society and culture approves. And this approval has benefits: accomplishment, pride, and value to name just three.

The Superego also has the ability of forethought. It has the long-term in mind rather than the immediate primal urges and self-satisfaction. It is more altruistic in nature/role than self-gratifying and narcissistic, the angel on your shoulder so to speak, rather than the devil.

The Ego, according to Freud and in the proper German translation, is nothing more or less than the ‘I’ of your existence, the literal awake part of you. It has a very difficult role to play. It serves three domains, three masters. It must fairly manage the impulses of the ‘Id‘ and the Superego as well as reality or your societal/cultural world. This struggle is demonstrated daily by our individual actions 24/7, 365-days and nights a year. When your Superego and your Id are aligned and balanced with reality, then all seems to be happy, content, peaceful, and hopeful.

“There is nothing in the id that could be compared with negation… nothing in the id which corresponds to the idea of time”⁠
—Sigmund Freud

Whether one agrees wholly with Freud’s model, partly, or not at all in any way, I find much truth to his theory of all human psyches—it can be found one way or another in every single human being on the planet.

Applying Psychology and the Human Psyche to Our Nation

How our better self, the Ego as Freud puts it, manages the conflicts within us and without us between the Id and the Superego. It is of course the ultimate and never-ending debate of what’s best and what is not best in the timeline of human endeavors. I want to show how poorly, how dismally America is doing today on a psychological, societal, and political level both domestically (locally) and internationally.

Never before in the whole history of the United States has the wealth of one nation, in nearly two and half centuries, been so atmospheric, so high, so abundant among so few citizens than in the 21st-century United States. The USA is currently the 10th richest country in the world by GDP per capita constant prices. That might be a surprise to many, but when compared to 196 designated official nations, that is remarkably outstanding. That leaves in the dust all of our perceived “enemy” nations like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. But underneath this outer shell of glitz, bling, and power is a fragile, decaying illness inside. The biggest growing, cancerous tumors inside the U.S. are its economic model (hyper-capitalism) fed by mega-corporations, as well as its bribed, corrupt, scandalous government officials by those wealthiest individuals, their corporations, and their Super PACs. American history has shown adequately that it isn’t just one political party either. It is now the 21st-century millions, billions, and trillions that has infested our entire political and judicial systems. What and/or who is specifically responsible for this metastasized cancer inside the United States? Many well-educated, well-informed, secular Americans who know inside and out this country’s Charters of Freedom, as a whole, and their Core Founding Fathers who designed them will say two things or two people:

Citizens United and James Bopp in 2010, and…
Leonard Leo and Robert Schenck.

Pick your poison, any of those four in conjunction with each other and backed secretly, anonymously by a few extremely wealthy Super PACs and donors are the cancer, the power players that now rule or ruled this country straight to the ER. Let’s look at the consequences of these four entities since before 2010 and the Supreme Court’s eventual Landmark decisions of Citizens United vs FEC, followed by Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022.

The Root of All Evil

It is the popular pop cliche that “Money is the root of all evil.” Yes, it probably is given how human behavior around it, with it, and using it too often leads to many sins and evil. But this cliche is actually a misquote and misinterpretation of 1 Timothy 6:10 which actually states:

“For the love of money is a root of all ^[a]sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” — NASB 1995

In this passage’s correct exegetical meaning the author(s) intends that the love of or affection for or obsession with money and/or power is a root, a pathway to all sorts of evil, corruption, scandal, bad moral judgement, and destruction of not only marriages, families, and careers, but also of one’s public image… but only temporarily in 21st-century America.

How many people, friends, family members, celebrities, sports stars do you know or can think of that clearly change in their behavior toward others (you?) and change their personality when enormous fortunes fall upon them? Think about it. Who can you list? Abnormal wealth, usually in large degrees, changes a person’s life sometimes for the better other times for the worst. Some can handle the change, others fail miserably.

Personally, I have almost always found in my experience, about 90% of the time, people, family, or friends who have come upon vast amounts of money and with it inevitable socioeconomic status, they definitely change. More often than not, the change is quite unhealthy for them and everyone around them. All of us see this in our lifetimes and learn about its corrupting nature throughout human history. We have learned about the Seven Deadly Sins, that too often distract us from a virtuous altruistic life of healthy inclusion. Of the seven deadly sins, the ones always associated with massive wealth are greed, gluttony, and implicitly, sloth. The many temptations, distractions from true life as Henry David Thoreau alludes in Walden: Or, Life in the Woods, and the slippery slopes of falling into the other four deadly sins are more often than not irresistible to most. This is why personally I am and always will be a Minimalist. As a result, I would never in a million years make a popular, quid pro quo American politician or lobbyist; not ever. I do not have the stomach for, much less the Machiavellian traits required today for either Washington D.C., or Austin, Texas, careers. As the saying goes, my soul or integrity are not for sale.

Does Money Equal Free Speech?

Beginning in 2008 a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization called Citizens United led initially by Floyd Brown and later David N. Bossie, both very Right Conservatives and well connected to extremely wealthy conservative donors and the corporate sector of campaign donors who all share the same ideology, won the Landmark Supreme Court Decision in January 2010 Citizens United vs FEC. With the legal assistance of Indiana attorney James Bopp, Jr., specializing in anti-abortion legislation, election laws, American campaign finance, and a staunch Republican activist, Citizens United, Brown, Bossie, Bopp, and several other extremely wealthy donors and organizations successfully pushed the argument of Money Equals Free Speech past the Supreme Court and into law. This SCOTUS decision would change the landscape of American politics, true democracy, campaign finance and donations entirely upside down for untold decades, possibly centuries given the new floodgates of enormous, ungodly amounts of money everywhere in our government and its elections. Worse still would be the start of the United Oligarchs of America where the wealthiest govern and control all aspects of American freedom and liberties.

And the numbers above have only skyrocketed since 2020 into stratospheric amounts to 2024. Since Nixon and Watergate lobbyist spending exploded to the Bush administrations from a $100-million dollar industry to a $2.5-billion dollar industry by 2009. It has only gotten gluttonous and hideously obese through 2024. Why now is our election process so vulnerable to the most heinous of corruption and bribery?

The arguments for and against money = free speech came down to basically two opposed positions: 1) the hiding and disguising (misleading) of unlimited amounts of campaign donations from the wealthiest donors, albeit individuals or corporations, or 2) the insane amounts of temptations that unlimited money favorably influences actual legislation for special interests groups, minority beliefs, and minority ideologies, and thus literally screw over the greater common American, whether they are in the majority or not. In other words, a few richest entities and individuals of our nation can dictate what sort of life the vast and ordinary Americans from coast to coast can have or not have despite their votes at the ballot boxes.

Fortunately, for the Living Evolving Constitutionalist of which I advocate, the poster boy for the deplorable corruptions, briberies, and deceit in our money-loaded repulsive elections was nurtured and manifested by Citizens United and James Bopp, Jr. Who is the caught, criminal poster boy? It is Jack Abramoff. Jack Abramoff has served two prison terms because he always wanted to circumvent the Law of Our Land. And there are many others that could be listed. But just in Abramoff’s investigation-scandal twenty-four (24) others were convicted of corruption or bribery directly nurtured by Citizens United, James Bopp, Jr. and two other key accomplices: Leonard Leo and Robert Schenk. I highly recommend that Rev. Schenk’s link be thoroughly read and comprehended! Why? Because Schenk later realized, far too late, that all the Christian Nationalism he had fought for and gone to jail for previously was a huge, huge regrettable mistake.

“When religion is placed at the service of a political party, it corrupts both. To claim that one political figure uniquely represents God’s will is a form of anti-Christian idolatry.” — Reverend Robert Schenk

Rev. Robert Schenk would be a second poster boy of what Citizens United and attorney James Bopp, Jr. have irreparably created—pure, unadulterated corruption and bribery at the highest levels of our federal government. Period, including our Supreme Court. No ifs, ands, or buts. Period. James B. Mintz founder of the Mintz Group, a research and financial investigation group and a former adjunct professor at Columbia University Journalism School, finds six components of how corrupt politicians and lobbyists launder the “gratuity gifts” that buy-off and bribe our federal officials. His example is Paul Manafort and his indictment as Trump’s 2016-17 campaign chairman:

And this sort of corrupt underhanded dealing and influence on elections happens all the time in various forms. What Citizens United and its champion, Bopp created was nothing short of legalized bribery of Washington D.C. In fact, this is a direct quote straight from James Bopp, Jr.’s mouth:

“I have found that being rich is always an advantage. It’s always an advantage to have money. You get a nicer house, a nicer car, you know, steak every night, whatever it is you are into, okay… and fine wine, and you can pay for speech if you want to. Okay? So there is always an advantage to have money and people with money will always have an advantage. Always.”

Boy howdy, if that isn’t rich, superior, snub-your-nose, white-man arrogance, then I have land on the Moon to sell you. That is the most undemocratic, uncouth, audacious hubris stuff to say to a nation, his nation founded upon the People, the ordinary, hard working People of America who are not the upper 10% or 15% of the most wealthy in the nation. They are average Americans who absolutely have a voice, as equally as anyone else has a voice Of the People, By the People, and For the People whether they are filthy rich or not! Man, James Bopp, Jr. chaps my ass royally with that level of blatant pomposity! And readers, he is the reason Citizens United succeeded in 2010 and directly corrupted this supposedly fair democratic republic nation. No debate whatsoever; he and the ramrodded Supreme Court Justice appointments by the last six (6) Republican administrations going back to Richard Nixon to deliberately ideologically fix our highest court in the land.

Though there are many Jack Abramoffs to list as incapable of resisting corruption, deceit, and bribes in our nation’s capitol due directly to Citizens United, James Bopp, and several other big money players, Abramoff is one of the few who was caught and who could never learn his lesson even after two lengthy prison sentences. What does that say about unlimited money flooding into our politics and government the last 15-20 years? How many excuses will be made to keep unlimited big money inside our elections and government?

Before moving on I want to address the heavy power and influence “campaign finance” via Citizens United now has inside Washington D.C. with Leonard Leo, the puppeteer, and come back to Robert Schenk’s part in it as the puppet.

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Who is Leonard Leo the man? What has shaped his life and character? Well, describing Leonard Anthony Leo is not at all difficult. Why? Because he has single handedly reshaped our nation’s Supreme Court. The highest of all courts in our country. That’s right, one man, not several presidents, not the People of the United States—that is to say, not ALL the People—but one single man created the line of dominos then tipped the first one forward and the domino effect is still happening today.

*Federalist Society co-chairman and former Executive Vice President Leonard Leo speaks to media at Trump Tower in New York, Nov. 16, 2016. Carolyn Kaster/AP*

Leo’s biggest accolade to date was his engineering of the Republican supermajority of our current Supreme Court Justices via his Federalist Society and several/many players and donors. Soon after SCOTUS followed HIS personal agenda and rolled back a woman’s right to an abortion, especially in critical or emergency situations. Does Leo’s version of Catholicism represent all the People of the United States? Is this a true republic when fringe minorities rule the land? He thinks it does. Leonard Leo, let me remind you of two Scriptural passages:

“Therefore ^[a]whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. ³ For rulers are not a cause of fear for ^[b] good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; ⁴for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”
— Romans 13: 2-7 (NASB 1995)

“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, ¹⁴or to governors as sent ^[a] by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.”
— 1 Peter 2:13-14 (NASB 1995)

On the contrary though, Holy Scripture does not always apply to the whole, but only to the individual interpretation or belief of that Scripture’s exegesis (Opus Dei). Often one person or one tiny group believes their ideology applies to the world, not just themselves. This was and still is Leonard Leo.

Personally, Leo has been deeply shaped by his radical religious faith of ultra-conservative Catholicism, and the death of his daughter by complications of her spinal bifida at 14-years old. Yet, somehow (and who knows) that tragedy caused him to attack abortion rights for American women and to go relentlessly after the Roe v Wade’s repeal. It was purely a personal vendetta on our country and he succeeded with the aid of the Federalist Society… very sadly though at the expense of a much higher mortality rate for American pregnant women and their unborn or infants in 14 states with new abortion bans, including one of the highest ones, my native state of Texas. That is horribly and grossly disproportionate for one 14-year old girl named Margaret Leo, his daughter, for all the deaths due to inaccessible emergency medical care. Really? One girl for 100’s and 1,000’s of other women and infants? WTF Leonard! But I assure you 100% that Leo would say something like, ‘That’s God’s domain and only His domain, not man’s.’ I’ve heard that over and over and over ad infinitum from religious fanatics. In the end, Leonard Leo received in particular a $1.6-BILLION dollar donation that he used for slush funds to buy off near hundreds of activist leaders, including one that violently marched upon our Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in an insurrection on our federal government killing several people and Capitol Police sworn to defend the very institution Leo, Trump, his Federalist Society, and his crony politicians were attacking!

However, when so many powerful, well-connected, wealthy men in Washington D.C. serve only themselves, they will turn on you in a heart beat. Has Leo learned this painful lesson of who he serves or uses as a puppet? From Politico.com, May 2025:

Trump goes after Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society in fury over court ruling

“The president, in a post on his social media platform, slammed Leonard Leo, the former chair of the Federalist Society, calling him a “sleazebag” who “probably hates America.”

[…]

Trump’s attack came after the U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday struck down his tariffs, a massive blow to the primary pillar of the administration’s economic agenda. The ruling was temporarily stayed by an appellate court on Thursday. One of the judges on the three-person panel that blocked the tariffs is Timothy Reif, who was appointed by Trump in his first term.

The blame, Trump said, lay with the Federalist Society.

“I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” he wrote. “This is something that cannot be forgotten!”

[…]

And at a time when much of Trump’s agenda is facing tests at the Supreme Court, Trump’s vitriolic attack on Leo has the potential to further distance the president from the court’s conservative justices. All three of Trump’s high court nominees, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, are known to be close to Leo.”

What lessons has Leonard Leo and his closest associates really learned from their Supreme Leader in the White House? Dealing with fringe special interests and greedy megalomaniacs has a risky, high cost. When the proverbial feces hits the fan, historically it has always been “every man for himself; everyone will go down with me” mentality.

Robert Schenk was one of Leonard Leo’s, James Bopp’s, and David Bossie’s puppets from the Evangelical activist circles to help galvanize the nation’s Conservative Right behind Citizens United, ironically very much a minority group in our country. As many corrupt lobbyists and D.C. politicians say, “Money talks, bullshit walks,” even when you are a fringe minority money dictates the minority’s ideology upon the majority, as attorney James Bopp, Jr. boasts above in his direct quote of ‘being rich.’ Today, Rev. Robert Schenk has done a complete 180-degree turnaround on his beliefs; listen/watch closely:

Rev. Robert Schenck, one of the first to abandon the Far Right Conservative’s extremist movement on Pro-life abortion laws (Roe v Wade) after years of being a radical activist in that same movement.

Bottom-line? Easy, there is just a corrosive, obese amount of buy-off money (bribery) everywhere in Washington D.C. and Citizens United, James Bopp, Jr., Leonard Leo and their created culture in the money schemes/scams are simply too predominate in our modern politics. Period, full stop. And unless Citizens United v FEC is overturned, repealed… it will never stop; it will only get worse every year, two years, and four years until American democracy completely collapses precisely like the Roman Empire in the 4th- and 5th-centuries CE. Guaranteed.

#1 – Former Illinois Governor (D) Rod Blagojevich

Though indicted and sentenced, former Democratic Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, was just two years prior to the SCOTUS Landmark decision of Citizens United vs FEC, he is still one of the best known victims, or rather criminal felons who got caught, who fell victim(?) in the 21st-century to ungodly, obese amounts of money in U.S. state or federal politics and legislation thanks to the lead-up of Citizens United.

Every day across the United States, in every single state, our political system is bankrolled by an onslaught of armies of wealthy fund raisers and their associate donors throwing in millions and millions of campaign dollars to their own special interests and puppet candidates. When those super wealthy donors front $50k, $200k, or $1-million dollars, they demand favors, paybacks, or kickbacks.

And no thanks to Citizens United in 2010, Brown and Bossie, attorney James Bopp, Jr. Leonard Leo, and our Republican supermajority Supreme Court, a wink and a nod that borders ever so thinly on bribery, U.S. politics has been and is as corrupt as it ever has been. Before it was cool to be filthy corrupt, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, and attempting extortion prior to 2010, Rod Blagojevich was the poster boy forerunner and first major consequence of too much money in state-federal politics.

#2 – Borges, Householder, Clark, Cespedes, Longstreth, & FirstEnergy Corp.

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#3 – Clarence Thomas and Brett Cavanaugh

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Temporary note — I am trying to finish this post while dealing with my Mom’s soon and eventual death from severe dementia/Early Alzheimer’s and other medical complications. I am handling a LOT at the moment. Please bear with me and thank you so much for your patience and understanding.

To be continued…

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

My Early Alzheimer’s Mom

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Professor Taboo

Fast Update:

My Mom is probably in her last few days or weeks—1-3 weeks?—to live so I have been extremely busy with all sorts of legal preparations, Last Will & Testament, medical power of attorney “Do Not Resuscitate” preparations, and then as you might imagine… a ton more tasks, preparations to move again soon, etc., etc., et al. It might not settle back to normal for some time now. 🤷‍♂️

*Mom & I – Kerrville Ren Festival – Jan 2023*

Until the next update… whenever that might be.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always – Celebrate All Human Organic Experiences – Do Not Take for Granted the Human Element of Life!

Yes, Believe It or Not I’m Married!

Posted on August 19, 2025 by Professor Taboo

Many didn’t think it would happen. Hell, I didn’t think it would happen. I had accepted the real possibility that I would live out my life single, unmarried, with no Soul Mate until my last breath. Alone. Then the Universe decided to throw me a lit stick of dynamite last summer and fall and I could not put the fuse out!

Sandy’s genealogy and heritage is Irish (Lyle) and Scottish (Stewarts). I like Celtic and Gaelic culture even though I am definitely Franco-German (Bonet/Bonnet on maternal side, Konzack-Miller on paternal side). We both love silver, not gold. Perfecto!

🧨BOOM! As Sandy and I reconnected more and more every third day, then every other day, then every single day/night multiple times, laughing with each other non-stop that my face-cheeks would begin hurting and my ribs sore, we began to talk on deeper levels. It had always been super easy to communicate together. We have known each other as the best of friends (only) for just over 45-years!

Sandy was my very first therapist after my father’s suicide in July 1990. Sandy was married to her first husband then, of 12-years. I was too busy being a hot metrosexual man, 😈😉semi-pro footballer, while working toward my master’s degree in counseling and therapy, exactly what Sandy finished doing in early 1990. However, Dad’s suicide change everything. My whole world was upside down for the next three or four years. I moved back to Dallas, Texas. Sandy moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and we lived our separate lives, but always staying in touch; and yes, always laughing together.

By late November 2024 everything was falling perfectly into place for us. We discussed many times how convenient it would be to get married and both of us not be alone, dying single. She’s 62 (March 29th) and I am 62 (January 4th), three months her senior. She doesn’t like it when I bring that up. 😄 Sandy is quite independent, self-confident always, articulates her thoughts and feelings exceptionally well, and has a fabulous sense of humor and quick wit. My Mom absolutely adores her and Sandy loves Mom since she has lost both her parents. It all just made sense. There was no point in putting it off any longer. Justice of the Peace William “Bill” Ragsdale of Kerr County married us. He made the disastrous mistake of calling Sandy, Sandra, as her legal name and driver’s license read. JoP Ragsdale therefore made a Johnny-on-the-Spot, special adjustment to our marital vows:

*We both chuckled every time he said, “Bubba.”*

As the legal document indicates, we were husband and wife at 3:23pm CST, August 8, 2025.

Now comes the big, big move for her from Chattanooga, Tennessee, next month and her storage unit filled with all her furniture from her two-story house when she was married—all of it very nice and beautiful furniture and two queen beds, etc. Ugh. 🙄 But honestly, I don’t see any of this being difficult, overly stressful, or untimely. As a matter of fact, in the 45-years we’ve been great friends we have not had one single fight, not even a little spat! This amazes us both, but it is so because we are both excellent, articulate communicators with non-aggressive, pro-positive verbal exchanges without sacrificing brutal honesty. This has always been our best talent/gift together from day one in August 1981. 😍😁

Both of us are excited and looking forward to our lives together full of fun, laughter, and perfect, affectionate communication, the cornerstone of any healthy, long-term relationship and marriage. ❣️💞 😁

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

An Alzheimer’s & Family Update

Posted on January 26, 2025 by Professor Taboo

Some of you may have noticed that I have been around our blogging community less, perhaps noticeably less. You would be right. That has been the case for some 3-5 months now, I’m unsure really. Here’s why… well, several reasons why.

Life. And…

Immediate family, specifically my Early Alzheimer’s Mom and unfortunately and negatively my 61-year old sister.

Mom

Much of what I’ve been having to do to care full-time/overtime 14-16/7 hrs. per day, 365-days the past near four years for my Mom has been covered in these previous three blog-posts: Click here for the first post, then the 2nd and 3rd are all linked together after.

No surprise, she has declined a little more since my last Alzheimer update-post in November 2023. Hence, my free-time to write blogs, comment on blogs I follow, or explore new blogs I’d enjoy has gone by the wayside to this present day.

Mom has now reached the point where cognitively and physically she cannot and/or is unable to help me do anything at all around our apartment. None of the daily or weekly chores for both our bedrooms, the bathrooms, the tub/shower, cleaning the kitchen daily 2-4 times per day, preparing two meals a day, all the grocery weekly/bi-weekly shopping and pharmacy trips, vacuuming and mopping of the apartment, caring for all the plants inside and outside as well as my herb garden outside—all of which are dead now and most are dead inside—and the chauffeuring to quarterly or biannual doctor appointments; she no longer drives.

Regarding my hard work on my herb garden, roses, and gorgeous geraniums outside last year, this past summer, autumn, and now winter has been utterly brutal on all outdoor plants/gardens. In the summer last year we had one of the worst infestations of huge tan-brown-green grasshoppers that devoured everyone’s plants. Some huge grasshoppers were at least 4-inches long. Extreme boiling temps in the day and extreme frigid temps at night doomed my 2024 efforts. On top of this unmitigated garden disaster, for 8-days straight I was so deathly ill I could not get out of bed, ever. I struggled bad to walk to the bathroom. I never ate during those 8-days. Consequently, all the indoor and outdoor plants suffered horribly.

One of my top priorities this late January is reapplying for her Long-Term Medicaid assistance for her eventual admittance into a full-time Assisted Living Memory Care facility where here in the central Hill Country of Texas are all extremely expensive, between $4,800/mon. to $7,300/mon. Most are private pay only. I must get assistance for this third reapplication as I learned the hard way last year—by ending up in the hospital for four nights back in late June—by a Medicare family consultant to guarantee that Mom gets approved. She does incredible work and has tons of experience in this hyper-complicated politicized out-tha-whaa-zoo process here in Texas. That was part of the reason why I ended up in the hospital with serious heart and stress-hypertension problems.

Concluding with Mom I have this comparison…

I was a stay-at-home Dad when my son was an infant until he turned two and my daughter at the time was 7- to 8-years old in elementary school. In 1999-2001 I was the stay-home parent during the day when their mother (my ex-wife now) was at her 8-9 hr. job in downtown Dallas. We lived at that time in a nice starter home in Carrollton, Texas. When she returned from work, and I had dinner ready and homework done, I went to my graveyard shift security guard job at 7:00pm until 7:00am the next morning. I did this for 18-months. By far the hardest jobs I have EVER had in my life!

Now, since August 2021, I am caring for—for all intents and purposes—my last 4-year old child… Mom. Literally. The huge difference, however, between my stay-home-Dad days/nights and right now since August 2021 is that I have been and still am “A One Man Show and Bad Dance.” Back in my married months/year I at least had a wife-partner and parent. Not this go round. This is harder than those 18-months, much harder. The “end” of this rough go will eventually be very different.

My Sister and Her 48-Year “Disease”

As a footnote to my header up top, my sister now weights over 275 lbs., not that weight in the Xmas 2014 picture. And that is the least health problems she has at present.

My 61-year old sister is also a Schizoid-affective Bipolar of about 25-30 years with regular bouts of very manic behavior. She is also a 48-year drug addict and alcoholic. And she also has poor judgement, cognition, and temperament or composure in stressful environments, all due in part to her psychiatric diagnoses. She is also presently on about 6-7 various psych meds daily. There’s the introductory details of what I must often help with, manage, or try to stop the hemorrhaging, as it were, when she has a psychotic meltdown.

On October 9th through October 17th, 2024, she had a major meltdown on me that involved her calling the police department on me—for a 2nd time that year, first in Feb. 2024—and became physically violent toward me inside Mom’s and my apartment almost breaking down or through my locked bedroom door. However, this was after her public meltdown with me at Western Union inside the local Walmart. If you are not familiar with psychiatric-psychologically dysfunctional people with a long, long history of disorders, eight prior felonies, prior addresses of residence that include over 25 Halfway Houses & Shelters, homeless 3-4 times under highway overpasses, and a long list of low-wage jobs that are longer than an encyclopedia… then just believe me when I say this: During those breakdowns/meltdowns, it is pure chaos and a rollercoaster of manic behavior sometimes lasting for over 10-12 hours without medication or in some cases until she is arrested by law-enforcement.

Then also imagine the stress, distress, crying, and emotional exhaustion she puts my elderly Mom through each episode, and you have a slight glimpse of what Mom and I have dealt with since 1978.

Should any of you wish to read the email (Page 1 click here, pg. 2 click here, short pg. 3 click here) I had to send to my sister about this latest 9-day/night psychotic meltdown on me—she was impossible to speak with civilly or maturely and logically those days and nights that I had to get a hotel room 2-nights when she wouldn’t leave Mom’s apartment—so consequently we have yet to speak to each other either in person or by phone or text message. She’s been and still being a royal, immature, asshole to me over a situation I had no control over whatsoever. As is often the case with arguing family members, the initial issue and subsequent meltdown at Walmart had to do with money, her portion of money Mom said she could have from the sale of Mom’s 2007 Toyota Avalon XL Sedan that I had completed after 4-months listed, all by myself, on Oct. 5th, 2024 for $7,600. The rest of the insanity is available via the “click here” links above.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

Therefore, the moral of my quick post here is that my “free-time” has been slipping further away the last 8-26 months as Mom continues to decline, my workload in everything around here increases because I have zero help—with the small exception of Mom’s professional hospice team that visits 3-times a week for 30-40 minutes at most, not on weekends or holidays—and my sister with her horribly shitty attitude and refusal to help out with Mom, much less help me with Mom with anything simple… just eats up every bit of every day now. And it doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.

My apologies my friends and followers. It is the hand of cards I’ve been delt for the moment. 🤷‍♂️

P.S. Oh! Almost forgot, my two kids in the header picture above. Since Oct. 6th, 2019, both of them no longer consider me existing. They have been heavily brainwashed and influenced by their mother’s and their maternal grandfather’s radical evangy-fundy Christian nationalistic theology and behavior to all non-believers that “God’s and Christ’s truly saved people should not and cannot be of the world [of sin and Satan].” They must totally separate themselves as “truly saved ones,” from all non-Christians. My two kids have not uttered a word to me or sent me even a text message since Oct. 6th, 2019. And they haven’t once answered my calls, text messages, or birthday cards sent to both since Oct. 6, 2019. 😔

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

Our Brains & Pastor J. Waits

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Professor Taboo

Over the last week or more I have been engaging in dialogue with a pastor in Charlotte, North Carolina who pastors at an evangelical fundamentalist Baptist church. He also blogs on WordPress to further proselytize or evangelize his own world-view to a small audience of followers.

This post will address our somewhat lengthy engagements of opposing world-views on one specific post on his blog, as well as my expansions on what simply could not be sufficiently addressed on his blog in long, long comment threads. I am very certain that his small number of followers/readers, some of whom are members of his Baptist church, got extremely bored with the in-depth conversations and Scriptural theological debates we had and simply tuned out. Those discussions will get lost and buried completely in his never-ending blog-posts, never really reaching his audience’s objective minds.

But that’s modern social-media, is it not? And that is modern attention spans on the internet, is it not? Hence, my needed blog-post here… to say the many things and point out the further details that Pastor Jonathan Waits willingly refused to seriously consider. He had already decided how he would respond BEFORE our dialogue even started. If that isn’t narrow bias, then I don’t know what biasness means at all.

Our Brains & Environment Form Our Identities

Before I dive into this fascinating, heavily studied neuroscience of our human brains and the environment we often choose to experience much or most of our life, I asked Pastor Jonathan Waits what his family, educational, and occupational backgrounds entailed. This was his response:

I graduated from Truman State University with a degree in chemistry. I was planning to be a high school chemistry teacher until God very clearly (to me) called me to ministry instead. After graduating and getting married, I went to Denver Seminary and graduated with my M.Div. I’ve been a pastor ever since.

I grew up in a wonderful family with great parents who loved each other and my sister and me. We were active in our church throughout my growing up years. Faith was assumed in the rhythms and conversations and activities of our family, but it was never forced. We didn’t do family devotionals. I made a profession of faith when I was 8 [years old] and grew into it slowly from there. I didn’t fully grasp what I was doing then, but I came to better understand it on my own as I read and study [sic] the Scriptures myself. Never, though, was I pressured into any decision about much of anything related to faith or life. It was a really healthy environment that I hope I am gifting to my own kids.

— Pastor Jonathan Waits, Oct. 22, 2024 — his “The Nexus” blog-site

During our somewhat lengthy dialogue about his current world-view versus mine (Secular, Freethinking Humanist), he really struggled badly trying to understand, to grasp my perspective and world-view and why I deconverted from Christianity and the ministry and missions in 1991. He just could not find a way in his brain to relate to me and my life experiences. It was stunning really, but not uncommon.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

Inside every head of every human, and inside every residence on Earth is the most complex object we have discovered in the Universe: the human brain. That marvel of biology in the cranium might seem alien to us at first, but the fact is… it is us. For our entire lives hundreds of billions and billions and billions of cells have quadrillions and quadrillions of electrical synapses firing trillions of trillions of signals every second of ever minute of our entire life. For many decades (hopefully) those gooey electrical sparks make up all that we experience in life as “us.”

*Billions upon billions of neural synapses in the human brain firing trillions of trillions of signals every second of our entire life*

So what shapes who you become? Answer: It is about how your life/environment shapes your brain and how your brain shapes your life.

For a few millenia humankind believed a soul or a spirit, something more than mere matter, made up who you were in life. Today, that is no longer the case. Extensively understanding our identities in-depth can only be done by understanding that 3 lbs. organ in our head.

When any of us are first born we are born helpless. However, we are born with adaptable brains. For about the next two years our brains are unfinished, so human babies are born much more dependent than other mammals who are often born able to walk, swim, or stand just minutes or hours after birth. Not human babies. And yet, after those first two years of learning the very basics of our immediate environment, our infant and toddler brains allow us to develop and make neural connections based on the child’s environment. This biological and physiological strategy has made human beings one of the most adaptable and malleable species on the planet so that we can first survive, then hopefully thrive, based on our immediate and extended environment(s).

Since at least August 1966 with Charles Whitman up inside the University Texas Tower, Austin, TX, but really going back to 1885 with Sigmund Freud, humans have learned that our survival and our growth (or death) and life experiences are just as dependent on our individual brains (or brain tumors as with Whitman, 1966) as they are on our environment(s). We cannot escape the two forces, ever. Life wires up the human brain with few or many experiences in order to adapt, survive, die and/or thrive in most of Earth’s and our familial environments and then tune it up on the fly, on the job. It’s really that simple.

A newborn’s brain has the same number of neurons as an adult. However, after those first two years the neurons are quickly forming newer connections relative to their environment. This continues well into adolescence and young adulthood. By that time the developing young brain’s neuron connections have more than quadrupled—as many as 2-4 million new connections every day—by their mid-30’s all relative to that individual’s environment(s), i.e. life experiences, AND how their brain developed genetically in the womb.

After year two we become who we are not by growth or new neurons created, but by pruning back or removing what is unnecessary in order to survive, adapt, and hopefully thrive. We learn how to make our life and identity happy and happier according to our individual brains and endocrine systems; all very influenced by our immediate and (slightly?) extended environments. The field of neuroscience confirms this consistently in many case studies for a minimum of the last six decades around the world.

Our conscious experiences in life are guided NOT by monism, or even by binary constructs, but by a plethora of pluralism. Everything around us on this planet, and including all humans, is evidenced by immeasurable pluralism to the point our brains struggle with the possibilities. This is also true beyond our planet. To cope, many of us prune down or toss out entirely what is perceived as unnecessary, or harmful, or even lethal… in their own brain based upon their past and/or present environment and individual life experiences. The neural connections go from being universal to very specific of your narrowing and immediate environment(s). Our brains are wired up by our immediate or slightly extended environment. After all, we don’t know, we can’t experience what we don’t know or haven’t ever experienced.

But the outside world that forms our brain and identity is a gamble. The outside influences of our family, our immediate environment doesn’t always give the healthy stimulus our brains crave.

The Jensen Family of Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Americans Bill and Carol Jensen adopted three Romanian biologically related babies aged 4 from a poorly staffed and horrible, over filled Romanian orphanage.

During the collapse and fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s reign of terror from 1968 to 1989 he had created over 170,000 Romanian children orphaned by his rampant ethical cleansing throughout the country. Bill’s and Carol’s adopted Romanian children in 1996 became John, Tom, and daughter Victoria. They did not have names in the orphanage just numbers. Dr. and Professor Charles A. Nelson III of Harvard Medical School describes what it was like walking through these Romanian orphanages:

You’d walk into [an orphanage] room and be surrounded by these little kids who you have never seen before and they’d want to jump into your arms, or sit in your lap, or hold your hand, or walk off with you. And this sort of indiscriminate behavior is the hallmark and feature of kids growing up in an institution.

Did these small children’s behavior go beyond mere distress, neglect, and lack of human contact? Did all of this combine to physically structure their brains? Young human brains need lots of stimulus to develop. It seeks out information and experiences. If they do not receive it or don’t receive a healthy amount of diverse experiences and information, then the young brain does not know how to get wired up and developed for survival, much less to thrive. Those kids in institutions result in adult IQ’s in the 60’s and 70’s. That is terribly low for modern life and humanity. They also develop secondary, ripple-effect emotional-behavioral problems such as severe attachment or detachment issues, and show all the signs of an underdeveloped brain and EEG activity very reduced.

What many neuroscientists found along with Dr. Charles A. Nelson was that children from orphanages placed into a nurturing family before the age of two generally recovered normally. However, children placed in nurturing families after the age of two their brain development was significantly compromised or severely delayed. What do these tests and case studies reveal to us?

The answer is straight forward: the lack of diverse experiences throughout one’s developmental and adult stages leads to the human brain not wiring correctly, especially for a 20^th– or 21^st-century shrinking globe. As a result, the brain doesn’t receive diverse sufficient experiences, diverse sufficient information over an extended period of time to know how best to wire itself. No debate.

Dr. Nelson’s work clearly revealed that when the human brain is starved of input, of many diverse inputs it needs to fully develop, the development is stunted and ill-equipped to manage a never-ending changing, evolving diverse world, both in the human and animal kingdoms as well as in nature. The Romanian-born Jensen kids still have emotional and learning disabilities from neglect in the orphanage more than 25-years later as adults.

What we individual humans and brains experience in our younger adolescence (hormones) and young 20’s or earliest 30’s goes a long way in who we become. Those youthful years are right on schedule for a more refined/refining, changing brain. But again, this is only half the story of our human brain.

The Genetic Blueprint from Generational & One’s (In)Experience

A neuroscientific experiment called the Look At Me in a glass windowed shop on a busy street reveals compellingly how the teenage brain is wired differently than our adult brains. When adults were placed in the shop window with pedestrians stopping to stare, their heart-rates, sweat glands, and facial expressions almost never changed from before the curtain was drawn open. However, when teenagers were placed in the shop window, all monitored physical responses spiked significantly. Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains in this quick 20-minute podcast:

Basically, the big difference between a teenage, early 20’s brain and an adult brain over 30-years is the area of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex. This area becomes active when you think about yourself, especially the emotional situation to yourself. As one grows from child to adolescence, the activity in this cortex rises peaking around 15-years of age. This is what Pastor Jonathan Waits experienced from (his own words above) 8-years old until he was a teenager surrounded by Baptist friends, family, and church members all his life. His (narrow, confined?) social involvements carried a ton of weight for him.

In most adults this response in the prefrontal cortex is modest. But in teenagers and young adults it causes intensified emotions which go into overdrive. The result is often or sometimes a high stress emotion that can greatly change the teenager’s or young adult’s life for a very long time. This is what happens to most all teenagers and young adults, including Pastor Jonathan Waits.

It isn’t simply about self-consciousness, the development of the teen and young adult brain has other consequences as well. That can include poor impulse control (temptation in theological terms), risk taking (un-Christ-like behavior), and distorted coping skills (Satan?). It has been repeatedly found in neurological studies over the decades that most of the dramatic changes of our brains have finished, but even beyond our 20’s our brains can still undergo radical physical transformations.

Reshaping Our Genetic Adult Brains

Derek O’Reilly of the Knowledge Point School, Ltd., in London, UK is the Training Master of all Black Cabs in London proper. It takes his students at least four years to complete the memory recall and pass certification for a license to drive throughout a 642 radius mile area, 24,000 streets and roads, and 50,000+ places of interest to be quickly recalled for all eventual Black Cab drivers in London. This is by far one of the world’s most difficult feats of memorization to complete.

*Black Taxis wait in London, June 2014. By law, the drivers of London’s black cabs must memorize all of the city’s streets, a process that takes years of study.*

This trade school’s testing and licensing of drivers made the rigorous memorization of particular interest for an international group of neurologists. The neurology group was most interested in the part of the brain called the posterior hippocampus of these students. They did brain scans before admission into the school, during training, and after graduation/licensing and found in every case that by the end of their memory-training the posterior hippocampus had literally grown larger. All the mathematical calculations, all the visualization driving, all the simulations of future routes had reshaped their brain anatomy to match their M.O., their task at hand or their personal belief system.

This means who you are and who you will be from an infant to a geriatric is a fluctuating work in progress until your very last breath. Everything we experience throughout our life will alter and structure our brain, unless of course we cower, or limit, or avoid new and different experiences that challenge our intellectual and physical comfort zones. Based on all these life experiences, many or few or none at all, will still mold and wire our brains to some great or small degree over time.

*A Taliban Quran school engraining lessons through repeated citations over and over bobbing their heads up and down over their Holy Scriptures*

But our brains can also change in ways we have no control over. Ways that can have a terrible impact on our personalities and how we behave socially. Epileptic seizures in young or adult people are a prime common example. Another example are children, teenagers, adults, or the elderly who suffer from a brain tumor, Parkinson’s Disease, Schizophrenia, or any number of neurological physiological disorders or diseases.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Charles Whitman in August of 1966 had been a model citizen, an Eagle Scout, a former U.S. Marine honorably discharged, working in a bank while studying mechanical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. Nothing before had ever suggested to any friends, family, or coworkers he was capable of what transpired next. Tragically that summer Whitman wrote letters about murdering his mother, wife, then his mass shooting of students under the UT Tower. Nothing prior ever pointed the UT campus or Austin Police investigators to a disturbing change in his recent personality. What happened?

With his three rifles and some two sidearm pistols, Whitman went up the tower, killed three persons inside, proceeded to the observation deck of the tower, went outside and began opening fire randomly on anyone below. He shot and killed 15 people and wounded 31 in just 96-minutes. The autopsy report later found that Whitman had a nickel-size brain tumor in the amygdala, the part of our brain that regulates fear and aggression. The pressure on Whitman’s amygdala caused a cascading flow of emotions that led him to the tragic senseless violence July 31 and August 1, 1966 which otherwise would be completely out of his previous personality. His brain matter changed and it made him change with it.

Granted the change in Charles Whitman is an extreme case, however, thousands and thousands of neurological research studies around the world since the late 19^th-century show repeatedly that how our brain is developed does indeed form who we are and become in large or small degrees. Our neural networks and how they are structured make up a large part of our self-identity and our social identity. It is inescapable.

The Primary Link of It All: Memory

Brain memory is Central Command of our personality, our identity. It gives our life a unique narrative, one to be expressed, shared, with meaning or purpose unique only to our individual experiences. Unfortunately, human memory is NOT always reliable, not even by the (pre)supposed Gospel copyists/scribes. Whether it was 1^st– thru 4^th-century humans or 21^st-century humans, our brains have not drastically changed in a mere two millenia.

Dr. Elizabeth Loftus of the University California, Irvine

If you try to think back on your 5-year old child memories, then your 13-year old teenage memories, your 27-year old memories, 45-year old memories, 60-year old memories, and perhaps your 80-year old memories, they will link back to a general theme, but neurological studies have repeatedly shown those memories factually change about every decade or less. Why? Because all of our brains have a finite number of neural connections since the age of two. Hence, we prune back or allow to fade the historical memories within weeks/months of our past events for new memories and new replacement neural connections.

Dr. Elizabeth Loftus above conducted another experiment upon 1,000+ volunteer test-subjects to determine whether it is possible to implant entirely false memories into a human’s brain? Her results and other neurologists around the world discovered: well over 65% to 75% of the test-subjects not only embraced false memory implants, but embellished them over time. Humans will weave fantasy and more sensational details into the fabric of who they are as well as those around them and what they may or may not tell you.

Then in 1957 one singular case of human memory and recall revolutionized neuroscience revealing that experiential memory is an integral part of who we become.

Henry G. Molaison 1926–2008

Henry Moliason, or H.M. as he was known by family and friends, was born in Manchester, Connecticut in February 1926. His boyhood was very typical for the time until he turned 10-years old. H.M. began to suffer minor epileptic seizures. By his 16^th and 17^th birthday the seizures became very severe and more incapacitating. High doses of anti-convulsion meds were no longer effective. When he turned 27 H.M. and his family accepted the then experimental surgery called bilateral medial temporal lobectomy to surgically reset several brain organs to hopefully cure his severe epileptic seizures. Despite the surgery controlling his epilepsy, the side effects removed his ability to construct new memories.

*Henry G. “H.M.” Moliason through his teens, twenties, and older*

For the remaining 55-years of his life H.M. could never form a single long-term memory. But there was more to his post-surgical condition. Henry was always stuck in the present moment for those last 20,075 days and nights of his life. When asked by doctors during his permanent stay at Bickford Health Care Center, Windsor Locks, CT, “What will you do tomorrow?” Henry would always answer, “Whatever is beneficial” or “I will have to see.” He was unable to recall any actual details of his activities the day before, much less 4-5 days prior. What H.M’s condition revealed for all of our human brains was profound for the field of neuroscience.

The brain regions that underpin memory are the same regions that simulate what is probable or coming next, whether tangible and/or abstract. In other words, the past and the future are creations in our individual brains.

Whoever we think we might be to ourselves and socially is an ongoing narrative. This unique individual and localized social construct starts after age two and continues non-stop until your death. This is where the popular idioms Old habits are hard to break or You can’t teach an old dog new tricks come from. Why? Because of brain degeneration such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or Huntington’s disease as more and more people are living into their 80’s, 90’s, or 100’s. The good news is that through regular physical and mental activities into our elderly geriatric years neural brain networks can be rebuilt or better refined. This is because of Cognitive Reserves.

And now I would like to gradually navigate back toward my recent dialogues with Pastor Jonathan Waits, the Baptist minister in Charlotte, NC.

Meaning of Life vs Self-Meaning

How do the physical cells and neurons in our brains help us/me care about anything in life? Why does consciousness in all of us occur? Throughout your life you will hear, listen, and read as many theoretical explanations as there are stars in the night sky and galaxies in the Cosmos. The question of consciousness is still the greatest unsolved existential mystery of human history. The general question of “meaning” is without doubt still undefined, unanswered. However, we can say with certainty and abundant evidence that the meaning of something to you is completely defined by YOUR web of associations based on your entire history of personal experiences.

Imagine if I showed you a painting of various colors in no particular obvious pattern. Will that conjure up in your mind specific memories and ignite your imaginations? No, not likely. To you it is just a painting of colors with no particular meaning to you. But look at the two images below:

What do these two images mean to you? Do you think they will mean exactly the identical meaning you have to someone else? Why or why not?

The two flags will trigger some sort of meaning that is specific to your personal experiences. However, your experiences will never be precisely identical to someone else’s experiences nor to any number of others who look at the flags. Humans do not perceive or interpret objects as they are we perceive them, interpret them as we are. Every single one of us, including Pastor Jonathan Waits and myself, and all of you are on your specific journey, specific trajectory guided by our generational genetics, our immediate and extended social networks, and our own individual life experiences… whether many or few, wide or narrow, joyous or traumatic, boring or exciting.

As a result, every single human brain has a different neural reality and one that does not and cannot reflect one unified reality. Monism is a human coping mechanism constructed to ease our fears and insecurities about not being in total control. However, the Universe and Cosmos, and Earth itself amply shows through inference and explicitly tangible facts that they do not operate on or require one human’s or a group of humans’ invented Monism.

One of the most popular, widespread human construct of monism since the Bronze, Iron, and Classical Eras is religion’s and their endless plethora of convoluted theological constructs that have either 1) no unifying evidence or 2) very little convincing, compelling collection of evidence. This is no surprise given how the three Abrahamic religions evolved and evolved and changed and changed, some over several millenia of human history, across a vast swath of geographical, cultural, and military events and experiences. Some or many of the storied events changed many times over thousands and thousands of years and some/many which became false narratives, myths, and sensationalized legends or compounded embellishments.

No, the meaning of life and self-meaning is not that complex or confusing at all, not in the end. When “meaning” is understood primarily and/or strictly on an individual’s biological-neurological connections and social networks—tiny, small, large, or immense beyond compare—throughout their own life experiences, only then can one and millions or billions of Earthlings realize that meaning is found best within infinite pluralism as the planet, solar system, universe, and cosmos reflect and repeatedly shows us. This is what I politely and patiently tried to convey to Pastor Jonathan Waits over several days of dialogue. This has been what I always have tried to convey, to show and backup with ample broad evidence to all monistic, theistic faith-believers since 1991-92 the first months of my deconversion from Christianity.

Unfortunately, as I’ve conveyed here and I hope sufficiently, our human brains, such as Pastor Jonathan Waits’ brain or mine and yours, can be deeply programmed in unhealthy ways, in connecting neural pathways, to only perceive reality, his nearby limited reality, in just one way… monism, unbending and inflexible to the point of handicapping a fuller, more wholesome, thrilling life of unimaginable experiences, lessons, and adventures. To further demonstrate what he has done and chosen for many years surrounding himself daily with like-minded sycophants, or people who don’t challenge him or his world-view, but rather echo his world-view, I offer this blog-post. Obviously, Mr. Waits’ chosen tunnel-vision and radical narrow path is not just restrictive, limiting a more whole, sharper brain, but it can easily be defined as unhealthy, even divisive for a species that needs, even demands biologically and socially inclusion rather than exclusion.

An Epilogue

Over on his blog-site I asked Pastor Waits to freely share his background; childhood, teen and young adult background, his educational and occupational background. I was hoping it would be lengthy enough to gain a fair, accurate idea of his life experiences. Whether intentional or not it was resume-like and semi-short. I wanted more extensive background, especially many significant experiences from many continents, many nations, cultures, people and how much time was spent there experiencing different places, people, and events. His answer only told me the probable or implied story of strictly a (limited?) American experience. I have invited him to visit here and maybe change/correct my deduction of him. I hope he accepts.

I, on the other hand, as I share in/under my About menu selection, have had an unbelievable amount of life experiences during my six decades of life and in all sorts of ways and interactions! Every possible life-lesson I have absorbed and cherished has been acquired on four of the world’s six inhabitable continents: N. America, S. America, Europe, and Africa. This was possible because of my unquenchable passion for soccer or football, or futebol as it is called in Brazil. And futebol/football is a universal language no matter where you are and seamlessly connects you to anyone on any continent. I lived for a period of time and playing soccer in Brazil, West Africa, and briefly in northern-ish Europe—Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Austria. The most time I spent in those places was Rio de Janeiro, Brazil around São Cristóvão, Botafogo, and Copacabana, the heart of world-class football and festive, beautiful people! I regret that I have lost most of my Brazilian Portuguese. 😕 The two continents I have not been to or lived? Asia and Australia. I would love to change that.

But all the places and people I have experienced along with their marvelous cultures (and footballing talents) influenced me in enormous ways helping me see, find, and embrace the goodness and wonder of humanity no matter the small differences. I would strongly encourage anyone, especially Pastor Waits or those like him to follow Mark Twain’s profound, timeless observation:

It is because of this life I have lived deeply that I am now a very happy, kind, understanding, compassionate, exploring Freethinking Humanist looking always for more enriching life experiences, good or bad, to give and/or embrace in equal measures for whomever I encounter. I think that is fair.

Further expansive reading from one of my blogging buddies:

Why Aren’t Christians Unified?

Addendum 11/1/2024 — Pastor Jonathan Waits finally answered my invitation to visit here and comment, not here obviously, and he said this:

And now I’ve skimmed your post. I don’t have anything I feel the need to comment on there, and so I don’t plan to. If at some point in the future I find myself with sufficient time to read it more carefully and more thoroughly, perhaps I will, but don’t expect a comment either way.

Unfortunately, this appears to be his regular M.O. with non-Christians who ask him, challenge him about his own world-view—he will not meet you halfway. Interpret that response/behavior as you will. I think it is indicative of his fear about his world-view when he steps outside of his personal comfort zone, his church, or his blog-followers. Being surrounded by Yes people or sycophants is risky, especially if you fortify yourself in very little diversity. It is not healthy for our brains to be trapped in a small box, never wanting or too scared to venture out.

As the popular cliché goes, You can lead a donkey to water, but you can’t make it drink, especially if it has a lifetime of only one type, one pH level of (holy?) water. 😉

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always