The catch to this one is the BUT.  Lot’s of places I have visited.  No foreign countries entice me however I have always thought of the solitude of norther California, possibly on the shore but willing to investigate the forested areas.  My interest piqued in reading several books that had this setting as well as a colleague who lives there.

It makes no difference because I could afford it or anyplace but where I live now.

This topic requires much thought, writing skill and insight.  A fact is irrefutable by logic, a truth can be reasoned.  So I am given the task of writing a fact, ten facts that would be interesting.

The analytic branch of psychology says that there are three people in each of us; the person we think we are (truth), the person others see (truth) and the person we really are (fact).  The closer these three align the better adjusted a person is.

Fact one.  I introspect events in my life.  I look at my motives, my desires and my ideas with a microscope. I believe that is the reason I say and see things different than most people.

Fact two.  I have the ability to look past the surface presentation a person displays.  As a result I believe (truth) that I can ascertain strengths and weaknesses in another and build my relationship on that skill.

Fact three.  I like dogs.  You could line up all the animals in the world and let me choose and I will choose a large dog.  Not interesting but factual.

Fact three.  I will always resort to logic (truth) when confronted with a problem.

Fact four.  Because of fact three I can make seemingly cold decisions.

Fact five.  I have difficulty in dealing with decisions devoid of logic.  If another makes a decision based on race, sex or whatever despite the evidence, that truly unnerves me.

Fact six, I had to reconcile being liked for being logical.

Fact seven. I find finding facts difficult.

Fact eight.  I find that men and women think and behave differently and as a result I am confused by the women’s right movement.

Fact nine,  I read the news media and ferret out the misinformation daily.  I actually have narrowed my view on material because I recognize the pattern of lagenda speech.

Fact ten.  I look at life and nature daily with awe, I just look at it factually.  That means no mysticism, no beliefs in things without proof, no expectations.

I wanted to say I like animals, I enjoy the company of others, I am brilliant and creative and I like so and so, but those would all be truths — my perception of me.

This existential exercise to the word meaning of fact has me wondering.

I will make the assumption that this excludes your mother because Mom heads that list.

My first love was Donna Sroka in the sixth grade at St. Francis Borgia grammar school.  I still remember her phone number and her street address to this day.

At the time I did not, still some denial, that she ran ahead of our age group.  She had high school suitors.  But I proved naively persistent and got my first kiss under her next door neighbor’s tree.  Unfortunately it was raining and I had just fallen out of it.

We attended different high schools and went separate ways.  My high school athletic fame reached the papers.  The church news and local papers brought her and her friend, Maureen Street, into my path.  I still had that little boy, wise guy, attitude and she had become serious.

After that brief encounter we never saw or spoke again.  I have searched FB and tried other methods but to no avail.  Besides, I suspect she is still too advanced for me.

As I think about that childhood romance, it was for me, I realize something that repeated itself even today.  When I like a girl, as in interested in a relationship, I have difficulty in talking to her.  I become withdrawn, not shy, but withdrawn.

I have two deceased wives who would have attested to my extremely cautious approach.  They each opened me up to them.

I think I will use that personality characteristic in my writings.  I first have to more fully describe it before I name it.  I am doing that right now.  I clam up around a woman of interest.  I use excuses for why she will reject me.  I argue with myself for not being more forward.  My female friends, whom I like, all know of her and my behavior.  I thought it was just high school.  This behavior gives credence to “old habits die hard.”

Memory is at the heart of my education as a neuropsychologist.  I enjoy hearing people telling me they can remember past lives and things in the womb.  That requires mystical elements and beliefs that stand outside my understanding.  Since the human brain had not yet developed the cells to form memory at birth, as the birth of a human, is always premature.  By premature I mean that the baby is expelled early because the human body cannot retain such a large head and shoulders to be expelled later.  So the first year is developing outside the womb that most other animals do inside the womb.

My first memory is at age four.  It enters into many of my dreams.  I am sitting at the kitchen table that is a swirl of white, gray and off white colors that are similar to a thin tile.  The material is like a hard linoleum.  A linoleum floor with red, black splotches on a gray background provide the base for the bright yellow walls of the kitchen.  The placement of the stove, sink and cupboards is etched in my memory.  This tablr pattern has those multiple  aluminum ridges that you saw in the 1950s drive ins.  I am staring out the window looking at Mrs. Ehrlich’s flowering lilac bush and asking my mother questions.  My mother is washing dishes in the sink and I am asking profound questions like, “Why is the sky blue?”  “Why don’t dogs talk?”

I receive answers that just now I realize set the tone for my life.  I ask questions, I do not remember the answers, but I sense your ability to tolerate me and my questions.  My mother was good at tolerating my questions.

Sorry.  No alien encounters, no past life memories, no trauma, no alcohol, no abuse.  Just a normal life that questions.

I believe that much of writer’s block is simply that a writer has nothing to say.  They can tell you their opinion but when they have to see it in writing they realize how stupid they sound.  Hence — writer’s block.

A problem with social media deals with the above stated point.  By putting up a picture of a dog, cat or cartton character the writer can post really insipid material from behind a curtain.

I have learned to be tolerant.  I know and like two guys who have different political beliefs.  The one preaches love and tolerance by posting hateful and untrue statements.  The other uses only material that supports his personal opinion.  My tolerance is to either see the picture and move on or read the headline and confirm the bias.

The second problem deals with the unsocialness of the social media.  I never have meaningful conversations.  I see remarks like, “beautiful”  “Cool”  “Neat” both reflecting the age and the lack of conversation.

I decided to not respond unless I could use a full two lines.  I morphed into being sarcastic, playful and nibbling, trying to stay in the bounds of PC.  It worked — for a while.  One person caught on and responded with sentences and interchange.

These are problems as I view them.  A short one word response may keep another going.

Originality becomes the third problem.  I mainly see reposts of something from the web or someone else’s post.  Nothing original.

This leads to my fourth problem.  If you want to be original you need more than an original idea YOU NEED COMPUTER SAVVY.

That segues into the fifth problem.  Like minds swim in the same ponds.  No room for thoughtful objections.  For example in my area FB is graffiti for old people.

There are several types of posters as I classify them

The KNOWITALLS — there is not a subject they do not have an opinion on but the RIGHT opinion as well.  They have a continuum from supreme know it all to “you  entered my field of expertise”  Most are shunned, avoided or murdered.

There are the HATERS.  These people spew hate, anger and end of the world stuff.  They can be political, even religious.  They are fun because I make bets with friends that I can get them to say or post certain things.  These people HATE themselves back to the States.

There are the CONTRAS.  A bit different than HATERS.  These posters disagree with every comment.  Sometimes they disagree in the same discussion.  These people die because they refuse to seek medical help.

The LOVERS, sometimes I refer to them as POLLYANNAS.  Everything is wonderful.  The people here are so nice, this is better that is better and what sucks is just different and you better stop being a person of dissent.  These people get robbed a lot and die in accidents.

Then there are the WATCHERS of which I am one.  We tend to monitor the social media waves looking for remote signs of intelligence.  I use to try to make contact but found that betting on when they become insipid a bit more profitable.  They live long miserable lives.  They usually have a dog.

The most common are the DOERS.  They have made their life an adventure that must be shared with everyone.  Here is me on the North Pole, now the South Pole, here I am eating Italian food guess where, Oh yes on our 6 week stay in Italy where we also filled in that small bit of world knowledge we were missing.  Now we can move up to the KNOWITALL group.  A variation of this group is the I FOUND THE ANSWER group.  This group latches on to some native religion, herb or drink and then meditates, stretches, wakes up with sun, hikes the mountains in close proximity to true knowledge not about God but the actual meaning of life.  If they do not get injured or murdered they usually die happy in their belief.

Well there you have it.  Five problems, with examples, of social media.

If I get bored I will rewrite this in a style or voice of one of the characters.  Strictly to improve my writing craft.

I woke up the day after I posted this and realized the biggest problem with social media.  When you engage in social media you STOP THINKING.  The internal dialog you have with yourself has a replacement with another voice — and you answer the other voice.  If you get enough other voices your opinion or thought tends to take the form of the voices.  Think about that.