Have you ever been wronged and wished you could punish the perceived offender? You are not the only one. This desire is wired within us.

For example, the Bible instructs us “an eye for an eye” to penalize an offender. But about 2,000 years later, Martin Luther King Jr. saw it differently: “The old law of ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind.”

As much as we hate to admit it, revenge is one of those intense feelings that come up for most human beings.

Why do people seek revenge? What do they hope to accomplish?

Revenge is a powerful internal force. But revenge is counter-productive, reopening and aggravating emotional wounds. Because the person who feels wronged is angry and hurt, thinking revenge will somehow even the score, and take away the pain.

But revenge…

Ending poverty is a modern idea, not widely documented in pre-modern times. Intended to relieve poverty in the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson introduced in the 1960s, the war on poverty by extending social welfare legislation. The program, known as the Great Society, was part of a more extensive legislative reform that Johnson wished would make the United States a more fair and just country. Johnson stated, “Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.”

I carry some residue of having grown up poor

My childhood affects me every day in ways most people may struggle…

“No matter how bad things get, you have to go on living, even if it kills you,” said Sholom Aleichem. (His name means “[May] peace [be] upon you!”)

Tomorrow, you stand there, staring at me with desperate, wild eyes when I ask you: How do I evaluate the nebulous question of whether our civilization is moving toward a cliff? The weight of the question, the vastness of it, hangs over me, heavy and penetrating as the fog. …

Photo from Pixabay / Johnjain / workshopped

Suicide, I believe that no man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping,” David Hume (1711–1776) the Scottish philosopher wrote in an essay.

Throughout history, suicide has evoked a wide range of reactions — bafflement, dismissal, heroic glorification, sympathy, anger, moral or religious condemnation — suicide is controversial. To this day, suicide carries a negative subtext in all Judeo-Christian cultures. Only in so-called pagan cultures such as the Japanese samurai society, the ancient Romans, and Greeks would suicide be a tolerable or even noble act.

A great deal of the philosophical…

“Suicide, I believe that no man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping,” David Hume (1711–1776) the Scottish philosopher wrote in an essay.

Throughout history, suicide has evoked a wide range of reactions — bafflement, dismissal, heroic glorification, sympathy, anger, moral or religious condemnation — suicide is controversial. To this day, suicide carries a negative subtext in all Judeo-Christian cultures. Only in so-called pagan cultures such as the Japanese samurai society, the ancient Romans, and Greeks would suicide be a tolerable or even noble act.

A great deal of the philosophical writing surrounding suicide is concerned with the…

We stand on the brim of a technological revolution that will alter how we live, work, and relate to one another. In its complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. The pace of present breakthroughs has no historical model.

Although technology has its benefits, some of us escape into the nostalgic world of old movies. In a forward-looking culture, fixated with the newest innovation, why get interested in bygone days? They offer escapism to a simpler time full of predictability and endings that leave your heart satisfied. It could be because we are fast-tracking too rapidly…

“More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.” — CHARLIE CHAPLIN

As the nation is fully engaged in the politics of the moment, with tension running high in various quarters, it is essential to step back and reflect on the goals of democracy.

And few people have succeeded in succinctly expounding on the core tenets of democracy better than Charlie Chaplin.

In “The Great Dictator,” Chaplin stars in two roles, the dictator of Tomania — based explicitly on Adolf Hitler, spewing hate speeches in mock German.

At times, he roars his anger and desires…

I’ve been compelled to continue to write about sex workers after receiving some strong responses from several of my friends after they read “Hidden in Plain Sight.”

A common response was something like “That’s disgusting. How could anybody sell themselves?” A friend who has committed to fighting human trafficking wrote that “Women engaging in commercial sex almost uniformly have a history of childhood sexual trauma, molestation, or rape. Poverty, dysfunctional family situations, and other social-economic forces are at play as well and combine to create the fertile ground for this “choice,” which is therefore not a choice.”

Some other women…