PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY
Dr. Jack Wheeler
October 20, 2025
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on May 13, 2005. These days, we all could use a way to “pretend” to be happy, to transform the seeming mundane into an experience of magical gratitude. I hope you find it useful. Let me know if it does.]
TTP, May 13, 2005
Last week was the 13th birthday of my youngest son, Jackson. One evening a few days before, I was engrossed in writing on the computer when my wife reminded me it was Jackson’s bedtime. He was in bed reading, waiting for me to kiss him goodnight.
As I walked down the hall towards his room, my brain was filled with thoughts about the article I was working on. I was on autopilot and all I could think about was what I would write when I got back on the (more…)
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — After Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson claimed in court today that all black people are mentally disabled, Justice Clarence Thomas gently informed her that it’s actually just her.
Barack Obama really should follow the lead of old-time presidents and, instead of seeking the limelight, opt for a rocking chair on his front porch. In that way, he could spare himself the embarrassment of saying really stupid things.
Advances in technology have often been sudden and unexpected. Their speed and acceleration are exemplified by the fact that in one lifetime, people born before airplanes were invented saw, on television, men landing on the moon with 1960s technology. Unpredicted was the invention and wide use of desktop computers, which not even the writers of science fiction had foreseen.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dying. That he’s been dying for the last five years has actually been a running joke on the streets of Tehran, sort of like the old Saturday Night Live bits claiming that “Generalisimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead.”
