Tag: mourning

Hello…are you still there? On life, death and dropped phone calls

This column also appears in the Orange County Register.

As dropped cell phone calls become a daily irritation, the jarring experience of losing a conversation in mid-sentence has become routine.  The ugly wart on the nose of wireless communication, what once served as the triumphant but rude ending to an angry conversation has become a daily frustration.  The original hang-up technique, signifying an almost monarchical dismissal, that harsh bang sending combatant lovers to their corners, now seems rather quaint by comparison. Continue reading “Hello…are you still there? On life, death and dropped phone calls”

Sadness and Mourning

This column originally appeared in the Orange County Register

A screenwriter friend gave me an article discussing the salutary aspects of sadness and the ways in which our contemporary culture tends to quickly erase it or prematurely foreclose upon its gritty psychological usefulness in a quest for perennial cheery happiness.  As if happiness were a concrete object one could hold instead of a transitory state of being, one of many, that links specific inner notations of experience with external ones. Continue reading “Sadness and Mourning”