No one feels more silly talking about astrology than myself. In one moment I will be discussing the role of opportunistic microbial pathogens like Porphoromonas gingivalis or parasitic Trichomonas protists in the etiology of cystic fibrosis and chronic immune dysfunction and then in the next moment discuss how the influence of Saturn shapes our experiences of structure and responsibility.

Several days ago it was reported that a young man committed suicide after being encouraged to do so by ChatGPT, one of the most prominent “AI” (it’s not actually Ai, but a large language model) products on the market and widely used by many people. While it is clear the AI played a major role in this young man’s suicide we have known since its inception that “AI” is a notoriously unreliable product

We live in some pretty wild times. Rent across the entire country is too expensive for people to afford while more millionaires and billionaires have been created in the last few decades than even seemed possible. Governments start wars but chastise other governments for starting their wars, genocide remains ongoing in Palestine and Sudan…

Growing up in a large, conservative family it never occurred to me the future could hold such loneliness as I often experienced as an adult. Yet while loneliness often seems a very personal experience the majority of our generations have been uncommonly plagued by an epidemic of loneliness, which is most ironic considering there have never been so many humans on the planet.

Having received therapy from about seven different therapists in my life (including couple’s counseling), I was shocked at the age of thirty-six to first learn about the Stephen Karpman “Drama Triangle” model of trauma and conflict psychology because it is a well established and accepted model that not a single therapist had ever mentioned or even addressed it in any of our sessions.

While my family was never wealthy growing up, from my teenage years and on we lived in communities that could comfortably be described as upper-middle class. My father was a talented architect and general contractor, and aside from a brief detour pursuing his lifelong dream of having a restaurant his business consisted mostly of building homes on spec, meaning there was no buyer at the outset, then selling those homes once they were finished…

Saying the last decade has been chaotic is quite the oversimplification, as many of us have been through quite a lot of stress, upheaval, loss, and inconvenience. Several years prior to the pandemic my life fell apart as I became sick with cancer, abandoned by the love of my life, and began recovery from alcoholism and addiction. Yet even in the midst of that tumult I naively thought every year that good times must be just around the corner,

As I neared the end of my twenties I began having very disturbing dreams and nightmares from which I would wake breathless and bewildered, and seemingly normal situations which for others might produce maybe a little anxiety would leave me wracked with crippling and debilitating panic. For instance when I was twenty-seven I was invited to a vacation on Fire Island…

A plague has been infecting us for a long time now, and no I’m not talking about COVID. Loneliness is one of the most widespread afflictions burdening people today, and this is exceptionally ironic considering the sheer unfathomable amount of human beings alive on this planet. I used to be completely perplexed living in Los Angeles, a region of 12 million people, year after year continuing to suffer from crippling loneliness that plagued my life even as I socialized, dated, and successfully pursued my career.

So, I am NOT a clean person. I mean, I am—I like a clean house. I find a clean kitchen to be very calming, and there are few pleasures as wonderful as beginning to cook a great meal in a clean kitchen. But cleaning for me has always been a source of serious anxiety.

I sometimes (surprisingly rare, actually) get criticized for the amount of sex in my books. One homophobic person wrote an Amazon review in which they hilariously said there was “disturbing homosexual erotica,” (my book is NOT sold on Amazon) as if my book was some Fifty Shades of Grey and not retellings of my relationship and coming of age experiences.

Social media can be really great for a lot of reason, but it’s impossible to peruse instagram, tik tok, and other outlets without seeing a nauseating volume of garbage about changing your mindset to find happiness, practicing discipline and self deprivation for goals, or setting intention to change your fate and the function of the universe.

What is it by which you define success? Do you desire money, to build a large home and fill it with things? Do you wish to be a healthy young person blessed with virility and unburdened by illness? Do you want a family, or for your own family to grow up and realize their hopes and dreams?

The degree to which we filter our life experience is by magnitudes far greater than we can really comprehend. As a human being we are designed to survive in a world where mortality is real, and can even come from ways as simple as stepping out into the street without looking, or succumbing to an invisible pathogen we never saw coming.

Tell me if you’ve heard this one— “I’m sorry you were offended.” Because of my past tendency to be drawn to narcissists, this statement and many like it were peppered liberally throughout my life, and I wasted many years trying to communicate to those who spoke this way that they had hurt me and not succeeded in repairing the damage.

When I was a young man struggling with my homosexuality growing up in the midst of a bigoted and conservative Mormon community I was constantly perturbed by stories in the scriptures of God either relieving or sending plagues upon the various characters in the stories and their communities.

When I was fifteen years of age and struggles with my parents began to reach a fever pitch, my mother one day came into my room after a row and told me she was afraid I would not be able to provide for a family when I grew up. She was not concerned about an abundance of employment opportunities or the decreasing trend in wages compared to inflation and the const of living..

“You look so ugly when you talk like that,” said my mother one day when I was seventeen, “I wish I could record you so you could see how ugly you are.” I don’t remember exactly what we were fighting about—I had recently been discovered as homosexual and our relationship had become yet more strained under their dismissal and increased persecution. I was a very good kid—I got the best grades in my family, never tried drinking or smoking, was still a virgin…

One bright, beautiful summer Saturday when I was twenty-eight I was at a party in the Hollywood Hills. My friend's pool was once Walt Disney's, though this contemporary house had been built between Walt Disney's actual house and the pool so we were not in the same rooms that Walt used to walk. The house looked over the whole of Los Angeles, and since there were only about twelve people at the party, all of us familiar with each other now for a number of years, there was a more intimate feeling than usual L.A. pool parties.

One Saturday when I was sixteen our family was driving home from my Dad's office buildings doing janitorial work where we earned extra money instead of having normal summer jobs. I was staring out the window like a proper brooding teenager, dreaming of all the ways life could be better than it was while my five siblings, tired from the day’s janitorial effort were silent and nodding off in the back.