Did you ever try to walk backward? A few times in my early adulthood, I walked backward while the store owner walked forward as we carried a piece of furniture. I got pretty pretty pretty…good at it as Larry David would say.

Walking backward is a bit dangerous. You can not see where you are going. You do not have eyes in the back of your head as I often swore Neva J did. Yet in many societal arenas, we seem determined to master the Paula Abdul song ‘Two Steps Forward and One Step Back…opposites attract.’

MJ pointed out to me that my Father’s Day gift from her had apparently done a ‘Ping-Pong’ delivery route in the suburbs of Chicago for an entire day. How is it that we can no longer write our name and not read cursive? We sit down to enjoy a fine restaurant meal and everyone is mesmerized by the flashing photos and videos on their iPhones.

Much of our thinking has been contracted out or Privatized to social media television and conspiracy theories that are given the elite position of…’It could be true or as George Costanza said on Seinfeld, ‘It is not a lie if you believe it.’

The bedrock of norms has been co-opted by some who lie in almost every sentence and fear not that they will be held accountable. As our brains become less agile for lack of use we laugh and wink at our coming calamity. After all, haven’t they been telling us for all of our lives that the end of the world is coming. We are still here. Let’s have another piece of pie and another cup of coffee…

Reading is fundamental the TV commercial told us last century. ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste was popular in the 1980s.’ Now AI is here and our robotic assistants will soon be our masters.

A proud European country had lost a major war and their indebtedness was massive. Their economy had tanked and the value of their currency was measured by the wheel barrel load. A nondescript outcast artist and budding insurrectionist with a quirky salute and a funny mustache said follow me and I will make you rich and powerful. The people said sounds good to me… Then the decline. Former friends were now vermin. The people were concerned about the purity of their blood. The Vermin looked humorous with the big yellow stars. You did not need a stress ball when you had living stress balls that you could beat with your bats and listen to them cry out for mercy. The people felt better for the easy decision to quit thinking for themselves and let the funny mustache man who goose-stepped and primped and preened before his speech do their thinking for them. Periodically there was a stab of rueful remorse and regret…but after all…the People were still here and need not worry for their sins…they had a sin-eater.