In all honesty, I wish I could’ve talked about something else. Something happier. Something nicer. Something… well, whimsical. But after the events of the past couple of weeks, I feel I have to talk about this topic, to get my two cents in, so to speak. From where I stand, two facts are apparent: George …
Author Archives: brenthegwood
Knights at the Dinner Table
Although I’m not the most social person, there is one conversation that I am fond of: talking at the dinner table with family. As you’ve seen in previous posts, I value family quite a bit. I think it’s important to spend what little time you might have with them. There are only so many hours …
Patience and Slow Internet
There’s a running joke in my family concerning the poor quality of our Internet connection. It’s about on par with the Internet speeds in third world countries. This isn’t a hyperbole; my brother has measured it. Through gentle ribbing, we often give my mother a hard time about it. My brother and I used to …
Off to College…
Last week, I talked about how my parents helped me in primary school. This essay is a follow-up to that one. If the first essay is about having helpful parents in one’s life, the second is about what happens when it’s time for a child to strike out on their own. Sometimes, they don’t do …
Homeschooling Your Public-School Kids
Even though I went to public school my entire life, there are times where it didn’t seem like it. Throughout most of my life, my parents were very much involved in my education, to the point where it seemed like I was half home-schooled. One of the fondest memories I have of my formative years …
Five Ways Gratitude Has Made Me a Better Person
I believe I speak for most of us when I say that we all have had to endure the Covid-19 Pandemic and the resulting shutdown of the global economy. It has hurt the most vulnerable among us – our poor, our elderly, our disenfranchised. It affects everyone’s health and livelihoods. And although it seems like, …
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Why Do We Disagree?
I wanted to talk in this essay about politics. Not about Republicans or Democrats. I really don’t fit in either category. And neither should you, really. Political parties aren’t religions, and you don’t owe them your authority like a peasant may have once owed their king theirs. Nor am I going to talk about conservatism …
Returning to Wholesomeness in Troubling Times
Note: This article was written on April 7, 2020. Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil. Saint Augustine of Hippo, The Enchiridion Right now, I’m just not interested in what the news says all that much. All of the coverage is about Covid-19’s latest …
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Tsundoku and Good Habits
Note: This article was written on April 1, 2020. No, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. Confession: I have tsundoku problem. According to Wikipedia, the bastion of weird information on the Internet, tsundoku is a bit of Japanese slang, a portmanteau formed from the Japanese words “tsude-oku” (meaning “to pile things up to use later”) …
Autism and Social Distance
Note: This article was written on March 23, 2020. Social rules don’t really make sense when you stop and think about them for five minutes. What people take to be “rude” or “polite,” what kind of manners you’re supposed to have at the table, what you’re allowed to say… there is rarely any rhyme or …