SOME say that revenge is sweet, but I fear that whether sweet or not, it simply continues the cycle of violence into which today’s world seems trapped. It takes faith, trust, empathy, courage and strength to not respond to violence with violence. And re-cover-y, an odd word suggesting that the ultimate goal of recovery is to re-cover an act of violence. Sweep it under the rug, so to speak. But it’s not like that at all.

If every perpetrator of violence had to pay for the victim’s recov...

“AN eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.” How many eyes and teeth does it take to satisfy one hurt person’s desire for revenge? The answer: an infinite number, as one revenge begats another. Add hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of personal revenge desires and what do you have? Today’s world, a stage upon which literally untold numbers of revenge desires being acted out, in the process, creating new ones. The problem, of course, is how to stop it.

“Turning the o...

GAMBLING – GAMING – WAGERING – PUNTING – SPECULATION – TAKING A CHANCE ON LADY LUCK. Gambling is as old as mortality, which is pretty old, don’t you know? We gamble every day, every hour, every minute, sometimes every second with our lives. No wonder that gambling in that first virtual world of money is so tempting. Win and you get more; lose and all you lose is money. And when that get’s boring, gambling in that second virtual world of power is even more tempting, lying between...

IN yesterday’s post, I delved into trust, the thing, I claim, makes a business work. Today, I’d like to touch on the opposite in business of trust: namely, what I call “rust.”

Rust is defined by Oxford Lexico as “1 A reddish- or yellowish-brown flaky coating…” “1.1 A state of deterioration or disrepair resulting from neglect or lack of use” and “2 a…[state of] disease,” the latter typically in reference to plants. In summary, I would say, a “coating” (“desert va...

WHAT is it that “makes the world go round?” Money? Power? Business contracts? America’s legal systems? Law enforcers? Bravado? I’ve come to realize over the years that it’s really none of these. It’s all about trust. Without trust, none of the above apply.

According to merriam-webster.com, trust is “firm belief in the character, strength, or truth of someone or something,” the actionable word being “firm” which, according to the same source, means “securely or solidly f...

LATELY, I have been delving into the dark sea of neurobiological “romance” that ebbs and tides so strongly about human relations, especially sex. In essence, romance is about assuring each other of conjugal safety, trust, fidelity and devotion while releasing the sexual tigers within. A quixotic, even paradoxical thing, romance. And it has to happen in the above sequence to be most effective and ultimately, satisfying, both in the short and long term.

The neurobiology of romance suggests...