How to Deal with the Manager from Hell. Earth, it seems, is populated with denizens from Hell. Dramatic, not? Words have become cheap. “From Hell.” “The Devil himself.” That balding little guy in the corner office, sporting an old-fashioned tie…
Disconnection is the big one. The central fracture that creates more misery in the mind than almost anything else in this messy thing called human relationships. It is difficult as hell to understand what people want. That difficulty alone generates…
An exploration of the churn effect, how online and offline discussion creates motion without action, and why real change requires landing ideas. Threads explode. Names get mentioned. People defend cyberbullying. Others recount past experiences in painful detail. The outrage…
There was no orchestrated mayhem. No drums, bonfires, or initiation rituals. I joined a support group for males during a low point in my life. And the experience was great. Instead of getting my token for the ancestral sweat lodge,…
Corporal Rockjaw was unusually amicable that day. He told us that if anyone thought the mess hall food was shit, they should write their complaint on a list, add their force number and ID, and the matter would be escalated…
Some questions cut back. They keep returning, century after century, generation to generation. They will stalk us as long as we are human and still failing at being it. Even when the machines rule, the dead walk, the stars swallow…
I was in a crowd. We were being herded like sheep. Maybe not. Maybe sheep got better treatment. I remember military intake with a clarity I wish I had for the rest of my life. Funny how the moments that…
So what the hell are platitudes, and why do they kill your vibe? “Manifest your reality!” “Positive vibes only!” Some platitudes are rotten, and the festering fruit hangs lower. Once on the train, between a very bad rainstorm and delays,…
PODCAST https://mattlr.com/ A long time ago, on a Saturday, we ended up in the tower cab of a tiny regional airport on the outskirts of town. Tiny enough that one young woman ran the entire tower alone. Approach, takeoff, landing,…
Have you ever contemplated suicide? Not planned it, not obsessed over it, but contemplated it? Do you often label yourself as “lost,” or “broken?” How “lonely” are you? Sunday mornings, do they become dreaded signposts, informing you that anxiety will…