What’s your all-time favorite album?

I’d have to say that my favorite album, certainly the one with the most positive memories attached, would be Harry Belafonte Returns to Carnegie Hall. Just… so many good memories.

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

Y’all know that phrase that people regurgitate when things go wrong? It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a stubbed toe, burned dinner, missed bus, or catastrophic accident. People spit out the “well, everything happens for a reason!” Usually with a well-meaning, gentle smile.

It makes me want to throw things.

Technically, everything does happen for a reason, in the literal sense. That reason is that people make choices of all kinds with or without thought to the potential consequences to themselves or others.

Choice: some guy drove home with a blood alcohol of legally dead. Resulting consequences: my grandmother died and he got a scant eleven years in prison.

Choice: my abusers hurt me. Consequences: I have complex post-traumatic stress disorder and a hatred of bodily fluids.

Choice: I chose to make the best choice for myself and leave Indiana. Consequence: I now live in Wisconsin and am happier than I have maybe ever been.

Everything doesn’t always have a reason beyond chance. Nothing is for certain. But that doesn’t mean that we avoid trying to make better choices when presented the opportunity.

I wish I learned that “everything happens for a reason” is simply someone usually trying to express “I’m sorry this is happening to you, I don’t know why, or how to necessarily help, but I care”.

Which topics would you like to be more informed about?

Honestly? Either better economic systems that are NOT capitalism or actual facts, figures, and statistics on the homeless of America.