Thoughts on Writing/Publishing
25.23 The Secret of Secrets
In Secrets, a key theme is a theory of consciousness, and, despite my reservations, I was interested in what Brown had to say about it.
2025-12-15
Travels with Myself
A Journal of Discovery and Transition
Doug Jordan, Author
Dementia/Alzheimer's
25.22 Care for the Caregivers
Friends or family members of a care partner mean well but often have no idea what the caregiver is actually going through. Canadians are reticent and don’t like to interfere in things they regard as ‘personal’. Get over yourself. The caregiver needs help.
2025-11-29
Happiness and purpose
25.21 Luck and Gratitude
Human beings tend to admire ‘success’; and very often define success as wealth, and the power and status wealth affords. But the admiration comes with a touch of envy, even resentment: their success wasn’t earned, it was luck.
2025-11-15
Dementia/Alzheimer's
25.20 A Journey With Dementia 5 – Musical Mind
On one of my visits with Brian at the hospital, I asked the nurse specialist if I could bring him a harmonica to play. She looked at me askance. I am aware that a ‘harp’ could be a ‘weapon’;
2025-10-30
Social/Societal Issues
25.19 Sympathy for the Devil
In the two years following the horrors committed by the Islamist terrorists, Hamas, upon Israel October 7, 2023, Western sympathizers have somehow put themselves in the position of supporting a brutal barbaric regime rather than an oasis of democratic ideals and hope.
2025-10-15
Thoughts on Writing/Publishing
25.18 Rating Scales
Books are rated on a five-star system, but nobody knows what five stars actually represents. for that matter, what does one star mean? Most would intuit that a 1 means terrible, but if that is the case, why any star at all?
2025-09-30
On Language
25.17 The Delicate Art of Editing
to give his manuscript to an editor is a ritual authors are likely reluctant to engage in. All that (‘positive’) feedback, and opinion disguised as ‘suggestions’, may not be taken well, even if the author smiles savagely in thanks to the editor.
2025-09-15
Thoughts on Writing/Publishing
25.16 Authors and Editors
Almost every author I know, and a lot more that I read, remark in their acknowledgements that they are so very grateful for their editor for making their opus so much better. It’s kind and generous of them to say so.
But I think they are lying. Or if not lying, exactly, they say so grudgingly, through clenched teeth.
2025-08-31
Social/Societal Issues
25.15 Authors in an AI World
As to human-created authenticity, it may well be that CHAT GBT devices will never (never?) be capable of original new material because they are not truly intelligent, merely regurgitation machines. But don’t count on it. And anyway, readers may not care.
2025-08-19
Books by Doug Jordan
25.14 Alex Learns to Drive a Truck
In this episode young Alex, home in Peterborough Ontario after his first year at Queen’s University, has just started his first summer job as a delivery driver for Canada Bread Company.
2025-08-04
Social/Societal Issues
25.13 AI Apprehension
People are not uniformly apprehensive, one way or another, of AI. In fact, we might even hazard that there is an array of attitudes people hold, from committed positive belief to abject terror.
2025-07-15
Social/Societal Issues
25.12 The Soul of the New Machine
René Descartes in his treatise on dualism was examining the larger concept of reality/existence, but did he really think thinking was the equivalent of consciousness? (Would he say the same thing of computers?)
2025-06-30
Idiosyncratia
25.11 Living Language
To remain vital, language needs to reinvent itself, daily. If a language begins to lose its capacity to express what people want to communicate it either reinvents itself or it becomes a dead language. It’s a Darwinian thing: Adapt or perish.
2025-06-15
On Language
25.10 Coding and Decoding
Even if we take particular care to communicate what we fully intended – picking our way through the maze of our minds to find the right words – we have no control over the chaotic mass that may be the receiver’s brain, and so we are left in doubt whether the received message was actually understood as intended.
2025-05-30
Thoughts on Writing/Publishing
25.09 The Problem of Homophones
If you have been taught how to read and write, you probably learned the distinction between where from wear. Somewhere along the line – Grade Six maybe – you were even taught about homophones, (along with homonyms, synonyms and antonyms), and to take care not to mistake them. These were challenging concepts, but to 11-year-old boys homophones (and homonyms) were especially noteworthy.
2025-05-14
On Language
25.08 ‘Incentivize’ – Really?
Incentivize suggests something more insidious than mere pursuit of a desired thing or outcome, it connotes an action intended to serve the interests of the person offering the incentive, not just the person being incented.
2025-04-29
On Language
25.07 Gamification
Gamification in video games is not unlike gambling: the thrill of a ‘win’, the gradual habituation of the dopamine hit, the constant enticements for ‘just one more round’.
2025-04-14
On Language
25.06 The Courage to Write
submitting our writing to the critical gaze of a heartless public takes fearlessness beyond courage. It takes drink.
2025-03-31
Idiosyncratia
25.05 When Is Spring?
There are many ways we northerners, hungering for warmer weather, have to forecast Spring. All these prophesy mechanisms may be flawed, even my misplaced faith in Wiarton Willi. But for me the surest sign we have of impending Spring is the switch to Daylight Saving Time.
2025-03-14
Dementia/Alzheimer's
25.04 A Journey With Dementia 4 – MISSING
On Christmas Eve morning, at about 10:30, Brian said he was going for a drive. I said that his son and family were coming for lunch at 11:00 and asked that he not go. To no avail, Brian didn’t want to have anything to do with Christmas and he wanted to leave.
He was gone for 27 hours.
2025-02-27
Books by Doug Jordan
25.03 Humour in Writing, Writing Humour
Writing well is hard enough, but to write something funny is seriously difficult. Indeed, much of the humour we see on paper is mostly cartoon-assisted text. And even much of that will depend on the mind of the reader
2025-02-15
Dementia/Alzheimer's
25.02 A Journey With Dementia 3 – DRIVING
As we readied to leave the doctor’s office, Doc held me back and told me to hide the car keys. This was singularly unhelpful advice but for the sake of our, and community safety, I hid the keys, even disabled the spare key.
OH MY FREAKIN’ ANCESTORS !! My wonderful man turned into Angry Bird.
2025-02-05
Thoughts on Writing/Publishing
25.01 To Blog, or Not to Blog?
Writing the blog twice a month takes real effort, and the pressure of a deadline (each 15th and 30th of the month) becomes somewhat stressful (oscillating between eustress and dystress)
2025-01-14
