Ted’s essays

my descent into awareness

How does one go from being perfectly normal to occupying the fringe I find myself in? Credit my oldest daughter … though I may well have found another route here had that one not come along, but I remember the turning point she brought home. In primary school she and her best friend shared the scholastic top of their class. The friend’s dad struck it rich, and she went off to an exclusive private high school for ninth grade. My daughter’s Dad couldn’t afford that, so she went to government high school. The next year a full-ride scholarship was offered to my girl, so she rejoined her best friend where they resumed their academic excellence positions. * This school was […]

Ode to the non-conformist

You may find yourself in these times having less and less interest in the noise of society. You may start to feel an inherent detachment from the clamor and drama of this manufactured realm and it’s programmed toxicity. You will have many who are still heavily locked within its addictive dreamspell intimating that there is something wrong with you for wanting to distance yourself from it. Ignore this peer pressure. This assimilation. You are not part of it. Your soul is from elsewhere. It is made of defiance, of being boxed in. In fact, it is what you dropped in here to do. To show how, even on your own, even walking as an army of one, you stand […]

Do-It-Yourself knee replacement

In the latter part of 2005 I tore the meniscus in a severely abused knee. The surgeon who went in trimming away the pieces causing the main disabling pain assured me my meniscus was so thin I would be back within a year for the full artificial knee replacement. At that time I had heard of people who had wonderful results from that process as well as about an equal number who were crippled by it. Fifty-fifty was not inspirational to me. I still had my natural mobility though it was a bit too tender for extended use. Up and down stuff was rough. Major hiking, lots of ladder work and most athletics were out. I still preferred that to […]