'1984' is not a wonder tale. Not only could it happen, but it has happened, but under different names.

My good intentions are completely lethal.

You say, The sensed absence of God and the sensed presence amount to much the same thing, only in reverse.

I was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Gray Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months later, I was backpacked into the Quebec bush. I grew up in and out of the bush, in and out of Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto.

Kafka thought his stories were hilarious. We don't necessarily have that reaction to them, but he certainly laughed his head off every time he read them out loud.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well.

The problem with meditating is I generally go to sleep, and that's because I'm doing it wrong.