​One of the cool things about Jack Reacher in the series of Reacher novels is that he packs light. He is ready to go. He has no address. When he leaves one town, he brings the clothes on his back and a toothbrush.
 
Ah, to be some mobile. Wouldn’t that be marvelous?
 
My wife and I hit on this topic recently, how BACK IN THE OLD DAYS, you’d go see a friend for the weekend and you had close to the Jack Reacher number of items in your toiletry back. Maybe a comb, toothpaste, toothbrush. Anything else you would figure out.
 
Man, have those days evaporated. I’m not sure when the threshold was crossed to taking a BIG BAGGIE of items on trips. Regardless of when this changed, multiple extra items now go in that carrying case, even if we’re only heading out for a couple of days.

Take, for example, Advil and Tums. I bring both these days. Do I always need them? Of course not, and mostly I don’t. But, I want to be prepared if my body gets stiff from a drive or airplane ride and I could use an Advil to even things out, I want to have it with me. Same with Tums. Typically, they are unnecessary. But, eat or drink just a little too much at this stage of life and heartburn is a reality. Toss the Tums in.
 
Years ago, I didn’t floss. Now I feel guilty missing one day of flossing. Make sure that goes in bag.
 
Vitamins? Supplements? No way I needed or used any of that stuff 30 years ago. Slowly, several have been added to my daily regime to help keep the joints functioning properly, a daily probiotic for digestion, a multi vitamin, among others.
 
Then there are prescriptions. Once you get past a certain age, it’s pretty hard not to have at least one or two prescriptions your doctor wants you to take. Slip them in the baggie.
 
Fifteen years ago I was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy. It affects my feet, causing numbness, tingling, burning, pain. To handle that and keep the syndrome from deteriorating more quickly, I go through several routines using various implements. These include a foot roller, a gel to put on my feet at night and an electric impulse apparatus that sends tiny jolts to help relieve the pain and increase circulation. Those can’t fit in the toiletry bag, so place them in the bigger traveling bag.
 
Unlike Reacher, spontaneity seems unattainable with travel today. You have to think ahead. That means clothing and attire as well. If you head to a wedding and will attend the reception the night before, you must have the proper clothing for both.

Might it rain on the trip? Make sure you pack your rain jacket.
 
What if the temperature is expected to drop? Do you need long underwear? Shorts or pants or both? Do you need boots to walk in snow or can you get by with just one pair of shoes? All those dang considerations.
 
If we could only be Reacher, traveling light, taking life as it comes. Back in 1982, when I bicycled across North America, I packed and lived lightly. It was great. That was a different time and a different trip. I’m going to work on this, add spontaneity. That will likely be okay until I twist my back or eat too much pizza.

When the presidential election ended in November, I think the majority of people in the United States heaved a titanic sigh for at least one reason: political advertising would be over. True, yes. But not for long.
 
I’ve launched attacks in the past on this column about how horrific, misleading and downright false far too many political ads are. Downright lies proliferate. Innuendos abound. Most ads aren’t designed to inform, but instead break the opposing candidate down, and make you – the target of the ads – feel the person being attacked is a jerk, loser, thief, criminal, dangerous.
 
As the ads wear you down, even the most vigilant of us start to wonder if there is a nugget of truth in all the lies. In this way they get you. Your defenses lag. Your antenna to sift through garbage turns itself off. Then, whammo, you find yourself hating someone.
 
The thing I remember most deeply from the day after the presidential election is how I felt bad. The relentless nature of the attacks from both candidates (and, of course, this is not limited to presidential elections) – because they are designed to make you feel bad things about the other candidate – make you feel bad yourself. You feel bad about your country.  You feel bad about the direction we are taking. This leads to some of the malaise many people feel in the U.S. about the political process, our politicians, our expectations, and the general sense that no one is doing anything good.
 
There is a lot of good being done by a lot of people in this country. That occurs at the local, state and national levels, and includes businesses, politicians, bureaucrats, community leaders, scientist, engineers, people of faith. We don’t hear about that much though because the ads dominate our senses.
 
Follow the money. Those who have it inject their bucks into various campaigns. Follow the money and you follow the hate and lies.
 
Which in a roundabout way gets me back to today in Wisconsin where we have a state Supreme Court race being contested.
 
The INSTANT ads started being run (maybe six weeks ago?), they were negative. If you know nothing of the two candidates (probably true of 95 percent of the Wisconsin electorate), you would think both of the candidates were evil personified, letting rapists and killers back onto the streets with nary a thought as to the consequences.
 
That’s not case, as I’ve had the opportunity to see and hear both candidates speak in-person to the Milwaukee Rotary and Milwaukee Press Club. Both care about the state, care about the judiciary and respect what being a judge is all about – enforcing the law to the best of their abilities. You’ll find places you could quibble with either one. You may disagree with their perspective on an issue or align yourself politically with one or the other. That’s fair. Choose to vote on those merits.
 
DON’T choose to vote based on the ads assaulting you. Recently, seven ads in a row came up on the TV for one or the other candidate, before one for a plumber finally ended the string. Sigh.
 
We all will continue to be overwhelmed in this way. That makes it tremendously important to do your own research, read, verify, think. It’s hard. Informed voting isn’t easy. In some ways, in today’s world, it’s actually extremely complicated because we are all being manipulated in multiple directions.
 
There is no perfect solution to this dilemma. The most solid path forward individually for voters is stay informed rather than relying on ads as a source.  Good luck. 

​How do you regenerate content? How can you juice your creativity?
 
In our current culture, coming up with content to entertain audiences is a big deal. Think how much you consume: movies, podcasts, columns, videos, YouTube, television shows, all that stuff streaming on those multiple services – Apple, Netflix, Hulu, Brit Box, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Peacock just to name a few that I can come up with off the top of my head. I presume there are many more.
 
They all must come up with angles, and put together shows that get people to watch and listen. It is hard. How do they differentiate?

As a writer, I face this challenge every week, the creative challenge. What is something worth writing about? Did something funny happen to me in the past few weeks that I can riff off? Is there a complex issue that has jumped into my consciousness that I can use as a platform to make a deeper point?
 
Creativity rises in different ways for different people. Capturing that impulse in a tangible format is a challenge, as is presenting it in such a way that people want to watch, hear, read what you have to say.
 
We are assaulted by entertainment choices, which means it is far too easy to turn someone off. Don’t like the opening sentence of my column? Click to the next story. Bored after the first ten minutes of a movie? Stream another one. Podcast making you snore? Wake up to someone else who charges your batteries.
 
My wife and I have left much of U.S.-based television series in the dust. The slam bang, quick cut, using violence and guns and car chases and crashes to overcome the lagging of plots. Watch U.S. television shows with the sound off one evening when you have a few spare moments and you might be stunned with how frequently scenes cut from one to the next, and how violence, guns and crashes are used to take up creative space. It does make you wonder about how violent our culture is.
 
But, away from that musing, and back to the creative challenge. Spicing up tired plots (if you watch a regular television series, think about the ones that keep you coming back because they have something fresh occur that keeps you engaged) is crucial to your attention span. Yes, we are drawn to certain characters, want the bad guys to get blown up, but we also need something to get us outside the box.

That is the creative challenge. Given all the songs and genres for songs, I sometimes find it hard to believe that anyone ever delivers something new. But they do. The artists that cut through to your heart and soul, getting you to repeat their lyrics (so catchy), and hum along while you air guitar it, are the ones you listen to.
 
Regenerating content takes time, thought, revisions, letting loose of preconceived notions and being willing to take yourself down a path previously unexplored. Entertainment products face this creative challenge, but it is also present in businesses and other parts of our lives, even freshening up our relationships with new things.
 
Take a walk somewhere to experience a dramatic view. Drive a different route to work (try it). Read an author recommended by a friend. Watch a movie outside your comfort zone. Put your belt on the opposite way you normally do. Now sit down and create.

​Most of us live mundanely. We go through routines. We repeat behaviors. Sometimes we get out of our ruts and travel and take on some new activity. But, if there’s someone watching from afar or capturing us on video, one could argue we live a boring life.

I’m not saying that’s bad or wrong. Just the way it often is.
 
The people who run social media sites get this. Because they mine our boringness, knowing we want to shake things up or get some novelty, so they send clips, images, messages that target our habits.
 
I’ll focus on Facebook, because they are the most egregious from what I can tell, but I’m sure this applies to Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, you name it. They track you. They follow what you access. Then they attack.
 
I stay away from clicking things on that don’t come from friends on Facebook. Sometimes though (in my boredom), I click on something that looks intriguing. Oooooooops!
 
For the next 27 days, probably longer, I start getting similar things sent to me. They have those 15-second videos that show people doing goofy things. I made the mistake of watching a few (one leads to another, which leads to another). WRONG.
 
Of course, more 15-second videos of people demonstrating idiotic behavior rained down on me. I blocked them. I hid them. Nothing seemed to help.
 
Facebook knows when you are bored, and they know how to feed off your boredom addiction. Their AI senses your doldrums, waiting, waiting to pounce and overwhelm you with useless images.
 
One of the ways you know you’re bored is when you begin watching knot-tying videos. These are clips demonstrating how to tie different knots – the figure eight, the clove hitch, the water knot, the fisherman’s knot.  You know what I mean.
 
You have nothing else to do, and you see these hands meticulously wrapping the twine around and around, up and over, under, then cinched. Holy cow, maybe I can do that.
 
Then they have you. Facebook/Twitter/TikTok/Instagram captured you. And here it comes: more and more knot-tying 15 second videos coming your way, enough to saturate your senses for years and years.
 
What gets me is how quickly crap starts to come your way and accumulate on your feed. Similar stuff to what you just accessed can arrive on your screen within seconds. And, it doesn’t seem to stop. Keeps coming and coming.
 
My advice, of course, is never click on something unless you really care. If it’s a true hobby and something you obsess about, by all means go for it.
 
If not, let it go. Don’t let AI and the social media maggots suck you in. Once they get their hooks in you, you’ll be inundated.
 
I do my best to delete, block, or hide posts coming my way that I have no further interest in, but they seem to propagate like mushrooms in the forest after a spring rain -- keep popping up.
 
As an old school-type person, I probably fall into the category of people who don’t logically figure out better ways to eliminate unwanted electronic information coming my way. I’m getting better, still figuring it out, and once in awhile there’s that nirvana moment, where you go, “AHA, now I know how to stop you.” You feel successful when that happens. Maybe that’s the learning curve – learning how to cut the crap out and eliminate boredom.

​Last year was a bad one for my intuition. I’m a person who relies a lot on hunches, educated thoughts that should play out a certain way, events that logically should come together to cause an outcome. This approach adds up to intuition.
 
I rely on intuition. It serves me well. Quite clearly, trusting my instincts in many situations is a critical positive for me to function successfully on multiple fronts.

You may shrug at this. “Who cares? Intuition is a joke.” I get it. You may want the facts and data about every issue you face in your personal, professional or social life.
 
Facts give you background. They are important. But they also only provide the framework as to what happens next. You still have to coalesce additional variables in your head, look forward, perhaps make an assumption or two on trends or human behavior to effectively project sporting events, political outcomes or what’s the best destination for the next vacation for you and your loved one(s).
 
Over the years, I’ve honed my intuition abilities, parlaying them into a skill for predicting drive times for car trips, the weather and sporting outcomes. Just after the turn of the century, I remember a drive I took from eastern Nebraska (Columbus) to the far western region (Scottsbluff) and saying to myself, “hmm, that should be about six hours and five minutes to get there?” (about what I remember from my memory banks) and getting there within five minutes of my intuitive prediction. Thought to myself, “wow,” afterwards.
 
It morphed from there. I got into consistently and effectively using my gut to state how long a trip would take and being very close most of the time.
 
This skill/talent, if we want to call it that, for having a feel for something, was also applied to sports. Rather than choosing the best teams, I used intuition, feel and chemistry to pick winners in discussions with friends, and found myself more often than not getting it right. The caveat is I stuck to teams, sports and players where I had greater knowledge. It was fun.
 
Weather also fell into this realm. Having a sense when the weather would change, due to the wind currents, is something I refined over the years, particularly from my bicycle trip across North America in 1982. Stay outside, feel the humidity, gauge the wind currents and you can do well predicting what’s next.

Which is why 2024 was weird for me. My intuition was off. NFL predictions were bad. My college – the University of Illinois – kept playing against my intuition on the basketball court as again and again I got games wrong that I “felt” accurate about.
 
I messed up predicting snowstorms and thunderstorms, intuition failing miserably. Hard to say what was off. And, I’m not sure what my point is.

Other than sometimes we have bad years. Things go wrong. They don’t turn out the way you think they will. Your intuition stinks. But, you slog on, hoping that your thinking, guessing, feeling, predicting improve and you get back in the rhythm.