Dear Editor,

Expediency? Tell me about it. My wife tosses things down without a second thought, then complains she can’t find them again. Everything in its right place and orderly would solve this. She says I have a brilliant memory — no, I put things in places where I know I will find them again and arranged by related categories. This includes books by theme (cookbooks, yoga and New Age, self-help, fiction, and so on) and objects by usage (glasses and writing materials in drawers and so on).

Shortsighted thinking? Shallow waters don’t run deep — rushing around like a chicken without a head, blind to reality — how can you see the truth? Fools rush in where the autistic have more sense than to tread. Lacking introspection? How can you think, if you don’t slow down and listen to your own thoughts? It is all interlinked.

Michael (from edition 106, not Michael on this page), enlightened people: look but don’t speak — fools speak but don’t look. Wisdom is still and silent, so it can hear and see. Would you rather open your mouth and prove you were a fool, like the man at your church or keep your mouth shut and learn about life as you have?

James, we have no sexual identity as spirits. Like Paul said, we must remember that we are aliens here — strangers in a strange land.

In response to Paul’s piece about social gaffes and fear of accidentally treading on people’s toes:

I remember eating a hamburger at a barn dance in my youth and spilling fried onions on a French girl and if that wasn’t bad enough, I did it twice in a row. The amount of times I have opened my mouth on social media and had somebody jump down my throat, for what I thought was an innocent remark is nobody’s business. In fact I have just left Facebook because of it (two warnings in a fortnight and a twenty-four-hour ban, led me to think that I would be better off jumping before I got pushed).

What is the correct thing to do or say? I am seventy and still don’t know.

Loved Janine’s and James’s poems by the way.

Tony