Blog draft mar 27 26

Grit

A friend asked me to write about dogs. This was several years ago. I did and suddenly found myself focusing on the grit our pets encounter in their lives. You know the kind of grit I’m talking about, the small bits of sand and stone, pebbles even, that they walk on daily outdoors. This is the grit they track into our homes on hard surfaces, and the stuff that gets stuck in their paws and between their toes.

We deal with grit. Small but stubborn. We sweep it and vacuum it. We pry it out of our pet’s feet when we find them limping about. Otherwise, we forget the grit. It just is. We live with it, deal with it.

Another form of grit is miscellany details. Lots of them. Most unimportant, but some of them are consequential. We deal with them also, sorting them out and ignoring the least of them, while adjusting our actions for those with consequences. We learn to do this autonomically. Not ignored but dealt with stealth and supposed purpose. Nearly ignored but not quite.

Then there is technological change. Seemingly innocuous until bits and pieces of it invade every little space in our lives. Suddenly we have something new to learn and adapt to. This is grit at its start but then morphs into something much larger in the end.

Grit. The little things in life. At first pretty much meaningless but eventually amounting to worrisome proportions. Rats! This has ceased being a challenge and become quite a bother. I know I am not alone in this. Mainly those of us over 75 know what I’m talking about. At times I ponder avoidance but then I’d pretty much give up on much of life. That’s the extent of this particular form of grit.

As I said before, grit can eventually amount to something more important. We must learn to deal with it. Perhaps inventors of this specific grit would do well determining how different age groups deal with their particularities. Now that would be a great social service.

Meanwhile, remember the Epstein Files.

March 27, 2026

 

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