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Earth is a stranger;
a shimmering,
spinning,
stranger
in the universe,
like a silver coin
tossed with a wish
into a river.
Or the way
dogs and cats are
strangers
to us.
Stranger still
that we seldom think
how strange life is,
and instead
invent words
like normal
when
in reality
normal
means dead.
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Mother ordered me to go next door,
To Mrs. Sanderson who lives alone.
She needed help to hook up her garden hose,
Move some flowerpots and decorative stones.
I was a self-centred lad of fifteen,
Couldn't care less about my old lady neighbour.
Had more important business I was in between,
No time for a widow’s stupid chore.
Mrs. Sanderson, who’d lost a son in the war,
Expected the worst from sudden door knocks.
She called out to me, “What are you here for?”
I answered bluntly, “Come to move some rocks.”
Mrs. Sanderson opened, still unsure who I was—
I’d only lived beside her since I was four.
“I’m here to do what a good neighbour does,”
I smiled, looking mildly bored.
I saw a flicker of recognition cross her face,
As she let me in, seemed as puzzled as me.
She wore the neglect of her forsaken place,
I counted the minutes until I could flee.
“Mother told me that you needed a hand,”
I hollered, not sure if she could hear,
Adding a smile to help her understand,
My salutary purpose for being there.
Mrs. Sanderson directed me to the task,
She pointed to the back yard through the kitchen.
Not a word was passed between us, no eye contact,
She followed behind me like a guard in a prison.
With the job done I marched out full of myself,
Like a returning hero who deserved a medal and cheers,
A pigeon circling above had seen how I’d helped—
Nailed me with a dollop right between the ears.
The clearest conclusion is that Benjamin Netanyahu's strategy has backfired.
He succeeded in convincing trump to involve the United States directly in a war with Iran. The assumption appears to have been that decapitation strikes, combined with a coordinated strategic bombing campaign, would topple the regime.
It failed.
Worse, the intervention exposed the limits of American military power and political will in the region. The United States could inflict damage, but not impose a new political reality.
It also brought America's regional partners—UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman—within the conflict's reach, demonstrating the price of hosting a U.S. military presence. Bases once seen as guarantees of security became potential liabilities.
Iran, meanwhile, has shown an ability to connect the Lebanese front to the broader Gulf confrontation, underscoring that its ambitions remain regional and that its network of influence has not been dismantled. Despite significant military and economic setbacks, Tehran has emerged hardened rather than broken. It retains the capacity to project power across critical waterways stretching from the Gulf of Oman to the Gulf of Aden, ensuring that it remains central to the region's strategic calculations.
Israel has demonstrated formidable military capabilities. Yet despite impressive battlefield successes it cannot solve the problem of Hezbollah. Once again, it finds itself occupying southern Lebanon in pursuit of a buffer zone—a strategy that echoes the quagmire of its earlier Lebanese occupation. There is little reason to believe this iteration will produce a different outcome.
The soup has been stirred, but the ingredients have not changed. Netanyahu and trump mistook escalation for strategy. They dumped too much salt into the pot, believing force alone could transform the recipe.
Instead, they have made the region more volatile, America's allies more vulnerable, and Iran more deeply embedded in the very equation they hoped to solve.
The result is not a new Middle East. It is the old Middle East—angrier, more unstable, and now carrying fresh proof of the limits of military power. And Iran has taken advantage of it, re-positioning itself to have greater influence.
"מה שלא הולך בכוח, הולך במוח" (ma she'lo holech b'koach, holech b'moach)
It's an well-known Israeli phrase that means "What can't be achieved by strength (force) can be achieved by intelligence (brains)."
The Iranians seem to have benefited from the Israelis (and Americans) not heeding their own advice.
People always want to get what they expect. When they don't, they become disappointed. And when they direct that disappointment toward someone else, they become resentful. Countless marriages have ended in divorce because partners carried expectations that went unfulfilled and they harbored resentment until the breaking point.
Expectation, resentment and blame are so powerful they are the basis of political movements.
Having expectations feels as natural to us as breathing. It almost feels like 'a right'. Our relationship to expectation is something we contend with throughout our lives: what we expect from ourselves, what we expect from others—especially those closest to us—and what we feel others should expect from us.
When we're young, expectations seem to be at their peak. It's why Charles Dickens titled his coming-of-age novel Great Expectations, the story of the orphan Pip and his education in the realities of life. Like Pip, our lives are often shaped by learning to expect less, or at least differently. Adulthood is, in part, defined by discovering what we can and cannot reasonably expect from the rest of our lives, and by how we learn to reconcile with that emotionally.
I once came across a gravestone in a cemetery in Bennington, Vermont (incidentally where the novelist Saul Bellow is buried, I was on a sort of pilgrimage). It was a final message to the living: "Love More, Laugh A Lot, Don't Expect."
The problem of expectations, at least in the way we understand it today, is relatively modern. It emerged alongside the expanding opportunities of the nineteenth century, around the same time Dickens wrote Great Expectations. For most of human history, people certainly had hopes and fears, but expectations weren't much of a consideration.
Life was largely prescribed, preordained, and predetermined. I don't mean that in a spiritual sense, although many people believed that too. I mean it in a practical one. The circumstances of your birth determined almost everything that followed: your wealth, your education, your occupation, your marriage prospects, and your social status. Social mobility was limited, economic opportunity scarce, and political freedom restricted. If expectations existed, they were often focused on avoiding misfortune rather than achieving personal fulfillment.
We often hear it said that having children reflects optimism about the future. It's a measure of expectation. A completely contemporary concept. In the past, having many children more often reflected something closer to necessity. Infant mortality was high, and surviving children provided a measure of economic security in old age.
The rise of expectations—made possible by prosperity, freedom, and choice—has created an unexpected challenge in the pursuit of happiness.
In their book Engineering Happiness, Rakesh Sarin and Manel Baucells offer a simple formula: Reality minus Expectations equals Happiness.
Therefore, if you want to be happier, they argue, find ways to narrow the gap between expectations and reality. Since altering reality is a heavy lift, it is usually the more sensible approach to modify our expectations.
But that's the rub.
The moment we begin lowering or changing our expectations, we worry that we're settling. We tell ourselves we're not getting what we deserve. We fear we're rationalizing failure. We feel ashamed, incompetent, or insufficiently ambitious. Social media, with its endless parade of curated perfection, amplifies those feelings exponentially.
It seems to me we should consider having expectations at all as a privilege.
I'm not saying you shouldn't aim high in life. By all means, pursue ambitious goals. Just don't expect the outcome. If reality happens to match your expectations, you might consider yourself 'successful'. The hard work paid off.
But if reality turns out to be something you never expected, consider yourself luckier still. Expectations confirm what you already know. The unexpected, for better or worse, teaches you something new.
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A poem like a UFO
vaguely seen hovering
above the treetops
at night
a craft
guided by super intelligence
flashing coloured lights
moving
in ways
that defy
known physics:
most people don't know
what to make of it
imagine
strange beings
with enlarged heads
and dark eyes
visiting
from a distant
galaxy
come
to convey
telepathically
a profound message
that could save us
from ourselves
and leave
one
forever changed.
