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Posts Tagged ‘Deer In Headlines’

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A home run

In Local News on July 10, 2026 at 12:06 pm

Deer In Headlines

By Gery L. Deer

My family never went to baseball games when I was growing up, and I’ve never really been a sports fan. But since the Cincinnati Reds farm team came to Dayton in 2000, I’ve always enjoyed a warm summer evening at a Dayton Dragons game, when, for a few hours, the world just seems to get a little bit lighter.

At an evening game, there is that moment when the sun begins to sink noticeably low on the horizon, the stadium lights slowly flicker to life, and the sky turns from blue to purple. The air begins to cool, and Day Air Ballpark feels less like a building and more like a living thing. 

A baseball park has a heartbeat, a pulse made up of thousands of conversations, vendors calling, children laughing, gloves popping, and the grounds crew making everything look impossibly tidy. Fans drift through the gates wearing some measure of Dragons spirit, from a ball cap to a full jersey with a player’s name across the back. 

Some arrive carrying gloves, hoping for a foul ball. Others carry children, souvenirs, and enough snacks to survive into the next day. Everybody seems to know the ritual. Find your seats. Easy, since there are no bad ones. Then you check the scoreboard and settle in. It doesn’t take long before the smell of the hot dogs and pizza call to you like a siren song, especially if you skipped lunch just to make room for it all. 

Speaking of food, there’s no shortage of choices. There are burgers, nachos, ice cream, specialty sandwiches, candy, popcorn, beer, soft drinks and probably something involving barbecue sauce that I’ve overlooked. Me, I’m a little old-school. A baseball traditionalist. My game foods are, in this order, a hot dog with mustard, a Dr. Pepper, a bag of peanuts, and pack of Cracker Jack. By the way, what happened to the prizes? We need to talk about that some other time.

Actually, the concession stand itself is part of the whole experience. You stand in line, trying to decide what you want. You hear the crowd react to some amazing play you missed, and inevitably run into somebody you haven’t seen in years. Suddenly, you are catching up between orders of nachos. 

If you’re the type who’s never met a stranger, there are plenty of folks there just like you. You can tell a tired tale of the one that got away to a whole new audience or bond with the person beside you over a shared dislike of the umpire’s last call. For nine innings, more than a thousand people have something in common. Nobody cares what you do for a living or who you voted for.

In my opinion, every game is a unique experience. Double plays, a T-shirt fired from a cannon that lands in someone’s hot dog, I mean, what are the odds? And, unbelievably, people actually talk to one another. Other than the odd selfie, surprisingly few are staring at their phones. That alone may qualify as a minor miracle.

As darkness settles over the ballpark, the moon peeks through the summer sky above downtown. Then, suddenly – Crack! The bat connects. It is going, going, gone. The ball sails over the fence as the outfield defense looks on. The air horns sound. Fans roar. The runner waves as he casually rounds the bases, while players with names like Friend, Vu, Faile, Montero and Confidan become part of our summer vocabulary.

Between plays, the entertainment crew, the Green Team, keeps everyone smiling with appearances by team mascots Heater, Gem, and Blaze, and interactive contests. Fans might throw water balloons or race around the bases wearing colorful inner tubes to prove, without a doubt, that dignity is optional when a free T-shirt is on the line. Soon, everyone is standing for the seventh inning stretch and a rousing chorus of, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

No matter who wins at a Dragons game, every fan from 9 to 99 gets a gift: a couple of hours when the world seems lighter. It’s familiar, unhurried and somehow exactly where you need to be, even if it’s only for one summer evening.

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Debate is not conversation

In Education, Opinion, Politics, psychology, Uncategorized on June 14, 2026 at 9:08 am

Deer In Headlines

By Gery Deer

I have family members I can’t talk politics with. That’s not because they’re bad people, ignorant people, or people I don’t care about. They’re some of the smartest, hardest-working, most generous people I know. We’d help each other move furniture, fix a flat tire, or get through a family crisis without hesitation. But the moment politics enters the conversation, everything changes.

What makes it frustrating is that I’m usually not trying to change anyone’s mind. As a journalist, I’ve spent much of my career talking with people whose backgrounds, values, and beliefs differ from my own. I’ve interviewed politicians, activists, business owners, lobbyists, farmers, teachers, veterans, and everyday citizens from every imaginable perspective. My job was never to win an argument. It was to understand why people believed what they believed.

Unfortunately, that’s not always what happens around the dinner table anymore. Some people have become so hard-wired into their political identities that every discussion feels like a loyalty test. Questioning a policy suddenly becomes an attack on the tribe – or cult, depending on how you see it. Asking for clarification becomes immediate proof that you’re uninformed. Offering a different perspective becomes evidence that you’ve been misled. The conversation stops being about ideas and starts becoming about defending a team.

That’s the difference between a conversation and a debate. A conversation is an exploration. The goal is understanding. A debate is a competition. The goal is victory. Both have value in the right setting, but problems arise when people think they’re having one while participating in the other.

I’ve watched it happen countless times. Someone mentions a news story. Another person responds with an opinion. A third person offers a different interpretation. At first, everyone is simply exchanging thoughts. Then someone decides that understanding isn’t enough. Someone begins trying to prove another person wrong. The shift is subtle but unmistakable.

Questions disappear. Statements become sharper. Opinions are tossed in as facts, lobbed like verbal hand grenades. Listening becomes, well, nonexistent. Instead of learning something, people prepare rebuttals. Rather than consider another perspective, they look for weaknesses to exploit. The discussion has transformed from a conversation into a debate.

If no one recognizes what’s happening, the debate quickly deteriorates into an argument. That’s when voices rise, and interruptions begin. People assign motives rather than address ideas. You’ve probably heard the phrases before. “You only think that because…” or “You’re just saying that because…” Once those words enter the discussion, the original topic has pretty much vanished. The focus becomes defending pride, identity, and ego.

The irony is that arguments rarely – more like never – change minds but usually accomplish the opposite. The harder people push, the more firmly others cling to their existing beliefs. Nobody wants to feel cornered, embarrassed, or dismissed. Even when valid points are being made, they’re lost beneath the emotional weight of the conflict.

Some of the best conversations I’ve ever had ended with complete disagreement. Nobody switched sides. Nobody waved a white flag. Nobody declared victory. Yet both people walked away with a better understanding of how the other saw the world. That’s not failure. That’s success.

Understanding doesn’t require agreement. It doesn’t require compromise on deeply held principles. It simply requires that we recognize that intelligent people can reach different conclusions based on their experience. When we approach disagreement with curiosity instead of combativeness, we create opportunities to learn something new.

Communities depend on that ability. Families depend on it even more. If every disagreement becomes a contest, relationships eventually become casualties. People stop talking. Gatherings become tense. Entire subjects become off-limits because nobody trusts anyone else to listen.

The older I get, the less interested I am in winning debates. Winning is temporary. The satisfaction lasts about as long as the next disagreement. Understanding, however, has lasting value. It strengthens relationships, broadens perspectives, and creates opportunities for cooperation even when agreement remains impossible.

Disagreement is healthy. But what we need are fewer debates disguised as conversations. One builds bridges while the other draws battle lines. In the end, conversations create the possibility of resolution because people are working toward understanding. Debates create division because people are working toward victory. That’s a difference worth remembering.

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One Foot Out the Door

In Opinion, psychology, sociology, Uncategorized on June 14, 2026 at 9:01 am

Deer In Headlines

By Gery Deer

There’s a type of person most of us have encountered at some point in our lives, who always seemed to have one foot out the door, no matter what they were doing. Maybe they worked beside us. Maybe they were a friend, a family member, a coworker, or even a romantic partner. No matter where they showed up, they always seemed to be either not fully engaged or uncomfortable in a stable.

You know the type. They take a new job while quietly browsing openings for the next one. They join a club but never quite invest themselves in it. They enter relationships while keeping an eye on what else might be available. They volunteer, participate, contribute, and engage, but always with an invisible escape hatch nearby.

At first glance, it can look like independence. Sometimes it’s even mistaken for ambition. In certain situations, it may be both. But there’s often something else happening underneath. Commitment requires vulnerability.

To fully commit to anything, a career, a marriage, a friendship, a community organization, a creative project, or even a personal goal, means accepting uncertainty. It means risking disappointment. It means investing time, energy, emotion, and effort with no guarantee of a rewarding outcome.

For some, the risk feels unbearable. Instead, they remain halfway committed and keep their options open. They avoid becoming too attached, and if things go wrong, they weren’t “all in” from the start. Sadly, however, life rarely rewards partial investment.

A person who constantly keeps one foot out the exit often experiences only a fraction of what commitment can offer. Relationships remain shallow because trust requires consistency. Careers stall because advancement usually belongs to those willing to stay long enough to build expertise and credibility. Community involvement becomes transactional instead of meaningful because real impact takes time. I’ve seen this countless times in professional settings.

Someone joins a team and immediately starts talking about what comes next. Before they have learned the job, they are planning their departure. Before relationships can blossom at all, these types of individuals are looking for better opportunities. Before contributing anything substantial, they evaluate whether the commitment is worth their time.

All things considered, though, sometimes a change is actually necessary. Not every job deserves loyalty. Not every relationship should continue. Not every organization is healthy. Leaving can be the right decision. But there is a difference between recognizing a bad fit and living with your track shoes already laced up. One is discernment. The other is avoidance.

What fascinates me is how often people with one foot out the door believe they are protecting themselves. In reality, they may be protecting themselves from success as much as failure.

Commitment creates opportunities that are impossible with casual participation. The strongest connections are built through years of presence – showing up. The most rewarding careers are often shaped by persistence through difficult seasons. Creative accomplishments emerge from projects that survive frustration, boredom, setbacks, and self-doubt.

None of those things happens if we leave as soon as the initial excitement wears off. The older I get, the more I appreciate people who stay. I’m not referring to those who leave a bad situation or suffer abuse or dysfunction. I mean, people who stay long enough to make a difference. People who keep showing up after the novelty disappears. People who honor commitments when doing so becomes inconvenient. Those are the people who build businesses, strengthen families, sustain friendships, support communities, and create legacies.

They understand something important. Commitment is not a feeling. It is a decision repeated over and over again. Some days that decision feels easy. Other days it feels like work. Most worthwhile things eventually require us to continue long after the excitement fades.

Maybe that’s why people with one foot out the door often seem restless. They spend so much energy preparing for the next thing that they never fully experience the thing right in front of them.

Life is not lived in the exits. It happens while staying. And sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is stop looking for the door, plant both feet firmly where we are, and see what becomes possible when we finally settle in. Be present. Engage and commit.

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The Membership Fee

In Opinion, Politics, psychology, Uncategorized on June 14, 2026 at 8:56 am

Deer In Headlines

By Gery Deer

I have never been especially good at joining things. That probably sounds strange coming from someone who has spent years involved in community organizations, networking groups, and professional associations. It is not that I dislike people. I actually enjoy being around thoughtful, interesting people. What has always made me uneasy is the moment when participation quietly becomes conformity.

There always seems to be a point at which a group stops being about shared purpose and becomes about directed thinking. That is where my internal alarm system usually kicks on. Maybe that says something about me and even more about human nature.

People join things because belonging feels good. It always has. Human beings are tribal creatures. Thousands of years ago, being accepted by the tribe meant protection, food, and survival. Being rejected often meant death. That instinct never really disappeared. It just evolved. Today, we join political parties, churches, online communities, fandoms, networking groups, social movements, and fitness cultures. We’re still for connection, identity, and the comfort of knowing we belong somewhere.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Civilization itself depends on cooperation. In fact, some of the best experiences in life come from being part of something larger than us. Healthy groups can encourage people, support families during difficult times, create lifelong friendships, and accomplish meaningful things that no individual could achieve alone.

But every group has a culture, and culture shapes behavior. Sometimes that shaping is positive. Sometimes it becomes something else entirely.

Over the years, I have noticed that many organizations, movements, and belief systems eventually develop an unspoken expectation. You are not just encouraged to participate. You are expected to align. Certain opinions become mandatory. Certain phrases become part of the language. Certain viewpoints become untouchable. Once that happens, disagreement starts being treated less like conversation and more like disloyalty.

That tendency exists everywhere. Politics may be the clearest example right now. People increasingly behave less like citizens with opinions and more like extreme sports fans defending a team. Once someone puts on the jersey, every mistake by their side gets explained away while every mistake by the other side becomes proof of evil, corruption, or stupidity.

Religion can often fall into the same trap. So can activism. So can corporations. Social media communities do it constantly. Even harmless hobbies sometimes develop their own strange culture where questioning the accepted thinking feels like breaking some unwritten law.

And the internet has poured gasoline on all of it. Social media rewards unqualified certainty, outrage, and extremist tribal behavior. Algorithms do not care whether people are thoughtful. Algorithms operate from engagement. Anger and hateful sentiments always spread faster than kindness or nuance. Slogans travel farther than complicated ideas. The loudest voices usually rise to the top, while quieter, more thoughtful conversations fade into the background.

What worries me is how easily intelligent people can start outsourcing their thinking to the groups they belong to. History is filled with examples of otherwise reasonable people following movements, leaders, and ideologies far beyond the point where common sense should have applied the brakes.

That is the real danger of drinking the Kool-Aid. It usually does not happen all at once. Most people do not wake up one morning and decide to stop thinking for themselves. It happens slowly. A little compromise here. A little silence there. Before long, people are defending things they would have questioned a few years earlier simply because the group expects them to.

Still, there is another side to this conversation. A person who refuses to join anything at all can become isolated, cynical, and disconnected from the world around them. Independence is healthy. Isolation is not. It is easy to stand outside every system and criticize the people inside it. It is much harder to participate while still maintaining your critical thinking and the ability to ask uncomfortable questions.

Maybe that is the balance we should aim for. Join things. Build community. Support causes. Believe in something larger than yourself. Just do not hand over your mind in exchange for membership. A healthy group should never require you to stop being an individual in order to belong.

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Rising AI Addiction

In Opinion, sociology, Technology, Uncategorized on June 14, 2026 at 8:48 am

Deer In Headlines

By Gery Deer

A few years ago, people worried that artificial intelligence would eventually replace human workers. Today, another possibility is emerging, and it may arrive long before robot uprisings or mass unemployment. More and more people are becoming emotionally and psychologically dependent on AI systems that never sleep, never argue, never get bored, and never stop responding.

That dependence does not always look dramatic. It rarely begins with obsession. It starts innocently, usually disguised as productivity or curiosity. Someone asks an AI chatbot to summarize an article. Then they ask it to explain a difficult topic. Soon, they are discussing politics, relationships, career frustrations, or private fears with software designed to keep conversations going as long as possible. Hours disappear.

People increasingly report losing track of time while interacting with AI tools. A quick question becomes an evening of conversation. A work assignment turns into endless prompt refinement. Students claim they are researching while actually drifting through AI-generated distractions that feel productive without accomplishing much. The machine always has another answer, another idea, another response waiting instantly. Human beings have never encountered technology quite like this.

Television entertained audiences. Social media captured attention. Smartphones made distraction portable. Artificial intelligence combines all of those features while adding something far more powerful: interaction. AI responds directly to emotions, language, interests, and insecurities. It creates the illusion that someone is listening carefully, even when no actual understanding exists behind the screen.

That illusion matters because people are wired to seek validation, reassurance, and escape from discomfort. AI delivers all three immediately. Feeling lonely? The chatbot responds warmly. Feeling insecure? The chatbot encourages you. Feeling overwhelmed? The chatbot simplifies complicated decisions. Real human relationships require patience, compromise, and emotional effort. AI companions require almost nothing. For some users, that convenience can quietly become dependency.

Teenagers may be especially vulnerable because their social identities are still developing. Adults facing isolation, anxiety, or depression may also find AI interaction easier than navigating difficult human relationships. Employees working remotely can spend entire days communicating more with machines than with coworkers. Over time, the distinction between healthy use and compulsive reliance becomes increasingly blurred. There is another concern receiving far less public attention: the erosion of silence and reflection.

For generations, boredom served an important psychological purpose. Quiet moments allowed people to process emotions, reflect on problems, and develop independent thoughts. Waiting rooms, walks, and long drives once provided mental breathing space. Today, every pause can instantly be filled with AI interaction. Questions no longer remain unanswered. Uncertainty no longer lingers. The machine is always available to entertain, reassure, or distract. That may sound harmless, but constant stimulation changes behavior.

Researchers already know excessive social media use can affect sleep, attention spans, anxiety levels, and emotional health. Artificial intelligence could intensify those effects because it feels personal. Unlike scrolling through videos or reading random posts, AI systems simulate conversation and emotional engagement. They can mirror language patterns, reinforce beliefs, and encourage users to continue interacting. The long-term consequences remain largely unknown.

That uncertainty alone should concern parents, educators, employers, and policymakers. Society embraced social media long before understanding its psychological impact, particularly on younger users. By the time researchers recognized the extent of the damage, billions of people had already integrated those platforms into daily life. Artificial intelligence is advancing even faster, while public understanding remains dangerously limited.

None of this means AI should be feared or rejected entirely. Artificial intelligence can improve medical research, education, accessibility, and workplace efficiency. Used responsibly, it can become a valuable tool. The problem begins when tools evolve into substitutes for attention, relationships, creativity, or emotional resilience.

People should begin setting boundaries now rather than wait for future studies to confirm the obvious. Limiting recreational AI use, protecting device-free time, encouraging in-person relationships, and teaching digital self-awareness may become essential habits in the years ahead.

The greatest danger may not be that artificial intelligence becomes more human. It may be that humans gradually become less connected, less reflective, and less able to exist without constant digital reinforcement. Such existence diminishes us. Getting lost in a digital world only makes the real one harder to deal with if and when you ever come out of it.

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Four Stars Is Enough

In Local News, Opinion, Uncategorized on May 3, 2026 at 11:35 am

Deer In Headlines
By Gery Deer

Modern society has developed a strange habit of seeking approval from people who often have no stake, no expertise, and no genuine interest in what they are judging. We have turned everyday life into a performance staged for an invisible audience armed with star ratings and comment boxes. The irony is that most of the people who hand out these ratings are just as unqualified as those receiving them, yet we treat their opinions as if they were carved into stone.

Somewhere along the way, we decided that five stars should be the goal, the standard, and the measure of a life well lived. But five stars is a fantasy. Real life is messy, inconsistent, and rarely perfect, no matter how carefully we curate it for public consumption. And yet, we chase that perfect rating as if it will unlock some hidden validation that finally tells us we are enough.

The truth is far less dramatic. You can earn five stars online and still feel empty the moment the notification fades. Nothing about your actual life changes because someone you will never meet clicked a rating on a screen. We have mistaken attention for value and validation for truth.

If you step back for a moment, it becomes clear how absurd it all is. Why are we letting strangers—whose only qualification is a profile picture and a scrolling thumb—decide how we feel about ourselves? The answer is uncomfortable: because we have built systems that reward approval over authenticity. And once approval becomes the currency, we stop asking whether it is worth anything.

Perhaps the healthier standard is not perfection, but sufficiency. A four-star life acknowledges effort, imperfection, growth, and honesty without demanding applause from people who do not know the work behind the scenes. In the end, maybe four stars is not a compromise, but a liberation—a reminder that our worth is not determined by strangers tapping glass. It is determined by how we show up when no one is watching, by how we treat others in quiet moments, and by whether we can look at ourselves with honest acceptance.

The obsession with public approval has turned many lives into performances instead of experiences. We post instead of living, we curate instead of connecting, and we measure instead of finding meaning. There is a quiet relief in deciding that enough is enough—that not every moment needs applause, not every effort needs validation, and not every choice needs a rating.

Life becomes lighter when we stop outsourcing our self-worth to algorithms and anonymous judges. The most honest score we will ever receive is the one we give ourselves after reflection. And that score does not need to be perfect to be meaningful.

So instead of chasing five stars, maybe we should aim for something far more human: consistency, kindness, effort, and integrity. Those are harder to rate, but easier to live with. When we strip away the noise of online approval, we often find that what matters has been in front of us all along—a quiet life, well lived, not perfectly, but honestly.

That is the real measure, not stars or likes, but substance. And substance does not require applause to exist. If we can accept that truth, we free ourselves from an exhausting pursuit of approval that never truly satisfies, and we return to something steadier, more grounded, and far more real: a life measured not by strangers, but by our own honest standards.

In that space, four stars is not a downgrade, but clarity. Clarity that we are allowed to be imperfect and still be whole. The world will continue to rate everything it sees, but we do not have to participate in every judgment.

We can choose instead to live beyond the rating system and rediscover what it means to be enough without external confirmation. That choice is quiet, but powerful, and it begins when we finally stop asking strangers for permission to be ourselves.

We can live more freely when we decide that our value is not a public vote, but a private truth built from daily actions, intentions, and quiet integrity—beyond the screen and beyond the noise of judgment itself.

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What Grounds You?

In Local News, Opinion, Uncategorized on May 3, 2026 at 11:27 am

Deer In Headlines
By Gery Deer

In a world that never stops talking, the hardest thing to do is listen for silence. We scroll, swipe, click, and chase, convinced the next notification might carry something essential. Most of the time, it doesn’t. It just adds another layer of noise to an already crowded headspace, another reason to forget where we are standing and who we were before the noise found us.

That is why the question matters: what grounds you? Not in some abstract, self-help sense, but in the real, tactile way that keeps your feet planted when everything else feels like it is spinning. Grounding is not a trend. It is a tether. It is the quiet, stubborn force that keeps you from drifting too far into anxiety, ambition, or the endless churn of digital life.

I have come to believe that grounding lives in the senses. It is the weight of something familiar in your hands, the sound of a rhythm you have known for years, the smell that pulls you backward through time without asking permission. It is not complicated, and that is precisely why we overlook it. We are trained to chase what is new, not what is true.

For me, those anchors are unapologetically analog. There is the click of a typewriter key, sharp and deliberate, a sound that refuses to be rushed. There is the feel of bicycle handlebars steady under my grip, reminding me that forward motion does not require a screen. And there is an old truck, a 1967 International Harvester grain truck, that answers to the name Serenity.

Serenity is not subtle. It is steel and wood and history, the kind of machine that demands your attention simply by existing. But for me, it carries something quieter. It carries the low thrum of an engine from childhood, the memory of time spent beside my father, learning without realizing I was learning. It carries the echo of music played with family, the shared language of rhythm and repetition.

In that way, the truck is more than an object. It is a bridge. It connects who I was to who I am, and it does so without asking for an update or a password. It simply exists, waiting patiently, ready to remind me that not everything meaningful needs to be optimized, digitized, or shared.

I suspect we all have something like that, even if we have not named it yet. Maybe it is the smell of coffee brewing before dawn, or the steady weight of a dog settling into your lap at the end of a long day. Maybe it is a song that hits the same way every time, no matter how many years pass.

The problem is not that these things are hard to find. The problem is that we are rarely still long enough to notice them. The world benefits from our distraction. It profits from our attention being constantly pulled somewhere else. Stillness, on the other hand, does not monetize well. It does not trend. It simply works.

When the noise gets loud, and it will, those anchors matter. They give us a place to return to, a baseline that reminds us we are more than our inboxes and timelines. They pull us back into our bodies, into the present moment, into something real. Without them, it is far too easy to drift, to lose the thread of ourselves in the endless scroll.

So ask yourself the question and answer it honestly. What is your tether? What is the thing that keeps you here when everything else tries to carry you away? Find it. Name it. Keep it close. Because when the storm comes, and it always does, you will need to know exactly what holds you to the ground.

In the end, grounding is not about escaping the modern world. It is about surviving it with your sense of self intact. It is about choosing, again and again, to return to what is real, even when what is real feels quieter than the noise. That choice may be small, even invisible to anyone else, but it is powerful. It is the difference between being carried along and standing firm.

Hold on to it, always.

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Are you present, or performing?

In Opinion, psychology, sociology on March 15, 2026 at 5:08 pm

Deer in Headlines

By Gery Deer

Most of us spend our days performing. Not acting in the theatrical sense—no stage lights, no applause—but performing, nonetheless. We perform competence at work, patience in traffic, and happiness on social media. By the time evening rolls around, many of us deliver a full day’s worth of lines with little meaning.

Think about your own morning. You check email while eating breakfast. Are you tasting your coffee, or just swallowing it? That small moment may hold the difference between performing life and actually living it.

Performing is when you do something because the deadline is first thing tomorrow and someone expects a result. Presence is when you do something because you noticed something that refuses to leave you alone—like the barista who always draws a careful leaf in the foam even though almost nobody looks.

For most people, the gap is subtle. It’s the difference between doing the thing and the thing having you. You can move through an entire day answering emails, making small talk, nodding in meetings, checking boxes—and never actually be there.

Presence sneaks up on you differently. It’s the moment you stop mid-sentence because you heard a bird outside and realize you haven’t listened to anything but noise all week. It’s noticing the weight of a conversation instead of rehearsing your reply while the other person is still talking.

Social media has turned performance into a sickening staple. We curate our moods, polish our opinions, crop the messy edges out of real life until what we share is more like the reflection of ourselves in a funhouse mirror. The result is a strange pressure to appear more together, more informed, more inspired than we actually feel.

There is a place for performance. Teachers perform to hold the attention of their students. Leaders perform to steady a room. Writers, speakers, even columnists perform a little to shape chaos into something readable.

But performance was never meant to replace presence. When the show never ends, we start losing small human signals: the pause before someone tells the truth, the tired look behind a joke, the quiet satisfaction of finishing something that mattered.

The cost of such nonstop performance is exhaustion. Not the dramatic burnout people post about online, but the quieter fatigue that comes from always being slightly on stage. You measure your reactions, edit your sentences, and move through the day as if someone might be evaluating you.

Presence, by contrast, is disarmingly simple. It begins with that moment when you realize you’re just running the script. But you can change that. 

Maybe slow down long enough to taste the coffee or look up when someone speaks instead of nodding while staring mindlessly phone. Maybe step outside and notice the weather or the graffiti on the bakery wall.

None of this will make you more impressive, build a personal brand or make a post go viral. What it might do is return you to your own life.

Presence can steady people. It lowers the noise enough to notice what actually needs your attention—a hard conversation, a good idea, a tired friend, a quiet, ordinary moment that would otherwise pass unnoticed.

And strangely, the more present you become, the less life feels like something you have to manage. Problems are still there, deadlines still exist, but being human was never supposed to be a full-time performance.

It was supposed to be lived in small attentive pieces: a conversation where you are fully engaged, a walk where you notice the season changing, a calm moment where your mind is not rehearsing tomorrow.

The challenge is not abandoning performance entirely. Sometimes the job requires it. Sometimes some of your day requires polish and composure.

The real trick is remembering to step off the stage when the moment passes. Look up from the script. Listen for the bird outside the window. Taste the coffee while it is still warm.

Because the goal was never to perform your way through life. The goal is to actually be there while it happens. And if you catch yourself mid-performance today, that pause might be the most honest moment of the day. Stay for it even if nothing else changes.

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Only at this table.

In Opinion, Uncategorized on March 6, 2026 at 11:20 pm

Deer In Headlines

By Gery Deer

It was late evening at a hotel restaurant in Washington, D.C. Most of the restaurant crowd were either deep in their own discussions or had eyes glued to televisions broadcasting college basketball. And there we were. A handful of adults who were born with or a parent of someone with bladder exstrophy, all of us in town as patient advocates preparing to take on Congress. 

We laughed and talked, as burgers, salads and something fried occupied most of the real estate between us. Someone had to move a basket of fries so we could make room for desserts and more drinks.

On the surface, we didn’t look so different from anyone else in the room. Just another group decompressing after a long day. But the conversation? That could have only happened there. Only at this table.

Bladder exstrophy is rare – very rare. So, when you’re born with a condition that requires extensive surgery – or surgeries – and lifelong management, there are very few who can relate. Explaining it often brings sighs of pity, confused expressions, and a host of questions. 

At this table, there was none of that. We didn’t have to define the anatomy. We didn’t have to summarize childhood surgical histories or explain why insurance preauthorization feels less like paperwork and more like gladiator combat. We could start mid-story.

We compared hospital experiences the way other people compare hometowns. We talked about the benefits and challenges of living with something so unusual it was often hard to explain, even to those closest to us.

That shared experience can lead to its own sort of verbal shorthand. It strips away the introductory chapter and drops you straight into the middle of the book. And shared experiences from birth? There’s no need to tiptoe around things, perform bravery or package vulnerability in tidy language. You can be direct. You can be specific. You can be understood.

There was a moment — and I won’t detail it, because some conversations belong only to those who were present — when the tone softened. Someone shared a memory from adolescence, a time when feeling different felt especially sharp. No one rushed to fix it. No one offered a motivational poster response. Instead, there was safety in letting go, in the expression of feelings and thoughts that only others like us could understand.

It manifests as a shared laugh, or a look, or a nod. It’s not dramatic. It doesn’t require a spotlight. It’s a quiet acknowledgment that says, “Yeah, I know.”

Every community has a version of this table. Veterans find it with other veterans. Cancer survivors with survivors. Parents of children with complex needs with others who speak that language fluently. I experience it whenever I talk to those who have cared for elderly parents. Even journalists have our own version — around a busy lunch counter or late dinner table, arguing about headlines.

The table isn’t about exclusivity. It’s about the rare and deeply emotional relief of not having to translate your life for someone else, and timing matters.

We weren’t children navigating surgeries for the first time. We were adults who had built careers, relationships and resilience. We had come to Washington to advocate, to push for better systems. That context shaped the conversation. 

We were recounting the past, but also connecting it to the future. Even more incredible to me was the fact that the congenital flaw that made us the objects of both fascination and ridicule as children was now quite literally our superpower. It was what brought us to Capitol Hill to help others – because we can. 

When we finally stood up, games still flickering on the screens and the crowd still rumbling, I looked at that table and felt the weight of its ordinariness. It was just wood and silverware and a stack of dishes.

But for a couple of hours one evening, amid basketball fans and bar noise, it was something far more. It was a place where five people shared something unique to them – an understanding. No, it was more than that. It was something as rare as the condition that we shared, but as unique as each one of us. But only at this table.

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Jamestown Advocate Takes Urological Care Concerns to Capitol Hill

In Business, Environment, Health, Uncategorized on March 6, 2026 at 11:02 pm

JAMESTOWN – Greene County journalist and communications professional Gery Deer joined more than 300 physicians and patient advocates in Washington in February to press federal lawmakers on policies that directly affect access to urological care in Ohio and across the country.

Deer served on one of two Ohio delegations to the 2026 American Urological Association’s Annual Urology Advocacy Summit, held the week of Feb. 22 in Washington, D.C. He represented patients as a member of the Association for the Bladder Exstrophy Community’s Adult Patient Advisory Council.

The summit is designed to bring the voice of the specialty, and the patients it serves, directly to federal lawmakers — creating a bridge between medicine and policy. Over four days, physician and patient advocates receive briefings on pending legislation, reimbursement policy and insurance practices that shape how — and whether — patients can obtain urological treatment.

Here are both AUA Ohio delegations after a meeting at the office of U.S. Senator Jon Husted (R, OH-13). L to R – Urologists, Dr. Michael Bacchus (OSUMC), Dr. Scott Lundy (Cleveland Clinic), Dr. Kyle Kopechek (OSUMC), patient advocate Gery Deer (A-BE-C APAC), Dr. Bradley Gill (Cleveland Clinic), and Dr. Michael Sourial (OSUMC).

For communities in Greene County and the broader Miami Valley, those discussions are not abstract. Federal decisions about Medicare reimbursement, prior authorization and insurance oversight often determine how quickly patients can see specialists, whether recommended procedures are approved and how long physicians can continue offering certain services.

The Association for the Bladder Exstrophy Community is a global organization supporting patients and families affected by bladder exstrophy, a congenital urological condition that occurs in about one in every 50,000 births in the United States and worldwide. Deer, owner and creative director of GLD Communications, is one of eight patient advocates serving on the national council and chairs its communications efforts.

The council was formed three years ago by Kimberly Allen and Thomas Vincent of Seattle, both bladder exstrophy patients who saw gaps in long-term support for adults living with the rare condition. Since its founding, the group has developed an adult patient provider list, hosted physician-led webinars and organized patient-centered focus groups.

Participation in the AUA summit allows the organization to connect directly with urologists from around the country and to collaborate on legislation aimed at improving patient care. For Deer, the policy debate over insurance preauthorization stood out as especially urgent.

“Of all the legislation we were discussing with congressional representatives, insurance preauthorization was most important to me,” Deer said. “Bladder exstrophy presents a unique set of lifelong conditions and symptoms that rarely line up with those established within the narrow and often inaccurate coverage guidelines of insurance providers.”

Prior authorization — the requirement that physicians obtain insurer approval before certain treatments or procedures — has become a flashpoint in specialty care. Supporters say it helps control costs and prevent unnecessary procedures. Critics, including many physicians, argue it can delay care and override clinical judgment.

Deer said that during the summit he was surrounded by more than 300 of the nation’s leading urologists. Of those, only about 10 percent have treated or even met a bladder exstrophy patient, underscoring how specialized and rare the condition is.

At an invitation-only insurance roundtable attended by roughly 60 participants, Deer raised concerns about who ultimately decides what care is appropriate. Speaking as a patient advocate, he asked, “If these highly qualified physicians wouldn’t have the skills needed to treat someone like me, how is it remotely possible that an AI program or part time medical advisor would be capable of deciding what treatments are necessary and appropriate?”

He continued: “Urologists willing to treat a bladder exstrophy patient take on a long-term commitment and should have the final say in what treatments are necessary. Insurance companies, however, often disagree.”

For patients in southwestern Ohio, including those treated at major centers such as Cleveland Clinic, those disagreements can translate into delayed surgeries, postponed follow-up appointments or denied procedures. Physicians must devote additional staff time to appeals and documentation, while patients navigate uncertainty about whether recommended care will be covered.

Preauthorization remains a significant barrier in complex, lifelong conditions, Deer said, and he believes the issue extends far beyond rare diagnoses. Patients with cancer, kidney disease and other urological disorders may also face treatment delays tied to insurer review processes.

On Feb. 24, Deer and fellow members of the Ohio delegation met with congressional offices representing their home districts. The group included Dr. Scott Lundy and Dr. Bradley Gill of Cleveland Clinic, along with Hill guide Mykelle Richburg. They met with representatives of Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted and Reps. Max Miller and Shontel Brown. The office of Rep. Mike Turner declined a meeting.