Thank you so much for your feedback on my Policy of Spite piece and sharing your work with me. This is a richly interesting and provocative review. (Aside, I have had a draft squirreled away here that is initially built upon the "dog-eat-dog world" expression. Weird, huh?)

First, let me admit that I am a product of a 20th century American middle class liberal public education and the full extent of my personal relationship with the scientific method is probably journalism, which I approach as a discipline that is taught and learned. Of course, all writing is a discipline but, where literature strives to creatively plumb the depths of life's truths, the end result in news reporting is a presentation of facts to enlighten consumers about matters of public policy and socio-political events (also sports and weather) in order to be solid citizens in an informed electorate. News reporting is mechanical, with proverbial nuts and bolts from the who, what, where, when, why and how of a lede/lead paragraph to quotes from primary sources and public record testimonies and data that support or refute the elements of disparate accounts within a developing story. Reporters are (hopefully) trained to be rigidly skeptical of their own biases. Like the informal motto of the old City News Bureau put it, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."

Clearly, what I do here on Medium is not journalism. However, I like to believe that whatever I wear on my sleeve is the product of my own spotty journalistic career that started in college, stopped when I got more professional traction in the fields of market research and industrial video production until circumstances not entirely in my control compelled a return to journalism after some 26 years between bylines. And now I'm suddenly a very lucky 60 year old man.

My experience has taught me that we are all limited by perspective, objectivity is an existential ideal and we are all each perpetually navigating our lives while sketching our very own cognitive map on the fly. We just don't all take the journey as seriously as we could.