Ready for dialogue, regardless of the forum

A few weeks ago, I disappeared from your copy of View, sitting weekly in your mailbox or in your driveway. Poof! I was gone. I was relocated to View online.

From hence, this is where I’ll be answering reader questions. Continuing the dialogue. Enjoying the give and take of thoughtful, keen rejoinder. Dodging and ducking the unhappy vitriol of readers … uh, not quite as thoughtful. From here I hope you will continue to write, to risk your questions, so that together we can talk, think, reach, struggle and find.

Can you find me? Have you found me? If you’re reading this, then, of course, you have found me. You found lvrj.com/view, and then you cursored down a bit and found, in the middle of the page, a box titled "columnists." With a little cyber-spelunking, cursoring and clicking, you discovered that the columns called "Human Matters" are my recent Sunday columns, still published in the Living section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. By deduction, then, you figured out that my question-and-answer column, erstwhile in your driveway, is titled "Steven Kalas." You clicked it. You found me. Allee, allee, all come free!

It was a cyber-hazing. Thank you for enduring. Especially since, if the tsunami of letters I received was any indication, you folks were none too happy about the change.

Like you, I’m a dinosaur. I like the feel of a book in my hands. The rustle of a newspaper’s turning pages. The smell of newsprint. Give me a Mojave Desert sunrise, the Sunday paper, my back porch and my Aussie shepherd, and I’m in heaven. It’s just not the same leaning into a computer flat screen, coffee in my left hand, computer mouse in the other.

I see more and more and more Kindles — those e-book devices that download newspapers, magazines and books from the clouds. You turn pages by brushing your finger over a flat screen. You can set the size of the print. You can even tell the Kindle to read the book aloud to you, in a male or female voice.

Me? I’m holding out getting a Kindle until they produce a version that can read aloud to me in my mom’s voice. Now that would be a wonderful way to fall asleep!

Yep, the world it be a’changing. And, like most changes, there are upsides and downsides. On the one hand, I correspond with a Hindu guru who found my column online in Bombay! How fun is that! On the other hand, it will be harder to find authors, writers, songwriters, etc., because everyone has a blog. Anyone can produce a song with a home computer studio. Everyone has something to say and a forum in which to say it. As film director George Romero says, "At some point, it all becomes just noise."

So, when I say, "Thank you for enduring," I’m not being coy. I mean it. My column is a dialogue, not a monologue. I’m thinking out loud with you. I’m saying that, without you, it’s all an exercise in self-absorption.

Please find me, so that I can find you. And please keep asking me the questions that intrigue you, confound you, cast you in dilemmas of suffering or inspirations of mystery. I truly have zero investment in whether you and I agree or disagree. What I care about is critical thinking. Indeed, I can receive no higher compliment than, "You made me think."

Thank you, Loyal Reader, for your loyalty. In return, you shall have my faithfulness. I will dig deep. I will tell truth as I know the truth. I won’t mince words. I won’t dance. I shan’t be unkind, but neither will I be necessarily flowery.

I feel lucky to have this job at all. And because I feel lucky, I feel grateful. That is, not entitled. So, for as long as I have this forum, I will give you my best.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns also appear on Sundays in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.