The concept of TextEdit is its simplicity ... How to bypass it making me think about whether I want to open a new doc or an old one?

Thank you so much @dialabrain!!! That solved my question ... Of course, it hadn't occurred to me that this might be due to the default "save to iCloud" component on my husband's computer... (On my own laptop, now sadly R.I.P., I had TextEdit in Dock and all my preferences set up "just so" ...) I'll also check out Notes, @Yer_Man, although it's always seemed too HIGH friction for me, HAHAHA, (great word, btw ...) Thanks all.

I'm sorry QTKirk, I'm not sure what you mean ... What I have usually done (in the past) is go to the top-right corner and start typing "Te..." in the Search feature there (Is it called 'Spotlight'?) As soon as there are enough letters to open "TextEdit" (and not some other random thing beginning with 'T'), I (typically used to) hit 'Enter' and a new TextEdit Window would appear, ready to write in.

What happens now — for me anyway, and I surmise for others too, since I am reactivating an inconclusive thread where other people had the same question — is that instead of that new window, TextEdit "opens", but its 1st question(s) to the user are of an organisational nature, and not why they may have quickly opened TextEdit, say (and not Word or email or Pages, to name just a few ...), in the first place:

"What kind of document do you want (new or old)? Where do you want to save it? ["Egad! I can see my whole folder architecture there ... No thanks: I just want to work with no distractions right now .."]"

Thanks if you have any thoughts on how to circumvent this new 'feature'.