The Queen is dead. Long live the King. King Charles III succeeds Queen Elizabeth II as I type this after the unfortunate news of her majesty’s passing. I wonder what kind of king he will be. His choice of his name, Charles, is a loaded one with quite an implication, and he may be less conflict adverse than his mother.
I’m still in vacation mode. I think it’s been a couple of years now, but I’m at least acknowledging that I am not working on anything really besides my own peace outside of my dayjobs.
All of my projects are going stale, so, I’ll need to get with it soon, as much as I’m enjoying the downtime and balance that comes with being so unfocused or absent outside of some remote leadership courses at Harvard that I’m taking for fun.
I am still feeling quite directionless. I have found strength for the sake of strength, mind for the sake of mind, and money for the sake of money. It certainly could be worse, and is nothing to regret, but, I am finding myself often coming to deliberations about who I really want to be, and how I want to be that person. I’ve run out of personal aspirations. I am ready and eager to build, and rebuild — yet do not know in some ways what it is that I wish to build at the moment. I’m not talking about tech. I’m talking about soul.
I am also becoming more aware of opportunity costs in this decision: I am approaching my 40’s, and what I spend my time doing will decide other things I can do later.
Then there’s the consideration of legacy. At some point in a person’s life, usually later than earlier, the potential of what you could be gives way to the history of what you have been.
Looking back at how it all started, with my younger shipwrecked self on an unforgiving shore after being tossed and drowned by the cold waves and winds of life so thoroughly, I have come so far in rebuilding already — with very little help available, even when I very much needed it. It is unlikely that I can ever be in that place again. I have become no Count of Monte Cristo as of yet, but, we don’t really do those here, and, in our times, the roles we play in life often shift around too quickly for our stories to be worth telling.
Since COVID-19 hit, I have been working from home for my jobs. This has had a progressively damaging impact on my daily routine for many reasons and in many ways. So, I have started exercising again and am already showing some results, and I have committed to recreating my daily routine to something more effective. I am losing too much productivity to poor time management and shitty sleeping habits.
I have also committed to a more consistent cleaning routine. As a systems and software person who does spend a great deal of time in front of a screen, it can become easy to neglect your household, and, the state of your house has a huge impact on how you live. I am messy and naturally disorganized, so I particularly have to keep it in attention. Even if it’s 20 minutes a day, and you can’t program yourself to clean as you go (I know some people who have done this, I have never been able to), then just dedicate 20 minutes a day to shut off all those other threads of thought and clean something in your house. It makes a huge difference. If you are like me, and you are just not good at cleaning, it is absolutely essential to good living in my opinion. Sometimes I forget to clean something or get distracted and then realize I really, really need to. Messes make worse messes over time if you don’t clean them. I know alot of tech people who don’t factor that in, and I wouldn’t eat at their houses.
I suppose this is what life without a moral battle is like. What’s next?