Everything Under the Sun

Life is full of truisms, universal truths; things that we all observe and notice. Often, things come full circle. They swing. It's an age-old piece of wisdom, that to do wrong by someone is digging two graves, one for you and one for them. Or put more bluntly, things come back to bite you in the ass. Good things also work this way. Pay it forward. Reap what you sow. These proverbial bits of wisdom are no accident. Life is phasic, it's littered with sagas or stages. Most people go through similar stages in life. We can live vicariously through each other indeed. We recognize epochs in our own life and we recognize them in society. You often see this with parents and their children. In my own life, my father was voted "most attractive" in high school. He taught me how to weightlift when I was little. He developed an incurable disease. Years later I was also given the same superlative, I taught others how to weightlift, and I developed the same incurable disease. Call it...

Life is complicating. All around us systems, technology, infrastructure, even day to day life are complicating before our eyes. Time is scarce, the most common response to "hey how are you," is "busy." Progress is complicated. We're in the midst of a devolution of authenticity .  Systems complicate over time naturally, and we can use entropy as a baseline. But we can be more precise in our analysis of this complication when looking through the lens of knowledge and technology. Technology isn't simplifying it's getting more complicated. The solutions are more derived. Institutions follow the same trend. They get more complicated over time. Think about the modern house. In it exists modems, routers, charging ports, solar roofing panels, smart Tv's, security systems, and a host of appliances, most of which didn't exist just 50 years ago. Think about the tax code and our government. Laws passed nowadays operate through 100 or so beauacracies. The bil...

I do not believe my life to be exceptional or abnormal. Conscious life itself is incomprehensibly rare. In this way, any life led is abnormal and any path taken, exceptional. I do believe that which has separated me the most, given me the slightest fraction of divergence from my peers, are the following behaviors and characteristics: my tendency to be hyper-reflective, even to a fault, hyper-introspective, even given the consequences, and prolific with the recording of memories and thoughts in written form, during extensive durations of experience and maturity. 

I'm grateful for having two parents  I'm grateful for the sacrifices of my parents  I'm grateful for a stable and powerful brain I'm grateful for a solid work ethic I'm grateful for natural ability I'm grateful for physical capability  I'm grateful for knowledge passed to me I'm grateful for engaged coaches I'm grateful for powerful teachers  I'm grateful for the blessing of America I'm grateful for entertaining movies  I'm grateful for thoughtful books I'm grateful for good friends I'm grateful for being able to travel  I'm grateful for my financial stability  I'm grateful for my fortunate experiences I'm grateful for my unfortunate experiences  I'm grateful for my two brothers  I'm grateful for my complete childhood I'm grateful for my disease I'm grateful for my newly stable health I'm grateful for my capacity to love I'm grateful for my past love  I'm grateful for individuals with skill ...

I’ve awoken on the wrong side of the bed. Last night, a dream surfaced memories I’d locked away in a shed. And like a hydra, they reared their ugly heads. I look over at the empty spot that was once her stead.  And I remember the morning light that would make her hair look red.  A realization: I mourn the loss of who she was more than the relationship instead.  But nonetheless, it’s difficult to forget.  She’d lay right there, this girl I thought I’d wed.  And between us, a sea of truths left unsaid.  Like a horse to the water, I was led. A storm formed, a lie at the eye, calm, but deception it was fed. The words ring true, “Man does not live by just bread”. And though knowledge of the truth I may dread, I’m drowning in this sea, if I wish to survive, I must tread.  The truth hurts. Better believe I bled. But once again I’ve awoken from my bed.  It’s a blessing I’m not dead. 

I had a boss, my first boss at Amazon, who used to say something that's always stuck with me. He and I would leave work around 6 pm together, something he encouraged, and on our way out, we'd get shit from our operation partners who'd often stay until 8 or 9 pm. They'd tell us we were working banker hours, or say something like, "oh must be nice." And his response was always the same, "Life is full of choices." This last year I launched my own fulfillment center at Amazon where I was the position that he would have once occupied, and when faced with the same shit from my operation partners, I learned to use that phrase liberally.  But life is full of choices. In fact, life is choices. Your life is the result of the choices you make from the infinite decision tree of time. And lately I've been thinking a lot about this. As I continue to age, and as my experience continues to compound, I learn the meaning of his phrase. It goes deeper than just the...