What'cha Gonna Do When You're Fifty Two?
On my 52nd birthday, I'm reflecting on my life and the changes that have occurred. I was pleasantly surprised to receive 6 months of free Disney+ from Verizon, and I watched She Hulk and Obi-wan, which brought tears to my eyes. I'm pushing forward with Operation ELTgd and the principle of 'Power Good', to help myself, those in my life, and the world. As a birthday gift to myself, I'm making a Bagel-All-The-Way.
Reflecting on 52 Years: My Birthday Gift to Myself and the World
By Michael Levin
Saturday, August 27, 2022
Happy Birthday to me! I offered Adi Great Adventure tomorrow but they said they’d prefer a Michael’s crafting weekend. It almost brought tears to my eyes. In a distant second was learning how Princess Leia knows Obi-wan Kenobi. After having cancelled almost all my online subscriptions over money, Verizon offered my 6 months of Disney+ free for signing up for broadband after my move. I watched the 1st 2 episodes of She Hulk and then Part 1 & 2 of Obi-wan. Many tears. I can’t believe the world has turned this way. All my childhood loves have turned mainstream. People being in love with their phones is a lot like Amiga computers being in everyone’s lives too. I can’t believe how the world has turned to geeks. Wow. The greatest birthday present ever. And now I’m going to go to sleep listening to particle physics seminars on Audible. Wow, I was going to start my little video series, but this has been a nice birthday present to myself. I also stocked the house with food really well including the biggest New York strip steak I’ve ever seen. Dinner tomorrow night. Mmmmm.
Okay, birthday day thoughts:
What’cha Gonna Do When You’re Fifty-Two?
Nahhh, more likeL
What’cha Gonna Do @ Fifty-Two?
I need to push forward operation ELTgd. That’s “Every Little Thing gets done”. It’s all those little things in life that would so permanently move your life forward if only you buckled down and did them. Excuses, artificial dependencies, and lunging at neurochemically addictive distractions are the enemy of operation ELTgd. Deal with them. Talk it out loud, that’s such a good step. It’s a “POWER GOOD” step, which is another principle percolating around in my mind:
POWER GOOD
Yes, to do good takes exerting some power, and then results in more power. That’s the essence of a virtuous feedback loop. Power the good. Channel goodness to be powerful. Use that power to do good. Good for yourself, good for those in your immediate life, and good for the world.
Don’t engage in pissing matches with those who do not even merit your time. You can identify them because they are the inverse of power-good. They’re power-bad. The have a downward-spiraling corrosive and corruptive feedback loop. You are the average of the top 5 people you let be a part of your life, you say. Ugh, that explains a lot. You got some fixin’ to do, Mr. Michael. I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin.
1, 2, 3… 1? Don’t be objectionable. Oh, well everybody’s going to always be objectionable to someone, and often times that means you’re on the right track. So let me correct that. Be unobjectionable (albeit still somewhat controversial) to the right people, and be completely objectionable in a righteous and anyone examining it would realize I’m doing the right thing sort of way.
Yup.
Happy Birthday, Mike. These are the sort of realizations that are very long in coming. I totally have to organize this blog. That would be such a good birthday gift to myself. I still have to do quite a bit of writing for my boss for my weekly report, and it’s going to be a good one both for him and for me. It’s going to be part of my birthday gift to myself. The quiet, competent, insightful and foresightful company-man. Watching out for myself, my career and my skills, while still doing what’s best for the people nice enough to keep me on the payroll and appreciate my work.
Maslow hierarchy of needs is greatly met by this 100-year-old publisher who was once-upon-a-time a competitor to Asimov and Analog magazines. They’re not anymore, but some of that spirit continues. The fax holding company that bought it all up at least rebranded themselves back to the name of their greatest acquisition, that 100 year-old (paper) publisher. Now if only we could get that property back that competitor bought that bears our name.
Refine things, and let things get refined, over time. You can’t get it all right on one pass and trying to do so is consistently demoralizing, sucking the love out of otherwise love-worthy things. So don’t bite off more than you can chew.
Go make yourself a Bagel-All-The-Way for your Birthday. A Birthday Bagel! Use the belly-lox on your birthday bagel. Lots and lots of capers and red onion. Layer on the Philly cream cheese. Mmmmm. And of course, on a big toasted Everything Bagel.
Never not be dispensing wisdom and working on your website. Your website is now where you organize your wisdom, because markdown, Jeklyll, Github Pages and the like. I have Python worked into it too because of the blogging system that pushes this out. Don’t forget to refine your category system… today! THAT’S your real birthday gift to yourself. So much follows a rockin solid category system.
Also finish fleshing out the subnavigation of my site.
Publish my vim custom dictionary, LOL!
Give the different things you’re focusing on good, strong nicknames.
Categorinator vim dictionator