Cool running week with lots of sleeping

I got into a pretty nice headspace this last week in which lots of things got done, not because I was very energetic but because I seemed to have a low activation energy and just wasn't procrastinating or going "ugh" when I thought about doing things. Even things I often put off, like making phone calls, I seemed to just be shrugging and doing. That was kind of nice and I'd like my brain to act that way more often, please. So anyway, events:

• Re-org news didn't break. That will be this coming week instead.


• I got together with a couple of co-workers from pre-Zillian, to celebrate them getting jobs after layoffs (at the same place, even!). It was interesting to compare stories and see how, at my age, most people who had kids are now moving quickly toward empty nests. The availability divide between parents and non-parents, which affected my social life so much for so long, is evaporating.


• The bug and I saw Inside Out 2 on Friday, and I saw Ovo with the squirrel family on Sunday (for a very sweet reason: they got an extra ticket so that their kid could bring a friend, and the kid ultimately picked me. Fine, their first choice couldn't come, but still!).


• Had a nice time bumming around Central Square on Saturday with the squirrel -- we went to the tiny market that's been running inside Manray every second Saturday, got super cute pictures of us in the graffiti alley, poked around Garment District and ended with an excellent dinner at Little Donkey. And then there was lots of sleeping.


• Handstands proceed. My performance is starting to vary as the current session tires me out, but I did pike press from a 30" surface -- once -- which is my lowest yet.


• Biden dropped out of the presidential race today, and I am absolutely in awe of his grace and courage in doing so. Whatever happens next, I think he just cemented his own reputation. In the meantime though, everyone hold on to your hats because shit's about to get wild between now and November.

This week's interesting book is Taking Stock, which is a hospice doctor's take on the FIRE movement and financial independence. Here are a couple of quotes for you:

Freedom isn’t entitlement to do as you please. It’s agency to do as you value.

...money isn’t the only thing that compounds. Experience compounds. The time and energy we put into our relationships and explorations of the world compounds. Education compounds, as does joy.

I think the author goes a little far in the direction of money not being a true, final and valid goal in itself. He says "No one ever put a specific net worth in their bucket list" but oh yes they do, all the time. I remember how many instances of "Be a millionaire by age 40" there used to be on 43things.com, where people used to share their goals. But I like some of what he has to say about not continuing to amass net worth forever; how at some point it becomes a really empty goal, and how a person does need goals and some kind of mountain to climb but it might as well be something meaningful to them.