2020

Back in the woods, this time with a nice layer of snow. We see tracks from a brown bear heading to a stream, but no sight of herself. Later we meet a seasoned ranger who tells us he’s occasionally seen similar tracks but never the animal. Maybe our luck will be different.

When I was eleven the teacher asked for a movie everyone had seen. I volunteered Jurassic Park. It had come out that summer. I was obsessed. Turned out few of my classmates had actually seen it. One of the first times I realized that we all live in our own little worlds.

Each week I write up the newsletter with ten or so items and send it out. Every time I try guess which link will get the most clicks, and I’m almost always wrong. Except when I have Momentos in there. For some weird reason, you and many others like reading these.

On of th kys on my laptop stoppd working. No prizs for gussing which ky. On rpair shop hr says thr’s nothing thy can do. Anothr quotd m $900 for a fix. I bought th thing 3.5 yars ago for $1500. So it sms my bst option is to go buy a nw laptop.

Hypothesis: you have to be world class in your niche to earn a living with affiliate marketing. Not much room at the top of Google, bit of a zero-sum game. But as a freelancer or remote worker you don’t need to be world class to earn a living; you just need to be above average.

A glass of hot wine on the hotel terrace this eve, almost ten years since my last drop of alcohol. That last drink was part of a blurry and reckless night in Merced, California, right after I quit my day job. I drank like a kid back then. Maybe I’ll drink like an adult now.

Working alone is easy. I journal through problems, make decisions that way. Easy to refer back. Working with others, we talk through problems and make decisions that way. Took me a while to realize I need to write down those decisions and how we arrived at them. Otherwise we forget and run in circles.

Many of us think we can take it easy once we’ve “made it.” But pro athletes show us how ridiculous that is. LeBron James didn’t chill out once he made it to the NBA. If anything, he started training longer, harder. You can never ease off if you want to stay top of your game.

To enjoy and appreciate life, I reckon you have to enjoy and appreciate paradox. Because life is full of them, and they can drive you mad if you’re too stubborn one way or the other. A bit like the tree in the wind. It doesn’t do well if it doesn’t bend with the breeze.

I’m hearing people saying coronavirus is just another flu, that you have more chance of dying in a car crash, etc. This is stupid, shallow thinking. We’re dealing with a different beast here. China shut down its entire economy to stop this thing. That should tell us all we need to know.

A passing comment that you laugh off can come back to haunt you. That guy today, those few short words, eating away at me later. I want to label him a dick and move on, but there’s more to it than that, a truth there somewhere. It wouldn’t bother me so much otherwise.

I remember this exact morning twenty years ago. I was sat in the sports hall with the rest of the class. I was depressed, sad news hit me hard a few hours earlier. The teacher had us pick numbers. Of course, I picked thirteen. Unlucky, said the teacher. And that somehow gave me a little comfort.