January 12, 2024
This morning, I woke up feeling a little under the weather. My throat was sore; it felt hot and dry. My wife said her throat was a little sore, too. It was a little after 4 AM, and we washed up and had some coffee together. My wife spent the morning studying cardiology while I wrote. After she left for work, I did a workout, showered, and got ready for a busy Friday.
In the morning, we made a “gruesome” discovery. Axel, our high-energy Malinois, had pulled my wife’s favorite mittens off the dresser and promptly chewed one of them up. He’s such a sweet boy, and it seemed he honestly felt bad for making mama sad. Those mittens were special to her, and she wore them on every cold morning walk, often talking about how much she liked them. Now they were gone.
In the morning, I noticed the dog food was almost gone, so during my lunch break, I drove into Wilson and picked up some dog food and milk for tomorrow morning’s lattes. In an impromptu decision, I grabbed two small containers of ice cream, one matcha flavored and the other named “Churray for Churros”. And, of course, I also stopped at the local sporting goods store where we purchased my wife’s recently deceased mittens and picked her up a new pair of the same ones. Not all heroes wear capes.
I’ve been wanting an acoustic guitar for a while now. I gave my old acoustic guitar to my father several years ago when I saw him tinkering with it. This week, I found one that I liked and made the purchase. Today, the UPS delivery truck pulled into the property with a large box, holding my new Martin guitar. I instantly fell in love with it and it’s definitely the nicest and best sounding acoustic guitar I have ever owned or played.
While I felt energetic and healthy throughout the workday, when 6 PM rolled around, my condition suddenly worsened. I had a quiet dinner, eating a baked sweet potato with a little butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. A small salad topped me off.
During dinner, my wife and I fell into an interesting discussion about how we don’t see reality as it is. Rather, our brains construct reality by using the context and perspective provided by our personal, and limited, experiences. So two people can view the same event in opposite ways, because their individual pasts define the event, which often differs. In this way, people with unique experiences will define present circumstances differently.
I recently heard a song that I liked, but as the song went on, the lyrics slowly moved away from my own beliefs. At the end of the song, there’s a part where someone is talking about being American and how he “likes the way things are now, and if anyone wants to change it, they’re going to have to come through me”. Corny cowboys. I thought this was very interesting, because, according to this man’s perspective, life was just fine the way it is now. But this doesn’t really address the feelings of all the people who are experiencing shitty lives and are looking for some kind of positive change.
This topic captures my interest because our society appears to be divided into two groups: one advocating for change and the other preferring the status quo. The truth is more complex. Some things should (and will) always change, and some things should always stay the same. It’s too simple to make half baked statements that satisfy us emotionally. This is an important lesson I’ve learned: If you have a simple solution to a complex problem, then your understanding of the problem is woefully ignorant. It follows, then, that any solution you present that cannot address the real problem will be no solution at all.
After dinner, I took a hot shower, drank down some medicine, and made some notes at my desk before retiring to bed. The weekend had arrived, and a long one at that.