Tag: Elon Musk

Thursday’s Thoughts

+ The world’s annual happiness reports came out recently and for the first time the United States did not make the top 20. The nordic countries always seem to be at the top of the list. I’ve only been to one nordic country, and it was Iceland. Iceland is easily the most peaceful place that I have ever been in my lifetime. I kept commenting on it, during our time there. It was so quiet, serene, and beautiful. I felt so safe and at ease while I was there. Maybe our country is too addicted to drama. I don’t know. I just hope, as a whole, we can start clearing the path to the things which really universally matter to the majority of all beings.

+ I spent some time this morning looking at what Elon Musk’s Neuralink was able to do for a quadriplegic man in just its preliminary stages. And I just saw a headline about a pig kidney transplant being successful in a patient for the first time. I really do believe that we are on the cusp of a whole new world, in so many ways. I have that feeling in my stomach that you get before a big move or a big trip or a big life change. It’s a mix of nervous energy, excitement, fear, wonder, hope and anxiety all swirling together. I don’t like to hold this feeling for long periods of time. It’s not sustainable. So then that’s when the sweet remedy of curiosity and surrender turns out to be the best balm to soothe any overstimulation and worry.

+ I read an article that spoke of one of the major factors to Taylor Swift’s success is the fact that she always over-delivers. She doesn’t sit on her laurels. Her fans always believe that they get their money’s worth from her and she has shown them that they are absolutely worth her highest effort in everything that she does. There is no better feeling than being happily surprised with an item purchased, an enthralling experience that beats your expectations, and/or feeling completely valued and appreciated for your time, attention and money. It all comes down to trying never to take anything or anybody for granted.

+ Yesterday, I was doing one of my least favorite jobs, cleaning up dog do. I was lost in thought, going through the motions (while holding my breath), when something inside of me said, “Hey, stop, sit awhile and just be.” And so I sat by the small lake in our backyard for about five or ten minutes, and in that little amount of time, I got the realization of just how much life buzzes, in one small moment, in one small place, at any one time. In that moment, with my bare feet in the soft, luxurious grass, I witnessed all sizes of fishes swimming near the shore, two hawks doing some kind of aerial show in the air, a turtle blowing bubbles in the water, new spring blooms on my irises, the sound of an owl hooting in the woods, and an anole thrusting out his bright red bulbous throat as dragonflies whizzed by. And all of this happened as the warm sun tickled all of us, and a light breeze sustained us and lifted the mood. Life teems. Life is incredible.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

848. Do you have an expansive vocabulary?

Three Steps to Nowhere

Well, this is the earliest that I have been awake in a while. My husband headed back to work today. Break over. This is going to take some “easing into.” Probably like a lot of us, in the last few days, I’ve been reflecting a lot about what I want to do in 2019. I’ve also been thinking a lot about my blog and what direction I should take it.

I read recently that people love to read blogs that offer numbered steps to perfection or numbered tips to achieving your goals. So, if I wrote a blog entitled “Three Steps to Your Perfect Life” or “Five Guaranteed Ways to Lose All of the Extra Holiday Pounds”, they would most likely be my best looked-at and most read blogposts. Unfortunately, I don’t have all of the answers to make bullet lists to cover all (or any, for that matter) of life’s predicaments. In fact, the older that I get, the less I feel certain about any of my “sureties”. I’m not a disingenuous person. I can’t pretend to be an expert on something that I’m not.

I read once that maybe life’s journey isn’t about becoming anything, but it’s more about “unbecoming” everything that we take on that really isn’t “a fit”; undoing everything that isn’t really authentically ourselves. I’ve heard and experienced, that people who live to be elderly, often revert back to child-like states in their last years – becoming more open, alive in the moment, and pure in their emotions. I’m not sure what steps to take to get back to that state of purity. Maybe that just happens in the natural progression of life. Maybe that clean simplicity is a great gift of aging. Sorry, but I just don’t have the answers. I don’t have the steps or the bullet points. But I do have the curiosity to observe it all, in this second stage of adulting, and I enjoy blogging about my experiences and observations. So, until those magic simple steps and perfect bullet lists appear in my head, this questioning and observing and discovering and the laughing at the absurdity of some of it, is the format that this particular blog is going to stay in, at least until my perfect answers arrive.

There is a scene, which takes place some time in the 1950s, in the excellent movie, The Wife, in which an older, very talented but unread female author tries to persuade the young, talented, aspiring heroine of The Wife, to quit writing. The older writer claims that all of the decisions about what makes good writing is decided by men and therefore, writing will be a hopeless and pointless career, for the young female aspiring author.

The young, and some would say “naive” writer firmly states to her older friend, “A writer has to write.”

The cynical, experienced woman retorts back, “A writer HAS to be read, honey.”

I agree with both of them. Thanks for staying with me. I look forward to our future connection, epiphanies, and awakenings, in the upcoming year!

“Any product that needs a manual to work, is broken.” – Elon Musk