I had a dream about Mark just prior to my alarm going off this morning. I cherish having him “visit” me this way. I miss him so much each day and words are inadequate in capturing that feeling of loss.
What’s weird is that after having a dream, sadness usually follows. That means that for much of the day, I’m emotional in thinking about him. I guess that’s the downside of this experience, at least for me. The alternative is to push my memories and thoughts of my son aside and live in denial, which I refuse to do.
Today, not only was I sad, but I also was battling feelings of angst. It was a real battle this morning to pull out of that funk.
Part of what compounded everything was making the mistake of looking at a Facebook back-and-forth on the page of someone I respect. She’s a talented food writer and activist who is very up-front about her opinions on subjects beyond plant-based veganism. This morning, she was trying to facilitate a conversation about the recent school shooting in Florida. Given our Balkanized manner in America for the short-term if not longer, trying to be thoughtful and hold an opposing opinion invites trolling, or just plain ignorance and stupidity.
What I found so frustrating and I was tempted to weigh-in (but I didn’t), was the inability of commenters who disagreed with her to have an actual dialogue. It reminded me of two sides yelling across a chasm, lobbing rocks back-and-forth across it. Nobody wins when that occurs.
All this to say the following: I’m no longer interested in dealing with entrenched people who don’t understand how to have a conversation, or lack the ability to disagree without being assholes. I’m also not going to shit on Facebook or social media in general. The issue isn’t social media. The problem is that people have decided that they’d rather be jerks and won’t cede anything, whether they are right or not.
What ultimately pushed me over to “the other side” of functionality was a combination of choosing to listen to a Rich Roll podcast and exercising. I jumped on my Lifecycle and rode for 30 minutes during what is my usual lunch hour. No politics, not even someone I respect, like Amy Goodman, just James Altucher’s ruminations on a host of wide-ranging topics, including his thoughts about Bitcoin. It happened to be a rare Trump-free zone, too.
James Altucher is a renaissance man.
If you don’t know who Altucher is, you should. Start with his website.
One thing that I found interesting about a guy who truly embraces the best of digital technology and who has adopted a minimalist lifestyle—moving for a period of time from one Airbnb to another, living out of a small duffle bag, is what he now chooses to allow for possessions.
He’s now renting a small apartment, and he said that he’s allowing himself a few things more than the 15 he was toting around with him. He told Roll that while he reads using a Kindle, and enjoys it, but he recognizes that for some types of books, the experience is different. “For certain types of fiction books, I have valued the physical book-reading experience more—like 10 times more.” That was really interesting to me, coming from someone like Altucher.
Altucher is certainly a guru of reinvention. He walks his talk and is never afraid to try something new. He doesn’t seem to be mellowing out, either, at 49. He recently began doing stand-up comedy as a practice that helps all the other things he’s doing in his life.
Something about listening to this today, and picking to listen to Roll interview Altucher, made me think about all the best things about Mark, the kinds of things I miss about him. And something about doing that made me think that if Mark knew I was doing what I was doing, he’d have been smiling down.
I’m also beginning to see that without him here on this temporal plane, I’ve got to work on a better way of living.
Two Altucher quotes:
“Happiness has nothing to do with well-being. So you can still have well-being and occasionally feel sad and melancholy (and miss things).”
“Whenever people hear the word ‘sad,” they want to cheer you up.”