Category: Old Man Yelling at the Sky

Mar 17 2026 2026-03-17 2026-03-15 by Ross

Less Is More, Even When It’s Hard…

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

In my last post, I talked about a concept from The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter called prevalence-induced concept change—the idea that when problems become rare, we expand the definition of what counts as a problem.

The more I think about it, the more it connects to a theme I’ve been writing about here for a while: Less Is More.

At first glance that phrase sounds like minimalism. Fewer possessions. Less clutter. Maybe a clean desk and three shirts hanging in the closet.

But the idea Easter is getting at goes deeper than that.

It’s about removing some comfort on purpose.

The Problem With Perfect Comfort

Modern life is incredibly comfortable.

  • Climate-controlled homes
  • Food is available 24 hours a day
  • Entertainment instantly available
  • GPS so we never get lost
  • Online shopping, so we don’t even have to leave the couch

None of these things are bad. In fact, they’re amazing when you step back and think about them.

But there’s a strange side effect.

When life becomes frictionless, our tolerance for friction disappears.

Small inconveniences suddenly feel like real problems.

The internet is slow.

The coffee line is long.

The streaming service doesn’t have the show we want.

None of these would even register as issues to someone living a hundred years ago. But our brains recalibrate to the environment we live in.

And our environment has almost no hardship.

Humans Were Built for Some Hardness

Easter argues that humans evolved in environments that regularly included challenge:

  • physical exertion
  • hunger between meals
  • cold
  • uncertainty
  • boredom

Those weren’t occasional experiences. They were normal parts of life.

Today we’ve engineered most of them away.

Again, that’s mostly a good thing. I’m not advocating bringing back cholera or food shortages.

But when everything becomes comfortable all the time, we lose something important: contrast.

Without occasional discomfort, comfort itself stops feeling good.

Parenting and the Discomfort of Letting Go

This idea has been bouncing around in my head lately in a place I didn’t expect: parenting adult children.

When kids leave home, graduate from college, and start building their own lives, they run into all sorts of struggles.

Jobs don’t work out.

Friends drift away.

Money is tight.

Plans fall apart.

And as a parent, your instinct is to fix it. Remove the discomfort. Smooth the road.

I catch myself worrying about their struggles as if they’re something that went wrong.

But maybe they’re not.

Maybe that discomfort is the point.

Struggling through those early adult years—figuring things out, making mistakes, recovering from them—is exactly what builds the qualities we all hope our kids will have:

  • resilience
  • independence
  • self-confidence
  • the ability to handle life when things don’t go perfectly

If parents successfully remove every hardship, we may accidentally remove the very experiences that create capable adults.

Which is a hard thing to accept when the instinct is to protect.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is step back and let them handle their own discomfort.

The Less Is More Version of This

This is where my own “Less Is More” idea overlaps with Easter’s argument.

Sometimes adding more comfort doesn’t make life better.

Sometimes removing comfort does.

Examples from my own life:

Riding my bike for two hours in the cold doesn’t sound comfortable, but afterwards, a hot shower feels incredible.  Plus, I feel great for having completed the ride!

Spending a weekend camping without constant screens somehow makes ordinary life feel richer when you get back.

Even something as simple as being bored can lead to reading a book, going for a walk, or thinking about something new.

The hardship creates the appreciation.

The Strange Trick

What Easter suggests—and what really stuck with me—is intentionally adding small amounts of voluntary discomfort back into life.

Not suffering for suffering’s sake.

Just doing things that remind your brain what effort feels like.

Walking instead of driving.

Working out hard enough to be tired.

Going outside when it’s cold.

Leaving your phone behind sometimes.

None of these is dramatic.

But they reset the calibration.

Why This Matters

If prevalence-induced concept change means we redefine smaller and smaller inconveniences as problems, then the solution might be surprisingly simple:

Reintroduce a little difficulty.

Not because life needs to be miserable.

But because a little hardship restores perspective.

It reminds us that the things we complain about most of the time…aren’t actually problems.

And maybe it reminds parents of something else, too:

Sometimes the hard parts of life—the ones we want to protect our kids from—are exactly the parts that will make them strong enough to build a life of their own.  This is why I’m trying to get.


Mar 16 2026 2026-03-16 2026-03-15 by Ross

When Problems Disappear, We Redefine Them….

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

I’m reading The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter and came across a concept that made me stop and stare at the wall for a minute.

It’s called prevalence-induced concept change, which is a fancy way of saying:

When problems become rare, we expand our definition of the problem so we keep seeing it.

Researchers ran an experiment in which participants had to identify threatening faces in a series of photos. At first, there were plenty of threats. Then the researchers quietly started removing them.

You’d expect people to say, “Hey, fewer threats!”

Nope.

Instead, participants started labeling normal faces as threatening.

Their definition of “threat” expanded.

Apparently, our brains really don’t like empty problem space. If the big problems disappear, we simply promote smaller ones.

And once you hear that idea, you start seeing it everywhere.

Parenting in the Age of Imaginary Dangers

One place it shows up is parenting.

If you’re roughly my age, your childhood probably included phrases like:

  • “Be home when the streetlights come on.”
  • “Don’t burn the house down.”
  • “If someone kidnaps you, I’m not paying the ransom.”

And then you rode your bike around the neighborhood for six hours with no adult supervision.

Today, parents are far more anxious about kids being outside alone, largely because of fears of kidnapping or “stranger danger.”

The thing is, statistically speaking, stranger abductions are incredibly rare. I remember reading somewhere that a child would need to stand on a street corner for something like hundreds of years before the odds of being kidnapped by a stranger caught up with them.

But because the truly serious dangers to kids—disease, violence, unsafe environments—have dropped dramatically over generations, we’ve become hyper-sensitive to extremely rare risks.

The definition of “danger” expands.

Now, a kid walking to the park alone feels like a crisis.

When Success Creates New Problems

The same phenomenon happens at the societal level.

When governments or institutions successfully reduce a problem, the incentives don’t always reward saying, “Great! We solved it.”

Instead, the definition of the problem often expands.

Take language shifts like:

  • Homeless → Unhoused
  • Hunger → Food insecurity

Originally, homelessness meant someone living on the street or in a car. Today, depending on the definition used, it can include someone temporarily staying with relatives or couch-surfing.

Hunger once meant literally not having enough food. Now “food insecurity” can include uncertainty about where the next meal might come from.

To be clear, those situations can still be real struggles.

But the broader the definition becomes, the bigger the problem appears, which conveniently keeps the attention, funding, and bureaucratic machinery running.

When a problem becomes less prevalent, the definition often expands to fill the gap.

The Comfort Crisis Part

This ties directly into Easter’s larger argument.

Modern life has removed many of the hardships humans evolved to deal with:

  • hunger
  • cold
  • physical danger
  • boredom
  • uncertainty

Our ancestors regularly dealt with real adversity.

We deal with Wi-Fi outages and slow lines at Starbucks.

But our brains still evolved to scan for problems. When the big ones disappear, we simply recalibrate.

A minor inconvenience becomes a serious grievance.

A rare risk becomes a looming danger.

A solved problem becomes a newly defined crisis.

The Takeaway

The lesson here isn’t that problems aren’t real.

It’s that our perception of them is relative.

When life gets better, we don’t necessarily feel better. We often just move the goalposts for what counts as bad.

Understanding that might help us do something radical in modern life:

Pause.

Look around.

And admit that things might actually be…pretty good.


Mar 10 2026 2026-03-10 2026-03-10 by Ross

My Very Specific Definition of “Free Time”…

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky, Sharpen the Saw

Here’s one of my problems. And, woo boy, do I have a lot of them.

I have an extremely narrow definition of free time.

In my mind, free time means sitting on a couch. Preferably with a book. Possibly watching a Korean TV show. Maybe staring into space while holding a remote I’m not even using. The key requirement is that I am stationary and no one expects anything from me.

Anything else?

That’s an imposition.

Now, obviously, some things are not free time. Grocery shopping. Running errands. Household chores. Fixing things around the house. These are clearly classified as Life Responsibilities That Are Actively Stealing My Couch Hours.

But here’s my real problem: I also count things that normal people consider leisure as not free time.

Take Friday night.

My wife and I went to a Blackhawks game. We stayed the entire game. We had arena food. We watched the Hawks… play hockey. I won’t go so far as to say they played well or bravely, but technically they were on the ice.

Now, by any objective standard, this should qualify as free time.

You’re not working.
You’re not doing chores.
You’re watching your favorite sport
With your favorite person
You’re eating stadium food that was included in the price (so it sort of feels free)

And yet my brain still thought:

“Great. There goes my Friday night.”

Saturday morning wasn’t much better.

I got up and went for a two-hour bike ride. Fresh air, exercise, beautiful morning. The kind of thing people with life coaches and wellness podcasts talk about as the foundation of a healthy lifestyle.

Then I got a massage, my first in three years.

A reasonable person might think:
Wow, what a fantastic morning.

My brain thought:
“Well… that whole morning is gone now.”

Next up was Costco, which I will allow counts as a chore. Costco is less a store and more of a survival event where you push a cart the size of a canoe through crowds of people hoarding industrial quantities of mayonnaise.

After that I stopped at Chick-fil-A, which definitely does not qualify as a chore unless you consider waffle fries a burden.

Then I picked up my son at the airport. This technically falls under Responsible Parent Duties™, although it also I got to enjoy the 40-minute ride home with him.

My focus, however, was not on that.

My focus was on traffic.

And the growing realization that my entire afternoon had somehow vanished.

This is the pattern.

Unless I am sitting on a couch at home, doing absolutely nothing, I somehow feel like my time has been stolen from me.

Bike ride? Time gone.
Massage? Time gone.
Hockey game with my wife? Time gone.
Picking up my kid from the airport? Time gone.

I don’t like this about myself.

It’s no way to live.

I’m doing things people actively plan vacations around—sporting events, outdoor exercise, family time—and instead of enjoying them I’m mentally calculating how many couch minutes I’ve lost.

That’s a terrible way to measure a life.

So I’m trying to work on it. I need to get my brain to treat all of those activities as the good things they are.

Free time isn’t just the hours spent horizontal on a couch.

Free time is any time you’re not working, not doing chores, and lucky enough to be with people you actually like.

Of course, if we’re being completely honest…

The couch still makes a very strong argument.


Mar 06 2026 2026-03-06 2026-03-06 by Ross

The Only Way to Win is Not to Play…

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky
I was listening to a podcast today about a guy who figured out how to hack the Spotify system. His scheme was simple in concept: create a massive library of AI-generated music and then run a program that streams it over and over so he collects the royalties. (Darknet Diaries. Melody Fraud)

I’m only partway through the episode, but the story had already gone in a direction that made my head hurt.

Before he even got to the Spotify part, he was explaining how his company used to “hack” social media platforms for clients. Their job wasn’t security hacking—it was attention hacking. They figured out ways to manipulate the systems that decide what goes viral, what gets likes, and what gets pushed into people’s feeds.

One example stuck with me. They would hide “like” or “follow” buttons inside image carousels. You’d click on a picture, thinking you were just flipping to the next photo. Instead, the click secretly followed some random page they were promoting on Facebook, or triggered a YouTube video playing in the background to inflate the view count. Then, when you clicked again, the image would finally change as you expected.

You never even knew you’d been used.

And that’s just one trick.

On top of that, there are the algorithms that decide who goes viral on YouTube, X, Instagram, and TikTok—systems that can be manipulated by companies, influencers, or even the platforms themselves.

Then layer in the bots.

Bots generating engagement.

Bots amplifying outrage.

Bots pushing political agendas.

Bots pretending to be real people arguing with each other.

Add in PR firms, marketing agencies, and even governments that deliberately stir controversy because outrage spreads faster than truth. At some point you start wondering: how much of what I’m seeing online is even real?

I see it happening to blogs I used to enjoy. Sites that used to be thoughtful have slowly turned into clickbait factories. Rage bait. Headlines designed to make you angry enough to click. They don’t care if they leave the internet a little worse than they found it. They just want the traffic.

And honestly, I’m tired of playing in that ecosystem.

So I’m opting out. No bots. No shady tricks designed to make me follow something I didn’t choose. No manipulated “viral” moments. No algorithm pushing outrage into my day.

There’s a line from the movie WarGames where the computer finally realizes something about nuclear war strategy.

“The only winning move is not to play.”

That’s kind of where I am with most social media. I’m just not playing anymore.

One of the nice things about running my own blog is that there’s no algorithm deciding what you see. No bots trying to game the system. No engagement tricks.

It’s just words on a page.

If you happen to stop by and read them, great.

If not, that’s fine too.

At least it’s real.

(While some might claim this is novel and we live in some particularly shitty information era, I could’ve used “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” from the movie Network back from 1976.  I think this is just a continued slide, but not fundamentally different)

 


Mar 05 2026 2026-03-05 2026-03-05 by Ross

If You Can’t Find the Light, Be the Light…

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

The other week I joined a new (to me) social network just to see what it was about. I heard about it on a podcast and figured I’d poke around for a bit.

The network is called the Fediverse. If you’ve never heard of it, the easiest way to think about it is this: instead of one big company running a social media site (like Facebook, Instagram, or X), the Fediverse is made up of thousands of independently run servers that all talk to each other. Each server has its own community, rules, and vibe, but users can still interact across servers. It’s decentralized social media. Think email, but for social networks.

In theory, it sounds great. No single company controlling everything. Communities are built around interests. A chance to escape the worst parts of the big platforms.

So I joined a server hosted by the podcast hosts.

I’ll admit, at first I didn’t really know how to use it. The interface felt a little like Twitter from ten years ago, and the culture seemed… intense.

What I found in the beginning was more of the same thing you find almost everywhere online: endless political rants and hot takes. Usually from one side of the aisle. And it ranged from far that side to farther that side to farthest that side.

That was disappointing.

But I kept experimenting and eventually learned how to mute hashtags and follow only the things I wanted. Once I did that, my feed improved dramatically. Suddenly, it was posts about hobbies, music, random observations, and people sharing things they enjoyed.

In other words, the internet I actually want.

Ironically, though, it wasn’t something on the Fediverse that made me rethink it. It was an Instagram post.

I wish I had saved it because I can’t find it now, but the basic message stuck with me. The post talked about how easy it is to look around and see all the darkness in the world. The bad news. The anger. The constant outrage.

And let’s be honest, that’s what a lot of social media has become. A place to wallow in whatever the worst thing happening today might be.

But the post ended with something simple:

Look for the light. Look for the good things.

And then the line that stuck with me:

If you can’t find the light, be the light.

Yes, I realize there are some pretty strong religious undertones there, and I’m 100% fine with that.

That quote actually prompted me to clean up my Fediverse feed. I muted political hashtags and followed good-news type tags. Travel. Music. Hobby stuff. People posting interesting or funny things.

But when I mentioned I wanted to keep my feed mostly non-political, the responses rolled in.

Apparently, I was “living in a bubble.”
Apparently, I needed to be political everywhere because of tyranny.
Apparently, choosing not to engage in constant online political debate was some kind of civic failure.

I get my news from plenty of places. I read across the spectrum. I stay informed.

What I don’t need is political commentary on every single website I visit.

Eventually,I just decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. I deleted the account. To be fair, I probably could have stayed and curated it better. But the moment had already done its work on me.

Because I realized something.

I already have a place on the internet that I control.

This blog.

The other nice thing about a personal blog is that there’s no algorithm. No company is trying to feed me outrage because outrage keeps people scrolling. No system boosts the most extreme voices because they generate engagement. What you see here is simply what I choose to write and what you choose to read.

No trending topics.
No rage bait.
No “you might also like this argument.”

Just a quiet corner of the internet.

Now, I know I complain here sometimes. I whine about getting older. I write pity-party posts. I talk about injuries, triathlon training mistakes, random annoyances, and occasionally yell at clouds.

That’s not going to completely disappear.

But I’d like this space to lean toward something else.

I’d like it to be a small corner of the internet that’s a little lighter.

Not fake positivity. Not pretending the world is perfect.

Just a place that occasionally highlights the good stuff. Music. Funny complaints. Triathlon adventures. Random observations about life. Maybe the occasional success story.

In other words, my attempt to be the light, even if it’s just a small flashlight in a very large internet.

And if nothing else, at least it will be a place where the comment section doesn’t turn into a debate about the fall of civilization every time someone mentions a bicycle ride.

Which already makes it better than most of the internet.


Feb 20 2026 2026-02-20 2026-02-20 by Ross

First! ….

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

We have been getting so many political ads in the mail, but one of them caught my eye.  It’s for a judicial election, and the candidate prominently notes “NAME OF CANDIDATE WOULD BE THE FIRST ASIAN AMERICAN FEMALE JUDGE ELECTED BY THE 20TH SUBCIRCUIT.”

You can probably already guess that she obviously wouldn’t be the first female elected.  You can probably also guess that she wouldn’t be the first Asian-American woman elected in Cook County. (not even close)

But what you probably don’t know is that the 20th Subcircuit was only created in 2022.  There has only been one election for that area, and two judges (one man, one woman) were elected.  There is no glass ceiling she’s breaking through.  No great history of discrimination that will end with her election.

Everyone has to be “the first….”  That’s meaningful when it means something, not when it’s trivialized to woo voters who don’t know the history.

 


Feb 13 2026 2026-02-13 2026-02-12 by Ross

More “Less Is More”…. (see what I did there?)

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

Last year I downloaded a habit tracker app. I’ve used it faithfully. Checked boxes. Built streaks. Watched little digital fireworks go off when I hit milestones.

At first, I loved it.

Lately? Not so much.

It’s not that I want to stop the habits. It’s that I’m starting to feel like I’m doing them to appease the app instead of because I want to.

The whole point of habit tracking is obvious: you nudge yourself long enough that the behavior becomes automatic. Fair enough. Maybe that worked. Maybe a year is enough runway.

But something subtle shifted.

Two of my tracked tasks are Practice ASL and Play Instrument—each for a set amount of time. On paper, that sounds disciplined. In reality, some days it feels… compulsory.

When I sit down at the bass or the drum kit because I have to hit 15 minutes, it’s different than when I pick it up because I feel like playing along to a song. I’m not turning pro. I’m not starting a band of other 60-year-olds reliving 1987. I just like playing. I like fumbling through a groove. I like figuring out a fill.

The moment it becomes a box to check, the joy drains a bit.

Same with ASL. I do want to become proficient. But I have time. If I skip a day because I’m tired or just not feeling it, I’m still going to get there. Fifteen minutes less on a random Tuesday isn’t the difference between fluency and failure.

Other tracked habits? Taking vitamins. Drinking water when I wake up. Journaling.

Those are already baked in. If I miss journaling one day, I don’t want the app telling me my streak is broken. Maybe I just didn’t have much to say. Maybe silence was the point. The mental health benefit of journaling shouldn’t come with the mild shame of a red “0.”

That’s the part I’m pushing back on.

In this phase of life—this ongoing “less is more” experiment—I’m trying to strip away unnecessary scaffolding. If a thing is truly part of me now, maybe it doesn’t need gamification. Maybe it doesn’t need a nudge.

Maybe doing it because I want to is enough.

I know habit trackers are helpful for a lot of people. They probably were helpful for me. They got me started. They kept me consistent.

But I don’t want to live inside a scoreboard.

If I play, I’ll play because it’s fun.
If I practice ASL, it’ll be because I’m curious.
If I journal, it’ll be because something is stirring.

Not because my phone says it’s time.

Less tracking.
More living.

You do you.


Feb 12 2026 2026-02-12 2026-02-12 by Ross

The Customer is Always Right (When They Actually Want to be There)….

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

I’ve spent the better part of thirty years providing services to people who, quite literally, would rather be anywhere else on the planet.

Think about that for a second.

For six years, I was a prosecutor. You know who goes to court? Victims. People who have had the worst day of their lives and are now forced to sit in a sterile room with bad lighting to relive it. They aren’t there for the “experience.” They’re there because a subpoena said so. They’re miserable, and honestly, they have every right to be.

Then I flipped the script and spent fourteen years as a defense attorney. Different side of the aisle, same vibe. My clients weren’t “customers” in the fun sense of the word. They were people staring down the barrel of a life-altering L. Nobody wakes up stoked to see their defense counsel. You’re a reminder of their mistakes or their misfortunes. You are the person they pay because they have to, not because they want to.

So, naturally, I thought teaching would be the pivot.

I’ve been at it for eight years now. And look, I like the job. But let’s be real: I’m currently staring at a room full of high school seniors who view a 50-minute law lecture like a prison sentence. To them, homework isn’t “learning”—it’s an obstacle between them and whatever they’re doing on their phones. I’m still the guy standing between them and where they actually want to be.

I’m tired of being the guy at the door everyone is trying to walk out of.

I want to work somewhere people are actually trying to get into.

I want to work at a ski resort. Why? Because nobody gets dragged to a ski resort by a process server. People save up their hard-earned money, pack the car, and brave the cold because they want to be on that mountain. They’re chasing a flow state. They’re happy. Even when they’re cold and tired, they chose the struggle.

I want to work at Wrigley Field during a Cubs game. I want to work in a National Park. I want to be the guy providing the service that people actually put on their calendar with a smiley face.

I know, I know. I’m being naive. I can already hear the comments. I’m sure there are entitled POS at Vail who complain that the snow is “too crunchy.” I’m sure there are drunks in the bleachers at Wrigley who make everyone’s life miserable. I’m sure there are tourists at Yellowstone who try to pet the bison. People are still people, and a certain percentage of them will always be a headache.

But at least they’re there by choice.

At least they want what I’m selling. There is a fundamental difference in the “aura” of a room when the people in it are there because they’re pursuing a “win” rather than trying to mitigate a “loss.”

After thirty years of managing human misery and teenage apathy, I think I’m ready to trade in the “Must-Do” for the “Want-To.” I want to provide a service for people who are actually glad to see me coming.

Is that too much to ask? Or am I just the old guy yelling at the sky again?

Either way, if you see me scanning lift tickets next winter, mind your business. I’ll be the one smiling.


Feb 12 2026 2026-02-12 2026-02-12 by Ross

Getting Off the Double-D Bus….

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

Yesterday, my household received 17 pieces of U.S. mail. Fifteen were campaign mailers.

Fifteen.

Having been part of a few campaigns myself, I know exactly why we get them. We’re what the voter files call “Double-D’s” — voters who have pulled a Democratic ballot in the last two primaries. When a candidate wants to do a mailing, they don’t just blanket the city. They buy a voter list and target likely supporters: people who are registered, who actually vote, and who have voted in their party’s primaries before.

In Chicago, that’s the play.

There are no Republican primaries that matter here. If there are Republicans on the ballot, they’re often token candidates with no realistic path in a one-party town. Countywide judicial races? Zero Republicans. Why would I pull an R ballot when there’s literally no one to vote for?

So everyone — regardless of their actual politics — pulls a Democratic ballot. It’s the only place where the election is decided.

And because I’ve voted in every primary and general election since 1984, I’m prime real estate. Reliable. Predictable. Engaged. A campaign consultant’s dream.

Which is why my recycling bin is a campaign graveyard every two years.

The irony is that I mostly vote in primaries for judges. They’re often unopposed in the general election, so the primary is the only meaningful vote. If you care about who ends up on the bench, that’s the moment. Sometimes I’ve had friends on the ballot. Sometimes former colleagues. It’s hard not to show up.

But this year?

No election in my sub-circuit.
No meaningful countywide vacancies.
A crowded congressional field where the candidates seem to be competing to prove who can run the furthest left, the fastest.

My choices aren’t moderate vs. progressive. They’re progressive vs. more progressive vs. most progressive. There’s nobody even pretending to occupy the middle.

And so I find myself contemplating something I’ve never done in 42 years of voting: skipping a primary.

Not switching teams. I’m not taking a Republican ballot — that’s equally futile here, and it doesn’t solve the “no moderates” issue. Just… stepping off the bus for a cycle. Removing myself from the “Double-D” category. Quietly slipping off the mailing lists.

It feels oddly disloyal, even though it’s not. Voting is something I’ve always taken seriously. I’ve never missed. Ever. Through law school, through young kids, through brutal work schedules. Snowstorms. Busy seasons. I showed up.

But voting only matters when there’s something meaningful to decide.

If there isn’t — if the ballot doesn’t offer a real choice, if there’s no competitive race that affects my district — is showing up a civic virtue or just muscle memory?

I don’t know.

Part of me thinks I’ll cave. Some acquaintance will pop up on the ballot, and I’ll think, well, I should support them. Or I’ll tell myself that consistent participation matters, even when the choices are thin.

But part of me is tired of the performative mailers. The glossy cardstock promises. The environmental waste. The constant nudges from campaigns that already know exactly how I’ve voted for four decades.

Maybe for one cycle, I let them wonder.

Maybe I’ll retire my Double-D status.

After 42 straight years, I’ve probably earned a sabbatical.


Feb 07 2026 2026-02-07 2026-02-07 by Ross

On further reflection…

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky, Something Good

 

The pity party in the post below should be read as minor. I know I have it good. My health is still pretty darn good. This isn’t a cry for help or a “woe is me” entry.

I just finished reading Do No Harm, written by a neurosurgeon, and it’s filled with heartbreaking cases—people blindsided by tragedy, bodies failing in sudden and cruel ways. That alone can mess with your head. But closer to home, the last four months have been… a lot.

I’ve known three young people—22, 21, and 21—who died suddenly. One by suicide. One murdered. One rumored murder, though in no event was it natural or a disease. I’ve gone to visitations for two of them, and I honestly can’t imagine the pain their parents are carrying. That kind of loss feels unbearable.

To be clear: this isn’t about me. This isn’t “look at me being sad about horrible things that happen to others.” It’s just the backdrop.

Add to that my wife’s co-worker, who died of glioblastoma, and two friends’ brothers, both gone in their mid-50s. It’s been that kind of winter. One loss stacked on top of another. So much tragedy, all at once.

I feel deeply for the people left behind. If there’s a lesson I’m taking from all of this, it’s a simple one: enjoy it all.

I usually walk around with a pretty strong awareness that I could die at any moment. I literally tell my students every day when they leave class, “Have a nice rest of your day. See you tomorrow—if I don’t die.” Mostly it’s a long-game joke, because one day I will die and they’ll all be like, Dude. He totally called it.

Anyway, that’s about it.

People can stay angry. They can yell at the TV, doom-scroll blogs, and go on partisan rants about the outrage of the minute. That stuff will still be there tomorrow.

I’ll be over here hugging my kids, playing with my dog, enjoying dinner with my wife, and doing my best to savor every minute.