One Thing After Another

Learned Volume 5, Issue 13

Welcome to an abbreviated edition of Learned. Last Saturday, as I was puttering about my office, I got a searing, stabbing pain in my gut. Several hours of vomiting and a trip to the ER later, the diagnosis came through: a tiny little kidney stone had formed, ripped havoc through my system and then got itself lodged in place. It’s been a rough couple of days.

What’s worse have been the compound effects: not only is my GI tract not quite back to normal, I’ve been exhausted. Simply wiped out. I’ve spent the better part of the past 48 hours sitting in my chair, sometimes napping, sometimes thinking, but mainly just breathing.

This is decidedly unusual for me. I normally have eight gazillion things happening and once and have to stay on top of a rigorous schedule to just stay afloat. But not yesterday, not today. I’m just breathing.

And the point of this is not to assail you with my health woes, but rather to look for the unexpected good however it comes at us. I’ve been forced to take a step back and cancel classes and turn off the screens and just focus on the next moment.

So, that’s what I’m doing this week. With any luck, we’ll be back to the regularly scheduled newsletter next week, sans technical screw-ups and unexpected health crisis. Until then, in the interest of providing at least some interesting content this week, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite songs.

“I gotta tell you, it gets better, every day you stay alive.

And I’m amazed, every day, that the sun decides to rise.

Every minute, every hour, is another chance to change.

Life is beautiful and terrible and strange.”

Stay healthy, stay curious.

Joel