One of the central tenets of Buddhism is that everything is decaying. Eventually, everything falls apart. One just has to buy a home to see the truth in this. Trust me. Today, lots of people were disappointed that a well-liked Internet service, Omnivore, which allowed you to save articles to read later, subscribe to newsletters without using your personal email, and have some articles automatically archived, was turning off its servers on November 15. Some folks had just transitioned to using Omnivore, only to find that their efforts were now wasted. It was my favorite way to read a couple of my favorite writers, so I had to scramble to come up with an alternative.

People have seen it happen time and again. Huge, popular websites and companies have just disappeared or changed so completely that they are no longer the same: MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Epinions, the list is endless. We are used to it now. That's why I say people were disappointed rather than shocked.

If you look at stats, the average length of time that people stay in a job continues to decrease. In 2024, it's a reality that in order to grow your wages, you often have to move from one employer to another. Pensions are very rare these days. Most of us have self-funded retirement; some are lucky to have an employer contribution, but our accounts are portable, unlike in the past. Even jobs that were once looked at as lifetime opportunities aren't the same anymore. I am a retired state employee, and one of the benefits I earned is lifetime health insurance. Too bad for new hires, though. The Republican state legislature took that away from future retirees, including teachers.

I have seen landmark restaurants close their doors forever. It makes me really sad to think that my beloved Zorbas, the diner at the end of my street where I have eaten for 30 years, will be gone one day. I don't think that one set of my grandchildren has ever spent the night with us without going there for pancakes on a weekend morning. Things can be so central to our lives, and then one day they are just gone.

Some great films from the early days of the movie industry weren't preserved, and the works of people like Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, and many others from the silent era will never be seen again. The military records of hundreds of thousands of World War Two veterans were burned in a fire at a VA records warehouse in the '60s, and the information on them is not retrievable. People think that the advent of computers means that data will last forever, but that's not true. CDs, floppy disks, and hard drives all have life spans, and if the data, whether it be pictures or music or books, isn't continually moved from one medium to another, one day it will be gone.

I am of an age where my much-loved grandparents are long gone. Nobody likes to dwell on death, but we know that as we age, the frequency at which we confront it accelerates. Our relatives, our peers, our heroes, and idols begin to leave. I still find it hard to believe that I live in a world without people like Muhammed Ali and Hank Aaron, but I do.

So, as trite as it may be, I'm using this reflection to encourage you (and myself) to savor what we have right now. Call your mom. Eat at your favorite restaurant. Read your favorite magazine. Watch your favorite TV show. Enjoy it all. One day it will all be gone.

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A long time ago, a friend of mine told me that in life, you find what you look for. I believe that to be true most of the time. I'm always on the lookout for nice people. Thinking about them is a tool I use in my personal gratitude practice, a daily exercise where I record three things I'm grateful for. I have been doing it for years. There's never been a time in my life when I couldn't find some folks with kindness in their heart. Even during the years when I worked as a prison guard, there were inmates who did kind things in a non-manipulative way. I used to drink coffee continually on that job. You could buy a packet of Taster's Choice in the canteen for a dime in those days. An old con who cleaned the area around my desk gave me some sage advice one day. "Mr Plummer," he said, "Don't ever put that coffee cup down and turn your back on it. These boys will spit in it if you do." It's been almost 40 years since he told me that and I still remember him for saving me from that indignity.

During the years I worked as an IT tech in the school system, I would always be showered with gifts at Christmas. Teachers would bring me baked goods, iTunes gift cards, coupon books, CDs and more. With all that teaching involves, remembering the guy who comes around once in a while to look at your laptop takes some real effort. When I took a mid-career break to get married and go hiking for six months, many of those teachers send care packages to my wife and I with edible treats, socks, bug spray and other things from our wish list.

People with demanding, public facing jobs who maintain their cool and make others feel welcome have a special gift. The wait staff at my favorite diner, even when they are slammed, still acknowledge their regulars. They are still nice and patient with kids. They take a minute to crack jokes and to make fun of me for always ordering the same thing.

So many of the tools I've learned to love on my computer are apps that some developer has made and given away for free. Everything I know about creating a blog is a result of freely distributed guides and tutorials. The number of letters I've gotten from complete strangers on the Internet to thank me for something or to encourage me or to praise me is just astounding. People will go out of their way just to make someone else feel good and I think that is awesome. Yes, I have also experienced some meanness online but it's overshadowed by kindness.

I think often about some of the giants I have know who dedicated their lives to the social justice movement. I know men and women who worked in the deep south during the Civil Rights era at great danger to themselves. I know organizers who survived the 1979 Greensboro Massacre who are still committed to the cause of helping poor people. I know union workers who've left home to travel to other areas to help organize workers so that they might enjoy the same benefits. I know soldiers who, sickened by war, laid down their rifles to speak out to try and stop the senseless killing that our government asked them to do in the nebulous name of freedom.

Look for kind people today. Better yet, be kind. Get your name added to someone's gratitude list.

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I'm turning 60 in a few months and though I wouldn't say it's messing with my head in any kind of negative way, it has prompted me to think about aging and mortality more than I have in the past. It's so weird to be getting ready to start my seventh decade on earth while simultaneously being able to recall events from the past as if they happened yesterday. In some ways, it is almost inconceivable that high school happened 40+ years ago. I had dinner with my brother (58) and sister (56) the other night along with my mother (77) and we were recalling events from growing up as if they just happened last week.

I've been going gray for years. Not only that, but I wear a full beard and it is 100% white. Wonder Woman told me today that one of our grandkids said to her recently, "Nana you might be old, but at least you're not as old as Papa." For the record, we are less than two years apart. Still, there has been more than one occasion when we've eaten together, and they've extended a senior discount to me (I'm not old enough) and not to her. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a Sci-fi novel, married to an immortal who doesn't age. She was furious when Kamala Harris first named Tim Walz as her running mate because she thought he was just another old white man. Once she found out that Kamala and Tim are are the same age that he is cool AF, she calmed down.

I charged full steam ahead through my 40s and early 50s, hiking the Appalachian Trail and completing 83 century rides on my bicycle. I thought I'd be going like that for decades until arthritis brought me to a screeching halt and I had to have both knees replaced. Plenty of people go on to have very active lives after that surgery, so there is still hope that I'll get some of that mojo back. My mom walked across England and hiked the Camino de Santiago in Spain in her 70s.

Our oldest grandchildren have graduated from high school now. It won't be long before we are great-grandparents. It's funny because all of my siblings, none of whom got married or had kids early like me, all have children the same ages as my grandchildren. I grumbled for years that I didn't like kids, but it was all a facade. I worked in primary and elementary schools for two decades, and being a grandparent has been one of the best experiences of my life.

I'm trying to be OK with the fact that I don't feel like my time on earth is unlimited like I have for most of my life. Not being a religious person, there are no thoughts of an afterlife. Every time I do something unhealthy, I immediately have the thought that I'm robbing myself of time. I wish I could say that I am them immediately motivated to then eat some spinach and power walk around the block, but so far that has not been the effect.

I have got to say that I enjoy having been around enough to be retired from my career job. It's cool going to work these days because I want to, not because I have to. I could stop at any time. That's pretty empowering. It makes the crappy days that inevitably happen at work more bearable. I'm not even the oldest person in my office. Our database manager is three years my senior, and she takes no shit from anyone. She's my role model.

I can accept my eyes getting weaker and my gait getting slower. As far as I can tell, my mind isn't slipping yet. Both my parents are still alive, so family history indicates that I probably have quite a few years left. I hope so. There is so much more to write about.

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At 8:00 AM Saturday morning, Wonder Woman and about 70 others will begin running a 2.2-mile course over and over for 24 straight hours. Whoever covers the most distance in that time period will be declared the winner. Those completing 50k, 50 miles, 100k, 75 miles, and 100 miles will receive special awards. Some races are entrepreneurial money-making events for the organizers. Ironman, the titular sponsor of triathlons, is a for-profit company. The race Wonder Woman is in is a fundraiser. The money raised goes to an organization in the greater Williamsburg, VA area called The Arc. This is a wonderful inclusive organization offering programs to adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

The name of the race is The Greensprings 24. The start/finish line and crew area (I'm crew) is at Jamestown High School. If you want to follow her, you can do it here. Her race number is 204, and her actual name is Carol Plummer.

I'll be set up in a pop-up off to the side with her supplies. I'll be in charge of filling bottles with both water and a liquid nutrition product called Tailwind. She has prepared packets of sports nutrition products that she will pick up every five laps or so. I have a small backpacking stove to heat up some real food for her to wolf down later in the day and through the night. It consists of things like plain white potatoes and soup. I'll be making coffee for us both.

Today has been kind of ritualistic. We live about four hours away, so we had to travel and check into a hotel. She's stayed off her feet for the most part, although I did have to talk her out of going out and doing tourist things today. She has a more restless nature than I do! It's important that she stays extra hydrated today and that she eats some extra carbs. Her favorite pre-ultramarathon meal is pho, the Vietnamese rice noodle soup made with a salty and savory beef broth. She got into bed at 5:30 to read and hopefully doze off early. We will sleep as late as we can tomorrow before driving the 15 minutes to the racecourse in time to get the crew area set up.

My duties will be pretty minimal. I'm mostly there as a cheerleader and motivator. If she gets blisters, I'll play medic, and as she gets progressively more tired, I'll help her with socks and shoe changes. I'll probably get yelled at a time or two. Ultramarathon runners are known for being grouchy crybabies sometimes because it's a terribly stressful sport. I'm experienced enough to let the abuse roll off. If blowing up at me makes her feel better, she's welcome to call me names any time. I admire her not just for competing in these events but also for all the training and disciplined training, eating, and sleeping she does on top of working an important job full-time, being a wife, a mom, and a grandmother. I don't call her Wonder Woman for nothing!

When the race is over, we will have to pack the car and drive back to the hotel. We've arranged a late checkout so we can both get some sleep before driving home and going back to work on Monday.

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The dividing line between Generation X and Boomers is New Years Day, 1965, fifty-two days before I was born. Over the next 15 years my cohort, smaller than the one that preceded it and the one that followed it (Millenials), began to reap the meager rewards our parents bequeathed us, single-parent families, careers as latch-key kids, run away inflation and coming of age with Reagan in the White House making it easy on rich folks and kicking off the decline of the middle class by breaking unions and kicking income inequality into high gear.

The oldest Gen X-ers are only five years from retirement. Everything seems to have changed for us. We bought records we traded in for tapes that we traded in for CDs before we downloaded MP3s that we stopped listening to when we had to start paying a subscription fee to listen to music. After graduating from high school, I supported a wife and a baby by cooking at a Shoney's and serving in the National Guard one weekend a month. By the time my youngest reached maturity, two adults working full time at entry level jobs could barely make ends meet.

We experienced a few cool things, like getting to watch MTV when they played music video. We've had some great music. We got to transition out of a world that worried about nuclear holocausts. Unfortunately we got to see AIDS put in an end to the free love we thought we were going to get. I've lost count of the financial crises we've endured.

Generation X | Origin, Years, Characteristics, & Facts | Britannica

Gen X is next up for retirement. Are they in denial?

Gen X Research | Environics Research

Back in the days when people still bought encyclopedias, my parents were confronted by an especially good salesman who sold them not only a full set of the Book of Knowledge but also a collection of classic literature. When I was in elementary school, I tackled many of those books because I thought they sounded interesting. I mean, Gulliver's Travels was about little people, and Pilgrim's Progress was about (I thought) American pioneers. I plowed through the books with as much understanding as I could muster at that age, and can today truly state that I've read them. The problem is that it's been years since I felt any urge to approach that kind of book. When I see people reading The Scarlet Letter or Dante, I'm in awe. I would feel like I was back in high school senior English if I picked up one of those books. I'm even inherently suspicious when an enthusiastic reviewer claims that a novel in one of the genres I like these days—English detective novels, science fiction, military fiction—rises to the level of literature.

I'm generally OK with my lack of formal education. I managed to learn enough on my own to support myself through retirement. I can talk to anybody and don't suffer from low self-esteem (quite the opposite if you ask Wonder Woman). I just regret not being exposed to classes like music appreciation and art appreciation. I enjoy some classical music. I've listened to Vivaldi enough that I can generally recognize his compositions, but I don't have any background in theory. Opera is a mystery, and I've only got a rudimentary knowledge of the development of jazz, although I do have a good collection of Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

When it comes to art, well, I've been to one exhibition—Norman Rockwell. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I know that hardly qualifies me as a connoisseur. I can name famous artists and tell a Rothko from a Jackson Pollock, but I still feel under-qualified. My son takes trips to Boston and New York just to visit art museums. Considerable space in his tiny Austin bungalow is given over to his collection of art books, and the walls are covered in originals he's purchased at galleries. My walls are covered in pictures of my grandkids and Wonder Woman's photography, which is admittedly pretty arty.

I rarely like any film that wins the Best Picture award from the Academy. In fact, I am still mad at myself for sitting through The English Patient all those years ago. It's not that I'm a fan of superhero movies—not that there is anything wrong with them—I just seem to lack the gene that lets people discern symbolism in films. I'm very much an on-the-surface kind of guy. My most common reaction to reviews of arty movies is WTF?

At this point in my life, I'm not likely to summon the energy to improve on any of this. I've learned to live with my shortcomings in appreciating things the way the more cultured folks do. I feel proud of myself for reading the occasional book of poetry (full disclosure: my son buys them for me) and for reading The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Atlantic. That will have to do, I suppose.

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