Greetings! Entropy is the tendency toward randomness and on my old blog I used to create entries of random things and call them Entropy (day of the week). So, here's to old habits...
A little context for my first post in a long while...
For the past few years, in lieu of New Year's resolutions, I've chosen a "word for the year" to highlight a focus for me and provide context for the coming year. This year, the word is HEALTH. I intend to focus on all aspects, physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, spiritual. Outside of being somewhat overweight, I'm not doing terrible, but there are things I can improve.
One of the first things I have done is to give up on Facebook and all its platforms (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp). The tipping point for me was their latest privacy issues - giving access to private messages to companies like Netflix and Spotify. The level of control we are willingly giving over to corporations astounds me and it isn't clear to me that we understand all of the implications. On top of that, I found myself spending too much of my time scrolling there looking for God knows what and clearly not finding it. So, that is the first unhealthy behavior to go.
After a few days, I can honestly say I don't really miss it. On a few occasions I have caught myself wondering what someone is up to, but realized that it was just as likely as FB wouldn't really answer that question for me. One thing that freeing up that space in my head has allowed me to do is think more about where the direction of my work might go in the coming year or so. After almost 2 years of leaving the research space, I am now completely immersed in the climate change field and all of the controversy that entails. I will expound on that in the near future, but does it ever move fast and is interesting every day,
Last night, KJ told me that next year for his science credit, he was thinking of taking the AP Environmental Science course. The teacher had come around to tell them about it and his thought was "my dad would love this class." As he's contemplated college and careers, I've told him that anything he could do to tie his interests to climate change would be a good way to stay employable because climate change is going to impact his entire life. We'll see if he follows through, but it was heartening to hear him thinking about it.
Reading less FB has freed up more time to read other things. I picked up several books over the holidays and have started reading The Way of Paradox: Spiritual Life as Taught by Meister Eckhart. I found out about this book reading a recent book on one of my favorite poets, John O'Donohue. I've heard references to Eckhart mostly from the On Being podcast and hopefully this is a good introduction.
On the physical health side, my cousin Alex and I are having a weight loss contest - the closest to 160 by June 1 is the winner - reward TBD. I have not started off the year so well in the exercise dept, but plan to get going next week. This has been an slow easing back into the work routine after a couple of weeks off.
McK is back to college this weekend. So good to have the kid back home but so excited to see her future unfolding in front of us. Off to enjoy the last couple of days with her for a while.
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