A socially busy, but otherwise unproductive week. Today I thought about being middle-aged, while driving down Jalan Kepong in a traffic jam. Jalan Kepong was jammed-up thirty years ago. It's still jammed-up now. I rarely drive here, but there were errands to attend.
While driving, I listened to Goldman Sachs Exchanges on the US Treasury auctions and related markets. It's something I haven't had the priority to study, but as I follow my career plan into its middle-decades, I have to learn this for the purpose of asset management. The market is currently in a moment of confidence, since yesterday's CPI data dropped right on target. I don't have the energy to deal with more risk, right now, so my main investment portfolio is pretty much 100% cash. Sad. But true.
Earlier today I was helping my friend with a visit to the tax office. I was there just for hand-holding, they have not paid taxes for years since they retired, but had to attend to an administrative matter. They discussed a bit about how their childhood trauma from parents made them anxious about authority figures. After the visit to the tax office, we went for a walk in the park. We also discussed physical conditioning, and estate planning. As time passes, one tends to see more friends pass away, whether by accident, or by their own careful design. It is the way things are.
Later I also synced up with a friend over the recent demise of our child - a potted plant they had gifted me. I think it is funny how people can have different values about things ... some will slap their kids and tell them "don't be so rude", others will slap their kids and tell them "don't be so polite". Others will do the same without the slapping. I like how my relationships improve as I age - but perhaps it is just the increase in my sample size, and not a change in my parameters of quality. Instead of friends who simply ghost because they think we have protocol differences, I now have some friends who will explain that they are averse to friendship because of protocol differences ... unfortunately, still, such friends are typically not quite composed when they reach these decisions. Some of us treat friendships as short-term investments, some of us use them for the long-term.
Such is middle-age ... there is nothing new to think about. But if you speak about the same old things, people hear it differently, because you are of a particular age.
I nudged 14,000 lbs on the gym machines today ... I have barely gained any mass since I set a target of 22,000 lbs/day ... and I already hit north of 26,000 lbs after a few months of training last year ... so I will need to raise this target much much higher in the short-term. After dinner, I surveyed my flat, and was grateful for the luxury around me. As much as I live in a garage with a view, it's a lot fancier than much of the stuff I grew up with over the years. I guess I should remind myself of how I would have appreciated these spaces as a younger person, in order to maximise my enjoyment of the present. I certainly don't think very highly of my present, in the present.
This leads me by supper time, to the form of meditation which is to look upon things as if seeing them for the first time. It is mostly a focus on live data from the peripheral nervous system, rather than from the field of memories which form those massive graphs of context that judgy people have when they look upon things. The light from the banker's lamp casts long shadows from the leaves in the noodles in my bowl. It is pretty, and the colours are amazing. I should do this more often.
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