I’ve been a bit erratic on my posting as I don’t have a firm personal commitment to when I should publish blog posts. For certain periods I was consistent on Sundays, but now I just post when I think about it, which I’m realizing is too infrequent. I just read about Avicii dying, and it inspired me to get out of my posting slump and write something.
At the risk of sounding morbid I often get uplifted when I hear of someone I know of passing away. Just like anyone else my first reaction is surprise, and then sympathy for the people close to that person. After that though? I’m able to remember my own mortality, which inspires me to do things with the time I have.
I never met Avicii, although I’ve enjoyed his music and have been to some live performances before. I was really impressed with his ability to consistently create good commercial house music. A lot of DJs I liked before him would have a good song or two, but never had the same consistency of mainstream dance that Avicii produced. I also really admired how young Avicii was when he got successful, and how he kept it going. I’m sure he would have kept making more good music if he was alive, but he had a great run with his time.
Time passes by and what I spend time on actually happens, and what I wished I spent my time on stays unfulfilled. I realize how hard it is to get creative work done with the multitude of tempting distractions. Objectively looking back on my past year I did several things I’ve already forgotten about that I worked hard on (building a novel AI program and presenting it to large tech companies in Silicon Valley, learning about Bitcoin, getting back into writing), but I get lulls in my production. I need little reminders that I’m aging besides the few grey hairs that I pluck, or my increasingly limited knowledge in popular music.
I also get tweets alerted to my phone as each percent of the year passes. We are currently 30% done with 2018 in case you are curious! My girlfriend complains to me that it’s a depressing reminder, but I love it. If I want to publish a book this year I need to get moving faster. Focused effort can get things done quickly, but anything less than that and I’m always surprised at how much longer it can take (or not get done at all).
With all of that said it’s time to get back to writing! I’ve had a good few weeks on the crypto front, but sloooow progress on writing. I’ll look to reverse that for the near future.
Have a great weekend, and attaching a picture from Old San Juan
Andrew Manser 