The Last Post

I could shut my laptop when he squirms his way between me and the desk and wiggles his way on to my lap. I could switch my context when my wife sits down next to me aching for a conversation. I could spend more time with both of them.

I can pretty much be sure when I say I will not be the next Zuckerberg. There are many things that vy for my attention throughout the day and night. But there is only one thing both of them needs and which I squander.

I do not want to look back and regret. I am going home right now and I am going to kiss my wife and hug my kid.

Ciao.

Between this post, "Cranking" (http://www.43folders.com/2011/04/22/cranking) and the fact I have a second child probably coming Very Soon Now, I have to admit I'm sitting back and thinking hard about where I've spent, and am spending my time. I'm thinking about all the wasted time and opportunities I've accrued over the past 31 years.

I'm thinking about all the time spent arguing with people on the internet and giving up my free time to change some small part of the world, and not playing with my almost four year old daughter, or talking with my beautiful wife.

Take stock in your life and make sure you're following your passions. Make sure you try to remember and capture every moment before it's gone. Change the world while you're still here.

Appreciate the world while you're still here.

"Instantes"

If I were able to live my life anew, in the next I would try to commit more errors. I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more. I would be more foolish than I've been, In fact, I would take few things seriously. I would be less hygienic. I would run more risks, take more vacations, contemplate more sunsets, climb more mountains, swim more rivers. I would go to more places where I've never been, I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans, I would have more real problems and less imaginary ones.

I was one of those people that lived sensibly and prolifically each minute of his life; Of course I had moments of happiness. If I could go back I would try to have only good moments. Because if you didn't know, of that is life made: only of moments; Don't lose the now.

I was one of those that never went anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, an umbrella, and a parachute; If I could live again, I would travel lighter. If I could live again, I would begin to walk barefoot from the beginning of spring and I would continue barefoot until autumn ends. I would take more cart rides, contemplate more dawns, and play with more children, If I had another life ahead of me.

But already you see, I am 85, and I know that I am dying.

Every morning I get to wake up next to a beautiful, brilliant girl who's several years my junior but emotionally more mature than me. I have never felt better about another person in my life.

I have no bills, I maintain a modest lifestyle and am attending university for a degree in a subject matter that simultaneously I love and will make me some extra money down the road when I need it.

Every day, I set my own schedule, fitted around picking up & dropping off my daughter at school. Beyond the normal stresses of being a single parent, my life is astoundingly, remarkably, wonderfully, joyously stress-free. For the first time in my life.

Reading Derek's post has affirmed the decisions I've made to put me in this position. I regret nothing, and just about every day is awesome. If you've read this far, please don't take this as shameless bragging. It is a sincere expression of gratitude to Derek, and a grinning shout of relief at the sky that I have let so many unnecessary, trivial things fall away from my life over the past few years.

And yet it's real difficult to make good use of that opportunity; we people are so stubborn that we rarely change for the better of ourselves or for other people even if somebody goes lengths and dies to remind us that we won't be here forever.

Even worse, it might take a whole row of people dropping dead until we manage to corner ourselves into a position where we can no longer give ourselves a choice to postpone any necessary changes in our lives. But that's how it works, so can't complain.

I'm nearing that point myself, currently. It haunts me, all the time closer and closer. I can go only so far this way anymore until I have to take that other road and start living a bit differently: start living a life that is completely mine and not partially borrowed from anyone else.

I'm not there yet.

Maybe I need to bump into a few more deaths before I get zapped into alignment with all things relevant. I can just anticipate now, and that makes me both scared and thrilled.

You are who you are. You love what you love. The world isn't perfect. Don't sit and think your priorities are "wrong" all the time.

No, the reason it has me worried is because although I have people I care about, I don't think I love anybody so much that I'd rather spend time with them than work/learn/create things. When I think about starting a family, I worry about how much I'll regret not being able to devote my full energy to building intellectual edifices out of math, bits, and music. But I see most people here saying the opposite.

I'm trying to tell myself that this is only because I don't have kids. Surely, if I had kids, my whole perspective would change, and I'd become a more complete human being, right?

I was taken aback.

The final paragraph is the kicker and has my eyes watering up, I hope his family all the best and hopefully we'll see his two daughters do something just as great as Derek has done online!

"I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you."

The strangers around us, even those we brush against on the web, are all fighting hard battles at some level. Compassion in the midst of our sometimes misguided inclination toward competition can keep us human, and sane.

> I haven't gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven't gone anyplace, because Derek doesn't exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn't make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that once I died, it was over.

With all due respect to Derek, and it's remarkable he was standing by his beliefs until the very end, he has no way of knowing that's what happened.