Cats, good books, AI, and religious walking in the city of Sofia
I think Greece is at the top of my list of vacation destinations. Hard to beat the endless beaches and the taverns with fresh fish stands.
From the countries I’ve never visited, I’d like to see Japan and experience the Japanese food from the source.
I don’t want to retire. My plan is to follow in my mom’s footsteps. She works in her 70s and I admire her for that.
I believe a person needs a reason to leave the bed in the morning, and working is a good reason to be awake, especially if you work on something you believe in. You keep the brain occupied with meaningful goals so it’s not occupied with other things like anxiety and problems. The brain doesn’t like to stay empty, it will fill itself quickly if left unattended. I also believe that you lose what you don’t use.
Retirement doesn’t sound appealing. There’s no remote island, beach, or resort where I’d rather be.
Looking back, it has to be one of these 3:
Pippi was one of the books that hooked me to reading, Winnetow introduced me to adventure books – pirates, Wild West, and such. The top choice, however, must be The Three Musketeers.
Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan are unlikely friends, united by their shortage of money and willingness to duel. They are all extreme in some way and represent a few distilled qualities that complement one another. Their paths briefly cross, create beautiful moments of courage and bravery, and drift apart because of tragedies and traumas. It’s written in small chunks, chapters that have their own merit as short stories. This made it a good book for a 7 or 8-year-old with a limited attention span.
I’m not sure if I read The Three Musketeers more times than Pippi, Winnetow, or the other 4-5 books I would read each summer break but it aged well. The last time I got it in my hands and read a few chapters, they were captivating and great. It was less than a decade ago.
10pm is reading time. The computer has to go off. Saturday and Sunday are days with afternoon naps. The inner cat awakes in me and I sleep. This almost makes the week feel 9 days long.
Longer-time unplugs are much harder to organize and vacationing usually fills the day with activities that don’t involve work rather than unplugging.
I do, I’m old enough. The birthday of the Internet is officially 1983. I was 3 years old in 1982, a first-year kindergarten kid. My parents lived outside of Sofia because of permit issues – socialism regulated who lived where and they didn’t have permission to stay in Sofia. We lived in a rented bungalow in a village nearby that had running water but no bathroom. I was banned from visiting the toilet because my parents were afraid I’d fall in. We had flowers, trees, and a manual water pump. I remember that I ate the dandelions. The puddles had frogs. We were told touching the frogs would cause warts, so the interaction was with sticks and stones (no frogs were harmed). We had a small hill that was good for sleds in the winter. A train line was not far, and we had to walk by the tracks to reach the kindergarten.
The Web was invented in 1994, birthing a prototype of the modern Internet and many supergiant services. I was already hooked to computers by 1994. We had 8-bit computers at school, and I studied programming with Basic (ignore the first paragraph on that post). We also had computer clubs where kids could watch how other kids played, which was almost as good as playing yourself. Smoking was permitted inside so you could cut the thick gray air like cheese. I spent my summers around the chess bridge club in Stara Zagora which had 20-ish XT and 80286 computers.
Both milestones I associate with the freedom to roam around and having lots of free time away from my parents. Sofia and Stara Zagora had fewer cars, and it was considered safe to let your kid play on the street with other kids without supervision. I was allowed to go to school by myself from 1st grade when I was 6, a right my kids are deprived of by law. Culturally, we got our highs from books, VHS videos, and audio cassettes. The influencers existed but spoke from the TV, rather than social media.
I’d say, life was simpler and not necessarily better or worse. I like my hot water and inside toilet, the Macbook Air, and the WIFI but playing football every day was also great. And can we get rid of the cars? That was such a civilisation-level mistake.
