This is a very personal blog.
2026 is a milestone year for me in many ways. I just turned 80 years old. That’s something I never expected. Both my parents died around 70. My older brother at 33. My older sister at 49. Most painfully, my son at 53. Why did I get all this extra time? Have I used it well? How should I use the time I have left? These are questions I’ve thought about long and hard. With all respect to Bob Dylan the answer is not blowin’ in the wind.
After my father and sister and brother died, all within a few short years, I changed my life. Whether out of grief, bewilderment, or exhaustion I terminated my path to a Ph.D in economics and moved to Mendocino to run a restaurant/bar over the next dozen or so years. My father’s success in that business undoubtedly influenced my decision.
The restaurant burned to the ground 50 years ago on December 12, 1976. I rebuilt and forged ahead for several more years. Those were the most memorable years of my life.
Forty years ago I passed the securities exams and financial planning exams that enabled me to start a financial planning firm that I sold ten years ago. Business and art and science all draw water from the same well. I started the Think in the Morning blog site and before I knew it I was writing and blogging, exploring ideas I’d always hoped to explore. I’m still at it.
I wonder if it’s time now for another chapter. I’ve put out nearly 600 blogs over ten years at Think in the Morning.The blog is a sort of Thought Diary. It’s been fun but in the words of Herbert Stein: If something can’t go on forever, it will stop. I’m like the man in the Robert Frost poem pulled forward by the horse but finding the woods “lovely, dark and deep.” I too have my “promises to keep” and time is limited. To blog or not to blog, that is the question. I suppose I’ll figure it out in due time. Right now I’m battling a summer cold.
Now might be a good time to read any past blogs you passed over if you’re interested (click HERE for a list). Or, to make one last visit to the Napkin Art Gallery. (All the original napkins are housed at the Kelley House Museum.) I might keep the website up for a time but as the technology moves forward it may at some point become unfunctional. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Enjoy Fogust.
David, say it ain’t so! Time really screws up our lives. You are out ahead of me by seven years, but I, too, am surprised to have lived this long. So, I understand your decision, but I am really just digging into your archives, and don’t want to miss anything. But good journey on your next iteration, whatever that might be. And – thank you, for your thinking, morning, afternoon, or evening. You bring your best self into full view, and in that effort, become a “needful thing”, in my life, at least.