Meditations for Mortals

March 20, 2026

Meditations for Mortals

Rating – 4 – Type: Self Improvement
Author – Oliver Burkeman

Summary: Life is messy. You will always have too much to do. You will always have problems. That’s just the way it is. Accept it and enjoy your life in all its messiness.

Despite the title, this is not a ‘how-to’ book on meditation; rather, it provides thought-provoking concepts for the reader to contemplate..

The past is gone and the future hasn’t occurred yet, so right now is the only time that really exists.

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TL;DR

The book’s structure is read one chapter a day for four weeks. All the chapters are short taking no more than 15 minutes to read. Each week stresses a different concept:

  • Week one – Being Finite
  • Week two – Taking Action
  • Week three – Letting Go
  • Week four – Showing Up

Week one day one begins with this ominous quote preparing the reader for what’s to come:

The most liberating and empowering and productive step you can take if you want to spend more time on the planet doing what matters to you, is to grasp the sense in which life as a finite human being – with limited time, and limited control over that time – is really worse than you think.

Week One lesson is we are all going to die, we can’t possibly do everything on our todo list. Come to terms with reality and enjoy the present.

Week two can be summarized with a slight twist on the Nike ad campaign – Just Do It. That is, quit worrying about the endless lists of things that need to be done. Pick one thing every morning and work on it forgetting about the list. “Just Do It” includes finishing; there is something magical about completing a task or project and marking it complete.

Week three recommends giving up on the struggle to maintain control every outcome, event, or person. Realize life’s journey is unpredictable beset by problems and interruptions. Those problems and interruptions are your life.

Week Four reinforces the previous three weeks wit the idea that life is not a problem to be solved but an experience to be inhabited. You will never reach a trouble-free phase therefore just start “doing” instead of waiting for the perfect time and place. Accept the mess and treat problems and interruptions as just part of life. Be in the present

You might easily never been born, but fate granted you the opportunity to get stuck in the mess you see around you, whatever it is. You are here. This is it.You don’t much matter – yet you matter as much as anyone else ever did. The rive of time flows inexorably on; amazingly, confoundingly, marvelously, we get the chance to go kayaking in it.

What we do here and now matters not in the Grand Scheme of the COSMOS

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Posted by molson46

2025 -> 2026

January 14, 2026

2025 is a year I’m happy to bid a non-found farewell. I may be the eternal optimist but I have faith 2026 will be a most excellent as Bill and Ted would say year.

2025

Why was 2025 a bad year you ask; I will enlighten you.

I woke one morning and could not see out of my right eye. I was not blind but there was a black spot covering 2/3 of my vision. What I could see out of the remaining 1/3 was severely warped making the eye unusable. I had to close my right eye before I could see correctly out of my left eye. Turns out I have macular degeneration. A regime of shots in the eye has improved my eyesight greatly but the Retina doctor tells the right eye will never be normal.

In 2025 we became very familiar with the Grapevine ER and Hospital. I took Gwen to the ER eight times this year ranging from the catheter blocked, to food stuck in her vocal cords, to could not wake her.

Gwen was hospitalized four times in 2025. The first visit was because they had to operate to remove the food from her vocal chords. Yes, they were being especially cautious as to not damage the vocal cords. The last time because she would not wake up. They finally determined it was because she had a bad reaction to one of her prescriptions even though she had been taking it for three years.

Sandwiched between the other medical events Gwen had a procedure to install a suprapubic catheter in an attempt to stop her malignant UTI. She continues to have them but not as frequently.

That was our 2025. Because of Gwen’s advanced PSP she is homebound and only left home for medical appointments, ER visits, and Hospital stays except for a couple visits to our youngest daughter’s home for family events. I’m out and about to buy groceries, and my medical appointments which are thankfully few and far between except for the Retina Doctor.

2026

I’m determined 2026 will be better.

As for myself, As 2026 rolled in I weighed 230.5, am pre-diabetic, out of shape, and trying to quit drinking wine at night. My intention this year is to live a healthier lifestyle.

For Gwen,We will slow the PSP progression and attempt to keep her out of the ER and Hospital!

Gor ditt basta (Do your best)

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Posted by molson46

2025 Books

December 23, 2025

I’ve been an avid reader my entire life; 2025 was no exception. My favorite genre is Science Fiction. However, I attempt to read at least a dozen non-fiction books every year to expand my horizons so to speak.

This year I read 38 books, 14 of which were non fiction. The non-fiction books (plus two fiction) were:

TItle Author
Right Thing, Right Now Ryan Holiday
Einstein in Kafkaland Ken Krimstein
Meditations Marcus Aurelius
Tiny + Wild Graham Gardner
The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkhein
Tiny Experiments Anne-Laure Le Cunff
A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawkin
Big Jim and the White Boy David Walker & Marcus Anderson
The Light Eaters Zoe Schlanger
Eat That Frog Brian Tracy
Deliver Me From Nowhere Warren Zanes
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind Shunryu Suzuki
Goodbye, things Fumio Sasaki
Blue Mars Kim Stanley Robinson
Wisdom Takes Work Ryan Holiday
The Lord of the Rings J. R. R Tolkhein

Several of the books are re-reads.They belong to the half dozen books I attempt to re-read every few years because I enjoyed them immensely and every time I read them I gain new insights. This year’s were Meditations, A Brief History of Time, and The Lord of the Rings.

I included two fiction books this hear because they are excellent books I’d recommend to everyone:

  • Blue Mars is the third and final book in the Mars trilogy. They are science fiction. The book has a lot to think about concerning life, death, and society.
  • The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy book needing no introduction. I’ve read this really three books over and over since I was young and is one of my all time favorites.

I don’t ever have a favorite book or top five books. However, usually there are several I’d read again and several I would not recommend to anyone.

In addition to the three re-reads mentioned above I’ll put Wisdom Takes Work and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind on the shelf and consider reading them again.The former is the last book of the four part Stoic series and I’ve heard the best by far. Time after time I set the book down to just think. The later is a series of talks given by the author during their morning zazen. I don’t follow Zen but this book encouraged me to reflect on life.

Big Jim and the White Boy is not a book worth reading. It’s a graphic novel version of Huckleberry Finn told from the perspective of the slave Jim. Read the original instead.

Before signing off I have to mention Tiny Experiments which is not a book to read over and over again as time rolls on but I started my own Tiny experiments and continue to do so. Might not be a book for everyone but a valuable addition to the lifelong learner’s toolbox.

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Posted by molson46

Marv’s Updated Landing page

February 24, 2015

Try out my updated Web Page and let me know what you think. Marv’s most excellent web site

I created the web site as part of my journey “Live every day like it’s your last and learn every day like you’ll live forever (Gandhi)“. And learn I did! It’s all vanilla HTML, CSS, and Javascript with a little jQuery thrown in for good measure. However, especially with CSS, its amazing how a really small code tweak cascades into massive changes in the content’s display.

I’m especially interested in its appearance on mobile devices. “Responsive Web” is probably an old concept to most Web developers but I’ve just heard about it in a class I took. The concept is to customize the view for each device type and size as you develop your web site. I attempted to use Responsive Web guidelines to construct the web pages after a first attempt fared poorly.  Using the guidelines I was actually able to add the mobile view without changing the content, only CSS and jQuery.

I’ve tested my web pages on my computer, iPad, and iPhone 6 and would be interested to hear how it displays on other mobile devices.

Some lessons learned by a real newbie:

  • Develop the content first then design the look and feel. I started the other way around and ended up deleting sections of the web pages.
  • One of the cardinal rules in a design tutorial I studied was “use a maximum of 3 colors”‘ but I’m using at least 4 and don’t understand. Another rule was “never use black”. I like black and used 4 colors. I guess the lesson learned is “it’s okay to break the rules so sometimes”
  • Go ahead and insert a link to the jQuery library in the header when you start a new project. I lost an afternoon trying to debug a problem after I inserted a jQuery call.
  • I developed the mobile view last. 90% complete quickly. Final 10% took forever. I learned a lot and the next time will be much quicker. Also, will style the mobile view first.
  • Use relative units of measurements such as % to facilitate the view on different sized devices. I tried to not use pixels, ems, or other absolute units of measurements, but could not eliminate all on images. This proved to be my hardest problem next to the navigation menu.

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My Avocation

April 19, 2010

I am reading a book “Work Less, Live More” trying to determine how to wean myself from working for 40 some years and figure out what I am going to do when I retire. I see too many people retire and do nothing! Anyway, the book has numerous exercises. The current exercise is on Avocation. I always thought my Avocation was my job but I was wrong. The dictionary definition is: “An activity taken up in addition to one’s regular work or profession, usually for enjoyment; a hobby.” So, my Avocation can’t be Systems Engineer — why not? Activities besides work I enjoy a lot in no particular order are:

  • Programming – a creative act
  • Gardening – another creative act
  • Photography
  • Exercise
  • Reading

In theory, I need to work on enablers to turn my Avocations into a revenue stream to help in retirement. I believe the most likely candidate is “programming” and then maybe “gardening”. “Reading” does not often pay much unless you are an editor. I am studying PHP and plan on becoming proficient in that area. In parallel I will network to find some volunteer work in this area.

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Posted by molson46