It's easy to be wired all the time. Checking messages, performing tasks, planning for the future, making the most of every second with obvious output. But do you have any intentional inefficiency in your life? Breaks? Breaths between tasks? If so, what are they?

I often like to go on the App Store or GitHub and look for new and interesting apps, but very rarely I find really good ones. So I turn to you - what niche apps are you using, why are they niche, why do you use them specifically and would you recommend them?

Here's my Top 3:

Novel writing: I use a tiny app called uFocus for all my Markdown writing. It's lightweight, the developer is a real cool guy and it's entirely free. It has barely any features, and I like that about it. I don't use Word because it's too distracting and complicated, I used to use iA Writer but it's really not justified the updates it's gotten and is straying away from Markdown.

Email: I use MailMate, which is an insanely complicated and user-hostile email client that only works with IMAP/SMTP and does NOT support Gmail or Exchange, but is incredibly powerful at email management and search if you learn how to think like it does. It looks like it hasn't been updated since Mac OS 8, but it's getting regular updates and is very charming in its aesthetic.

Programming: I don't do much, barely some web design, but I like Zed as my editor of choice. It's not very popular, doesn't have a huge user base and barely any extensions compared to a juggernaut like Code or Cursor, but does what it does well and isn't written in Electron. It's also very performant.

So I normally don't care that much about food. But I just got introduced to r/ididnthaveeggs which is a repository of insane and ridiculous recipe substitutions from the comments sections of recipes. Even with zero knowledge of cooking, I know swapping carrot for shredded kale in a carrot cake recipe will not turn out well.

So cooks and food-eaters of Tildes, what are the most insane and ridiculous substitutions you've encountered or heard of? Especially curious if you've had the (mis)fortune of getting to try the innovative recipe for yourself.

I was reminded this morning of the video in which a physical education teacher is performing a workout dance routine in Myanmar, not realizing that she captured the start of the 2021 coup d'état in the background.

She's wearing a covid mask, dancing to an incredibly upbeat and catchy song while the military vehicles roll in to crush their democracy. I can't recall where I saw this, but I will never forget the comment someone left online about the video which read, "This is decadently post-modern."

To make it even more interesting, the song itself is a parody of authority. It's essentially a song mocking weak men with big egos, and the song title translates roughly to, "Have Mercy, Mr. Tough Guy/Big Shot"

Link to video

What other insane things do we have in 2025 as a result of ubiquitous high-definition cameras?

hi everyone —

i have been working on a new music/sound art project for a few months and wanted to include voice recordings of people. i really enjoy tildes and reading what you all choose to share and think this would be the perfect place to collaborate!

if you would like to contribute, i’m looking for a few specific things and am also open to hearing anything you’d like to send (and i do mean anything).

here are things that i had in mind:

• voicemails / ideally you would record your voice to your phone or computer using the built in microphones with a message. it could be completely made up or one you would leave someone you know. the more personal/individualized the better.
• transcription of a note / similar to the previous item, i would like to hear you read out a note you took recently. no context necessary. you could of course just make one up for this project as well.
• internal dialogue / obviously this would be a bit more difficult as i would imagine the moment the dialogue becomes external it changes shape and who thinks to even record such a thing? but it’s worth a shot!
• text i provide to you with your own interpretation on how to “perform”
• almost anything you want to send me! (just probably not anything i could get flagged for copyright infringement)
• while i’m primarily seeking voice recordings, if you record some other audio (the ambience of a public park, your commute to work, a pet making noise, server room hums, etc.), i’m open to that as well

about the project

this project is a “slice of life” of sorts with sound and visual art. with that, there would be no context to the spoken audio or visual. these audio recordings are a part of a larger project that will have ambient, drone, and experimental music as the primary focus. there will eventually be a visualization of this project but i have not locked down how that will end up being.

here are two recent examples of music that would accompany the voice recordings (though these exact songs will not likely appear on the project): 1, 2

this will be publicly available as part of my music catalog and on my website. though i did have an idea for some of the spoken audio parts to only be available on physical media or an in-person only event.

your contributions are anonymous unless you request otherwise (to be credited, split royalties*). if the recordings contain personally identifiable information, i’ll work with you on removing those parts or not using the audio at all.

i will reach out to each contributor with the final version before public release so that you can decide if you still want to be apart of it. zero pressure, no hurt feelings.

notes

none of these recordings need to be in english. i would prefer that you speak in whatever language makes you feel most comfortable and authentic.

my only request is that you don’t “make a voice” — i am looking for your natural voice and not a performance.

(*) i currently make near-zero USD on my music, so the royalties split would only be for the sake of fairness and the future possibility of it being picked up by the algorithms or something.

———

thanks for taking the time to read all of that and i hope hear from you!

edit [20.04.25] - wow, i can’t believe how many of you are interested in contributing to a internet stranger’s art project! i’m very grateful.

Hello Tilderonis! I'll be in the Vernazza area of Cinque Terre next month. While there I plan to propose to my girlfriend :)

My current plan is to find a nice part of the "blue trail" with a nice lookout, track down a florist, and prepare that spot with some of her favorite flowers before we get there. Her family is joining us on the trip so I'll get them prepped as videographers. That night I want to take us all out for a nice dinner.

Okay so now the questions-
In general any potential snags you see with this plan?

Does it matter what time? I was thinking something in the late afternoon so we can do dinner soon after. Any issues with bugs or anything at certain times?

Anything else I can do or add to make the moment a bit more special?

For dinner I'm looking at Belforte Ristorante but definitely open to suggestions.

Thanks!

I'm writing this as a way to, I guess, journal my thoughts but also share my experience, here's hoping it makes an interesting read. Sorry in advance if this feels disjointed or disorganized, I'm writing as I go.

So for those of you that don't know, today there was a massive blackout in Iberia and some regions of France, and it was a total blackout. Over 60 million people were affected.

The causes are still unclear, but it appears that it was due to a rare meteorological event that took out a high voltage line. This line distabilized all of the grid and took out the power. As far as we know, there was no cyber attack or anything of the sort.

Anyway, here's how things went down for me.

Today I woke up at 8:00 in the morning, went to work as usual. In my office, we had a completely normal morning as usual. But then, around 11:30, power goes out. Our monitors stopped working, lights shut down, ventilation system turned off, the whole shebang.

I thought, "just another blackout, should come back any moment". But then, my colleague sitting on my side, was on a call with someone in Porto - we were in another city - and that the power there was also out. (our wifi had UPS, so we had internet for a while).

While very rare, it actually wasn't the first time that this happened. Last year we had an outage that took out several regions in Portugal. So I thought, "again? Weird."

People started talking to each other, calling friends and family to ask them if they also had the outage. And sure enough, all of them did. Soon enough we started to find out that even Lisbon and Algarve were missing power, so it was a national outage.

Cellular data still worked, I started refreshing all the news websites that I knew of and checking r/portugal on reddit. These moments were... Not unnerving per se, but worrisome. Never in my life I experienced something like this.

Some news started coming in, but none of them mentioned anything that we already didn't know. Just that there was a outage and that there wasn't a lot of information about it.

Comments on reddit started saying that this outage was also international, that regions in Spain were affected. Soon after, also France. Then some also said that it happened in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Italy.

Soon after, it dropped, and I paraphrase the title of the news: "Outage in Europe. Military personnel summoned".

My dudes, the brainstorm and red flags that went in my head at this moment...... I kept my cool and tried to stay calm, but internally I was going at 300 km/h. The only logical conclusion at this time was "Russia is f*cking invading us".

Didn't help that, at this time, there still wasn't any confirmations if it was a cyber attack or not, so all the possibilities were on the table as far as I was concerned.

I kept refreshing, waiting for the page to update with more information, while hanging out with my colleagues. After a short while, around 12:30 - I think - there were confirmations that it wasn't a cyber attack, but instead a technical incident. The comments and reports were all over the place, some said it was a fire in France, then an airplane that crashed, then it was something in Spain, etc etc. So I decided to tune everything out and only use that page as SSOT.

Glad I did that because, we all decided to go for lunch, and people were all talking about what happened. And some, started saying that russian submarines were spotted along the coast, that they saw it on Facebook. Misinformation on social today must have been on an all time high.

Our company decided to let us go home, so I got into my car and went home. While traveling, I turned on the radio to "Antena 1", a national radio station that kept giving us information about what was happening.

So for starters, yes, the military was summoned but it was to help with all the problems that we were facing. People got stuck in metro stations and elevators. Traffic lights weren't working so there were accidents. People panicked and started buying anything and everything on the supermarkets and stores. Some gas stations closed.

Some supermarkets and stores were closed due to them not being able to process the purchases. The only one that remained open were the ones with generators.

Pharmacies were also facing issues since they couldn't connect to their centralized databases (from what I understood), but there were also worries if their generators would last long enough to keep the medications in low temperatures.

As I was driving, it was also confirmed that general power would return between 6 to 10 hours, but at most it could take 72. General power should be stabilized in a week.

Once I got home, I found my old radio, that has at least 20 years, put some batteries in it and synced to Antena 1, and listened to it throughout the whole day. We're talking about an analogue radio, the kind that you have to rotate the wheel to set the frequency.

One thing that I started to appreciate, is how my iphone 12 pro max, a technological marvel, became basically unusable. While this simple piece of plastic that my parents bought for maybe 5 euros just worked. The cellular towers started to fail throughout the country, as they themselves started to run out of power (I assume they had generators). Meanwhile, this radio, it just worked.

I spent the whole day listening to it, and took the chance to watch Chainsaw man, that I had downloaded on my phone.

It was.... I don't really know how to describe it, but the fact that I could keep up with what was happening was good. The idea of just waiting without knowing what was happening is stressful. This tiny radio was my only source of information, at this point I had no internet, no TV, no calls, no text messages, no nothing, just the radio.

I know that right now it feels like I'm praising the hell out of that radio, but that's because it really did feel like the only connection I had to the outside the world, not counting my neighbours of course.

As for food and water, thankfully I was fine. But there were people that didn't have much at hand and - understandably - were scared that they wouldn't have enough for the next days.

Thankfully though, the guys over at the power plants did an excelent job and power started returning in several regions, one at a time, now at night. I got power a while back.

So... Other than the existencial dread that I got in the morning, it was fine for me personally. Although I can't imagine those that got stuck in metros and elevators and trains.

I got humbled today. We take the internet, TV, power, calls and messages for granted, but today I didn't have access to any of them, and for a while not having them for a few days was a real possibility.

In terms of food and water, I was fine, but I think I'm really going to get one of those survival kits after all, just in case. Hopefully I'll never need it but better prepared than sorry.

Hello All!

recently moved into an apartment and happy with it for the most part and grateful to have a place to call my own.

One issue has been the sound though. I am a remote software developer and work for a company that is 3 hours ahead of me. I personally prefer getting up at 3 am my time, enjoying my breakfast with a bit of TV and then signing into work at 4 am and getting off as 12 pm.

It's a life style thanks to covid and luckily landing jobs in a part of the country that is 4 timezones ahead of me but I enjoy being able to have the rest of the day for myself.

However, this move is the first time I am living in an apartment and that means sound can penetrate to neighbors. I had assumed that given the building was cement or concrete or whatever (I just know its not wood), that sound would not be an issue, but apparently given that my living room is right next to my neighbors' bedroom, I have had repeated noise complaints that I make noise during the building quiet hours (10 pm - 7 am)

Some were understandable, I was watching a movie at 3 am on a weekend and my TV is up against the wall that is shared with my neighbor. Bought some headphones and apparently that issue has gone away, but yesterday for example, I was on a call with a colleague at around 6 am and I can admittedly be loud. What I didn't anticipate was that I can be loud enough that it carries through the walls. This amongst other things (like me walking around in my own place which actually lead my property manager to push back on my behalf and tell them that's not a legit complaint they can have and makes no sense given I don't live above them) lead to a noise complaint.

Thankfully my building manager has been nice enough about it (I think cause she can tell I am not being malicious and I do want to be considerate of my neighbor, I just really underestimated how much sound travels in this building).

But this whole thing is making me a bit off about the situation cause if my neighbor could hear me on a call with my colleague, then they can also hear me when I am doing a counseling session from home if they happened to be in their bedroom at the same time and that makes me uncomfortable.

Which is making me research ways to prevent sound from my place going to my neighbors but I am by no means an expert in this field and wondered if anyone else has had experience with sound-proofing and can give tips.

It's a rental unit so it obviously can't be something that requires renovation and I prefer a solution that doesn't involve nails but if that's best, I can always ask permission from my property manager. I also don't plan to live here longer than 4 years (I hope to buy a condo of my own as soon as Trump leaves office) so I don't want to drop too much money on this.

the two things I kept coming across were:

1. acoustic panels: not sure how invasive that is and if there's an adequate brand for people on a budget.
2. a dampening blanket: but not sure how effective that is.

the wall's dimensions are 196 inch wide and 8 feet tall. However, if their bedroom is the same size of mine, it is only 159 inch wide.

Another low cost solution is just to move my desk to the other side of my living room so it's facing the opposite wall. The distance between the two walls is 160 inches and I'd be facing the opposite direction but I get worried that they could still hear me on calls if I move the desk to the opposite wall. But I also am not expert on sound dispersion and penetration so I could be wrong :shrug:

I'm curious what your sense of nostalgia is like?

For me I think it's reasonable low. Like I look back at certain things, events and people of my past and I will think fondly of them. But I don't think about it often, and I almost never think "I miss that thing", more so that I enjoyed it at the time and I'm glad that it happened.

What about you? How do you view nostalgia? Does it bother you that things aren't the same as before? What things do you miss?

Do you have a weekly or daily routine? A preferred application?

For context, I’m an ecologist that focuses on statistics and modeling and I work in a few different ecosystems. I’ve always struggled to feel like I have a good understanding of the literature and I think there are a few main reasons.

• Quantity: It’s overwhelming. There is so. Much. Research. And there’s more literally every day that is or might be relevant.
• Sources: Relatedly, there are so many journals to try to keep up with. And certainly more that I should be keeping up with that I’m not even aware of.
• Method: I haven’t found an interface that really works for me. I end up ignoring emails with journal table of contents. Scrolling through RSS feeds on Zotero or Mendeley is awful. Going to the journal websites is even worse.
• Scheduling: I block out time in my calendar, but there’s always something else I’d rather work on. It’s hard to force myself to focus on it.
• Workflow: The exploration-exploitation trade off. If I skim through all the titles of a bunch of different journals, I end up just spending the whole time downloading papers which then sit in my Zotero library without getting read. If I stop to look in more detail, I don’t get through much of the article list.
• Retention: It’s hard to read something over and really retain it. I’ve taken notes (digitally and on paper) but that adds to the time it takes to skim titles and abstracts, which reduces the number I can cover.

One of the downsides of everything being digital is that I also find it harder to skim an article and get the gist of it. Flipping through a magazine lets you skim the titles and figures to easily get the main idea. Online, I need to read the title, click in a new tab if it seems interesting, scroll around to skim the abstract, and scroll and/or click to the figures. Flipping back and forth to the abstract or different sections is also harder.

What I’d really like is something kind of like a forum or link aggregator where I could skim titles and click an expander to view the abstract and figures.

I'll go first. I don't like to sleep in the dark, even though it's considered normal. I usually fall asleep with the lights on and either the computer/tv still on as well. This mostly came about because as a night owl, I would often just pass out and incidentally not turn the lights off. Now I've grown so accustomed to it that attempting to sleep in darkness feels strange and uncomfortable. I used to feel a bit guilty about 'wasting electricity,' but since the advent of LED lightbulbs and low-powered computers, I no longer do.

That's my quirk, what's yours?

A month ago news about Dropout was shared here which is how I learned of the service. Having subscribed to it due to it, and since I liked it sufficiently in the three day trial, I'd like to share my thoughts on it.

Overall I mostly appreciate the content, especially due to the unique nature of it. The overall amount of diversity of various comedy formats and skill of the cast at improvisation(or at least the appearance of it) is pretty impressive.

Game changer is pretty amazing at how it manages to intelligently change the game presented (and sometimes format) nearly every episode. Play it by ear spinoff features an improvised musical with very good performances that are delight to watch. Dimension 20 is a tabletop gaming session show with good use of props and music and coherent and engaging storylines. These are mostly ones I watched for one but I'm sure I like some of the others it has to offer too.

But there are also some things that I consider at best suboptimal.

While not catastrophic in either intensity or frequency the crude ass/fart jokes are on average present almost every episode and definitely lower the overall quality in my opinion.

So far as I know specific to Dimension 20 is the woefully lacking content and trigger warnings descriptions. The seasons can vary massively in tone and the indication of it is basically zero until you actually watch it for a while. There are trigger warnings under episodes but only them. Using Burrow's end as example it starts as an intensive and dramatic in events but at the same time very cozy in the family interactions story, then devolves right in the next episode into intensely graphic(for the format) gratuitous gore and body horror with no sufficient indications of that in the first two hours plus long episode.

It mostly lacks the anti user features of modern streaming services but it would have been nice if they left them out entirely. Having to go outside of the site to get basic information on the content, bad series organization(overall seasons sometimes being listed in several different series, making the series tab a mess), unchangeable(as far as I know) play next video anti feature, multitude of trackers on site or the traditional inability to buffer too much of the stream in the browser.

Overall I mostly like it, I just wish they'd have made it possible to like it more.

An idea, a perception, a feeling, an understanding, a concept, a framework, a belief, a response, a decision, etc.

What were you wrong about?
What changed your perception?
What has been gained/lost from your new understanding?

Important: It takes a lot of courage and self-reflection for someone to admit when they're wrong. Please honor that in this topic.

I do not want this topic to be a place where people have their previous wrongs used against them. I want this to be a place of honest, empathetic growth rather than a score-keeping battleground. Give hugs, not hurt.

Lots of exciting leagues to follow in the world of European football. I know there's not a lot of traffic in the ~sports section of tildes, but I'm sure there are some football/soccer fans on the site. So does anyone have any interesting leagues/games to watch in the next couple of weeks as these competitions near their conclusion?

I'll list a few interesting things below that I'm keeping track of or looking forward to, but please feel free to suggest more! At the very least this can serve as a preview for anyone interested in watching some matches in the next couple of weeks but that doesn't know which ones to watch/prioritize.

• Premier League (England) - Well Liverpool just thrashed Spurs to seal the title yesterday, and the bottom three are all set in place, so the main thing to watch for here are the European spots. Newcastle, Man City, Chelsea, Forest, and Villa are all within 57-62 points with 4 games left (Forest have 5). The qualifications for European places is kind of a mess nowadays, with so many different competitions and group stages and the winners getting automatic spots, so I'm not exactly sure just how many of them will make it into the Champion's League vs the Europa League or Conference League. But best to be top of that group just to be safe. Major difference in prize money between those three competitions, so should make for some interesting final matches. Notable ones include Newcastle v Chelsea and Forest v Chelsea, plus there'll be a few games between these teams and others that don't technically have much else to play for, like Liverpool (already won the title), Arsenal (most likely finishing second, plus might be focusing on CL), and Southampton/Leicester (already relegated).

• Bundesliga (Germany) - Similar story to the PL, Bayern have all but won the title (technically there's still a chance for Leverkusen, but slim), and the real fight is for the few European places. Freiburg, Leipzig, Dortmund, Mainz, and Bremen are all at around 46-51 points with 3 games remaining, and even Frankfurt at 55 are not completely out of the fight. It's been interesting seeing Dortmund rise over the last few weeks given how low they were mid-season. Impressive turnaround from them. Too many interesting games to list, like Bremen v Leipzig, or Freiburg v Frankfurt, but I'll make sure to tune into a few of them for sure!

• Serie A (Italy) - my favorite of the bunch currently. Inter lost and Napoli won yesterday, meaning the title race is in Napoli's hands after them slipping and Inter pouncing a few weeks back. 4 games to play and they're at 74 and 71, so should definitely make for some interesting final games. Below them the European spots are heavily contested as well, with Juventus, Bologna, Roma, Fiorentina, and Lazio all with 59-62 points. Though Atalanta at 65 and Milan at 54 are still in the battle. And there are plenty of direct matchups here, like Bologna v Juventus, Roma v Fiorentina, Lazio v Juventus, Milan v Bologna, Atalanta v Roma, Fiorentina v Bologna, Roma v Milan, and a nice Inter v Lazio towards the end. Plenty of great matches to watch with teams that have a lot to win/lose.

• Primeira Liga (Portugal) - Sporting and Benfica fighting for the title. Both with 75 points and 3 games left to play, one of which will be against each other on the penultimate round which should be a hell of a match. Could and probably will be the title decider, unless they tie in which case it'll come down to the last day, which will be equally exciting. Porto and Braga also fighting for the 3rd place spot, which would be Europa League vs 4th place's Conference League.

• Ligue 1 (France) - PSG have already won (and comfortably, though hilariously they just lost for the first time in the season, meaning they won't go unbeaten as many thought they might) but the next 6 teams are all neck-and neck. Marseille, Lille, Monaco, Lyon, Nice, and Strasbourg are all at 54-58 points with 3 games left. Should be plenty of movement there in the coming few weeks. A couple of direct matches too: Lille v Marseille and Monaco vs Lyon, plus Strasbourg are still to play PSG.

• Champion's League (Europe) - Arsenal v PSG and Barcelona v Inter. Some great teams there, and the quarterfinals were (mostly) incredible match after incredible match. So hopefully the 5 games that are left don't disappoint. 3 of those teams are still up for a treble. Any predictions? My money's on Barcelona purely because of Flick and Raphinha.

• Europa League (Europe) - Spurs v Bodø/Glimt (you bet your ass I copied and pasted that), and Athletic Club v Man United. Spurs and Man United are having absolutely terrible seasons, so they're sure to be desperate to win this and salvage something. Meanwhile Bodø/Glimt (how many teams do you know of with a slash in the middle?) are in the semis despite being a small Norwegian team. Would love to see a Bodø/Glimt v Athletic Club final!

Question is as stated in the title. How did you learn to read?

I am re-listening to the great podcast, "Sold a Story" and it has prompted a lot of questions to myself, and now to others.

So, I'm curious, how did you learn to read and what do you remember about it? I am extra interested in people who have learned from "non-phonetic" languages, and also have a new curiousity about French, which I consider a language that does not match the spelling of its spoken and written words (if that makes sense, I'm sure that is my own bias there, as an English speaker).

tl;dr: Happy (?) ending

I wanted to post a short follow-up to my post last week, as things have progressed very quickly.

The most important thing I would like to say is "thanks" to everyone who chimed in with your very helpful advice, well wishes, and support. I took everything you said to heart (which is probably a risky thing to do from random internet folks, but this community is simply different).

Everything just clicked for me as I was going for a run last Friday and talking out loud to myself in a sort of stream of consciousness manner. I probably looked like a crazy person. Honestly, I don't know where the words came from, but it was all crystal clear.

I went home and asked my wife to talk "just one more time... and this time it will be different, I promise." I told her that I have come to terms with her decision and I respect it. I also asked her if my understanding of what went wrong made sense, and she said I hit the nail on the head. So I have a starting point for what I need to start working on personally.

We talked for a long time and started going through logistics. We are both on the same page about raising our son in a healthy manner. We will be doing equal shifts (week on, week off) and will find places to live relatively close to each other. We plan to remain friends and meet up regularly for our son.

On top of all of these things that happened VERY quickly on Friday, I found out that my mother fell and broke her hip on Saturday. She's got a bunch of other issues so a hip break is NOT good for her. We all packed up and hit the road to drive ~4 hours to the hospital. Mom is recovering now. It was a very surreal experience, this new form of bonding my wife went through over the weekend. We're now just friends, living together for the time being; yet still doing everything we can to help each other out.

I'm still very tired and not sleeping, and I'm CERTAIN I'm not even one step into the grieving process, but I feel better right now. I am working on moving on and moving forward. I feel as if I have stepping stones that will make me a better person AND I can work on the issues that caused all of this in the first place so I can learn how to pass that wisdom on to my son to make sure he doesn't run up against the same challenges as I did.

Again, I am sharing all of this because you all gave me some very frank, direct, and compassionate advice and support. Reading through the comments as they came in helped to keep me grounded and on track. I have archived all of the messages in my Obsidian notebook and I will read them in the future to remind myself to stay focused on self improvement. Thank you, once again.

I dont think it would be unusual to say that I enjoy life when things are running smoothly and everything feels under control, stress levels are low and I can plan for an enjoyable future without much worry.

And then everything goes to hell in a hand basket. Like being wracked with unimaginable pain so bad I wake my wife in a cold sweat at 2 am and choke out "We need to get to Emergency now". And then, unbelievably, it gets even worse, so bad that thoughts that death might actually be sweet relief start to creep in.

That was two weeks ago when I found out that not only did I have a 3 cm gallstone stuffing up my gall bladder but it had perforated into my liver and my gut was filling with infection, a condition that can shut down organs or even be fatal if not treated rapidly. Through the miracle of modern Canadian healthcare, they had me multi tested, diagnosed and into emergency surgery in short order.

And a fortnight hence, I have a lot to ponder (because Im still too damn weak to do much more than type) and its made me admit that unexpected adversity is a gift not a curse.

Foremost, it focuses the mind. When youre laying on an operating table surrounded by surgeons and nurses and wondering if you're going to come out of it alive, a lot of things become unimportant. I didn't care about politics. Or bills. Or investments. Or achievements. Or just about anything. I just wanted to be ok, not only for my own sake but especially for those I care about. And at that point there was crystal clear realization that what counts is only that - those I care about. The rest is dust and meaningless in the grand scheme of things. A lesson I've learned profoundly once before, but the mind dulls with an easy existence and needs a refresher on occasion, unwelcome as it may be.

Coming through also taught me how much I take for granted, especially having reasonably good health. I've had random unexplained attacks before, but for a day I dealt with incredible pain and it was unbearable. I had to think of the people who deal with that kind of soul crushing challenge continuously - their existence and will to persevere is challenged on a daily basis. And hardly anyone sees that exhausting internal grind but just having the will to stay alive is a hard won battle every single day and no one's handing them trophies for it. I have respect for those who do it, and a much greater understanding for those who just can't and decide to opt out. I get why that makes sense for some.

I also have a newfound debt of gratitude to people with character, foresight and undefeated willpower like Tommy Douglas who fought for universal healthcare in this country, against the will of most doctors at the time who (to my great surprise) actually went on strike to oppose him. After 20 tests, xrays, a CT scan and emergency surgery (with 2 surgeons, anesthesiologist, and 4 nurses), and multiple days recovery in big, brand new private room and being sent home with all my meds my entire bill was zero. No one even mentioned money and there is no insurance or co-pay to settle. Its done. I cant imagine the burden Id be feeling today if I was now saddled with crushing debt, but I am deeply grateful for the system that did all this for free, even if I do have to pay higher taxes to get it. I will remember that the next time my income tax bill comes around and make a mental note that my taxes are not 'wasted'.

I'm not going to be yodelling with joy if something this painful slaps me upside the head again anytime soon. But I also meekly acknowledge that sometimes life's most profound, most well remembered lessons dont come out of joy, they are often seared into memory by unexpected, even shocking adversity. I might not like it at the time, but in hindsight, it's a gift. An unwanted but valuable gift.