Personal essays
On making things good again.
*Next
I’m thinking through what to do next.
Yes - it’s going to be one of those essays. You can skip it and meet me back here next week.
I love what I do and want to keep doing it - but the money seems to have gone out of it.
I know - boo f’ing hoo it’s happening all around us.
I’m actually not at all sad - I’m just trying to figure things out.
For the most part, my life has been great.
For the most part, my life is great.
I’ve gotten to do amazing things. Truth be told, I can continue to do those things - it’s just that nobody’s going to pay me for it anymore.
Then it wasn’t
I was catching up with a woman I know and she was telling me about a relationship of hers that just ended.
It lasted six years.
And then she said the thing that’s stuck with me.
“It was good until it wasn’t.”
I loved that there was no boo (f’ing or not f’ing) hoo.
(f’ing or not f’ing - not exactly Hamlet)
It was good, then it wasn’t, and now it isn’t.
I love that she didn’t go back and find fault with her partner throughout their relationship. She’s happy for what she had and sad for what she doesn’t have.
So many of the secrets of life are found in lessons from some corner of your life or from the life of someone you know or have heard about or even from a fictional character.
It’s why I write this newsletter. I write about someone’s story way over there and find myself saying, “damn, there’s a lesson in there for me too.”
Ove
A woman gave me a copy of the book “A Man called Ove” just after Kim died.
I finally started reading it this past week.
Well, that’s not exactly true.
I put the paperback in a box while we were cleaning up the house and I wasn’t sure where it was. So I got the audio book out of the library and I’ve been listening to it.
The story keeps moving from the present to the past.
I hate books like that.
But somehow I really like this one.
It’s about a man who has strong opinions and is fairly rigid and let’s other people know what he thinks.
“So,” you say rolling your eyes, “nothing like you.”
The man’s wife has died and there’s a big hole in his life.
“Nothing at all.”
Spoiler alert - I’ve gotten to the part where he’s tried his fourth suicide attempt.
That is nothing like me. I’ve told Maggie that if they every find me dead and want to rule it a suicide, she should have it investigated. I’m way to frightened by death to do that.
Even so - there are lessons in this book that resonate. I see some things about Ove that I see in myself. Not literally. More like a caricature. But they’re there and they need addressing.
I’m working on them - but suddenly I need to decide more concretely what to do in the next phase of my life.
Unlike Ove - I recognize the presence and assistance I get from the people around me and I make sure they know it.
And then
I told you last week that with Maggie’s help and encouragement, the first floor of my house is clean and presentable.
You’ll be happy to know that a week later, it still is.
Also in that week I hired a landscaper who cleaned out the flower beds, cut back the bushes, and edged the lawn.
All of that frames the newly painted house and garage.
It looks so good that I had to send an email to my neighbors to let them know I’m not moving.
Many told me they’d been wondering.
And now it’s time to look at the work I do.
I love the work I do.
I constantly learn new things and get to teach it to others.
For the most part I teach, write books, and speak at conferences about Apple technology. Each June Apple introduces the stuff that’s new and that’s what I teach for the following year.
My books, workshops, and conference talks always led to companies bringing me in to teach private classes. That’s where I made the money that justified me making nothing or almost nothing on the rest of it.
But companies don’t seem to be doing that anymore. Their employees - at least the ones they haven’t laid off - can learn stuff from free videos or can use AI tokens to get help from Claude Code or some other agent.
Like a skilled craftsman - and I consider writing and teaching both art and craft - I’ve been replaced by a machine.
Boo f’ing hoo.
And like those skilled craftsmen, I’m sure there will be enough work to sustain me once we get past this initial bubble.
I’m confident that in five or ten years enough high paying work in these areas will come back. If I were younger, my plan would be to continue to work and get better and stay visible during that time.
It is
Do I need to get paid?
No.
But, it turns out that I’m less-evolved than I would like. I measure my value to others by whether or not the work I do is worth being paid for.
I’ve identified that and voiced it and hope I can get past it.
I love learning new things. I love writing books and teaching others.
A few years ago I met with a friend in Edinburgh and told him that my plan was to work until I was 70.
He asked, “why?”
It was a good question.
It’s as good a question as why, if I can afford it, should I only work as long as someone pays me.
I may write different sorts of books. I’ve long wanted to write books about calculus, statistics, and inspiring stories. I’ve wanted to draw well enough to produce books with hand-drawn illustrations.
Not worrying about making a living from it is kind of freeing.
I’ve been looking back at my career thinking, it was good until it wasn’t.
And then I realized, it is again.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 329. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe