Longevity, over-optimization, and fear of death

that not only last year did I come on her birthday, that was bad enough, but that I called her a wonderful woman on the show, because that sounded like her name was Nancy and she was 65—... in the suburb of Rochester. So I'm like, I was trying to play the 50. Like, no, I don't know, I'm Danish. How would I know? But that didn't go over well. So I'm gonna say awesome woman instead. If you marry an awesome woman who also not only knows how to cook, but enjoys it, do you know what? There's a very traditional division of labor here that has been quite stable through several... tens of thousands of years in human societies, that perhaps also wasn't the worst idea in the world. And I also know there are plenty of men who like to cook, and there are women who don't. But as stereotypes go, eh, that certainly helped me. Like, I don't think I would've been able to just be as relaxed about food if I didn't eat relatively healthy on a, on a regular basis. But the overall point being, just getting out of that optimization game without turning into the opposite. You don't have to be a fat slob on the couch either. You can move around.

`5:04:06`

This was actually a feature, I built it into Omarchy. So memento mori. Remember death. If you pull down the calendar in Omarchy, you open it by clicking the clock. It opens up, and the first funny thing, I took it off the internet. There's this account called Year's Progress, and it, every day it updates, and it just shows 63% done with 2026. I don't know if you've seen that one. So it just fills up. So I built that into the calendar. So right now it says, "We're 63% done with 2026." But then if you double-click that, it'll ask you, "When were you born? How long do you expect to live?" And the default is 90. So I put in 1979. And then right below the line of, like, how long are we done with the year-

`5:04:47`

... is a new line that shows how long are you done with your life. I think I'm at 62%. I'm like, if you hover over it, it says, "Memento mori."

`5:04:57`

Fair number of people found it morbid, but this was why it is an Easter egg. It's not, like, exposed. You gotta click a few things to get there. I like the reminder. I like the reminder that time is finite, and I should make the most of it. And this is also one of the privileges of having children. You really realize that the cliches are all true. Oh my God, it goes so fast. And I remember my now 13-year-old being one, being two. I was like, "This was just yesterday." And the reason it's a cliche is because it's a shared experience. Cliches are good. They remind you that you are part of the human experience, and others have been here before you.