OTR Takes a Break

I'm headed up to my family's place at Lake George until after Memorial Day. I'm going to decelerate and read and write a lot. I've neglected Pennhollow and I've been so focused on getting certain things moving I've disconnected from some pretty important aspects of what makes me happy.

It's funny how that works, isn't it: it took me a long time to learn that one thing that makes you happy (say, building businesses) can disengage you from other things that make you happy (spending time with family, reading, writing, seeing friends). In a world with pluralistic and incommensurable values, something always loses. You can recognize that mercy and justice are both good societal values, but you can't have absolute mercy and absolute justice: they are at odds.

So, I'm going to spend some time recalibrating the balance of the pieces of my small, rather unremarkable life. It's healthy to do this periodically, to check what habits you've unwittingly formed, what things you've (perhaps unreflectively) taken to be true.

It's up to us to determine who we are.

So, I'll be out of pocket on LinkedIn, mostly. And there's no record for today (although, for those interested, I listened to Spoon's Lucifer on the Sofa this morning). I don't know when OTR will be back, as there's no record player at the lake.

But I have a suspicion I'll have something for you folks. It's hard for me to disappear entirely. I crave attention, like any soft narcissist.

So, I'll see you around!