The Simple Joys Of An AhsokaLokiMarvelSnapLooseLeafTea5thBirthdayParty Small Life

Nate Green -

Welcome to the October 2023 edition of...
What I'm Into, What I'm Up To
#40

Believe it or not, here in north central Florida the weather has taken a turn for the chilly. Chilly for us, anyway. You should see my kids on our morning bike rides to school. They look like arctic explorers. And I'm not much better, either.

This month's email will be slightly shorter and slightly different, about the simple joys of a small life.

I’m not a very content person, generally.

I often idealize some kind of more perfect life with more accomplishments and more connectedness and more travel and more important-ness. Since at least teenage-hood, I have always thought my future life would be better than my current one.

Which is sometimes good, when life is sucking, but that way of thinking tends to leave me enjoying the prospect of an idealized future and not enjoying the good moments as they happen.

So I'm trying not to worry so much about the goals and the end results and the should be doing/should have done/should eventually do.

Stick to the simple joys of everyday life, Nate.

This lesson was helped recently by the kids getting sick one after the other (snot like waterfalls) and a back injury keeping me from some of the things I enjoy most about my normal everyday life, which in turn got me thinking about some of my favorite little joys:

  • The fresh air and exercise of the aforementioned morning bike rides to school
  • A cup of my favorite black tea after breakfast (loose leaf, from the Indian grocery store)
  • Learning new stuff and flexing creative muscles in new ways via my online video game courses (currently a Metroid/Castlevania-style 2D side-scroller with animated characters, jumping, climbing ladders, and enemies who get stuck on walls for no reason I can figure out—I was ecstatic when I figured out how to slow the player's movement when walking in water all on my own)
  • A Formula One weekend
  • Going to the regular gym and the climbing gym, pushing and moving my body in ways I wouldn't otherwise
  • Dinner with the fam around the dining table on the porch as the kids fight over which music gets played in the background
  • Evening walks with my wife, talking about successes and failures and stresses and hopes for the future
  • PBS documentaries that don't stress me out before bed
  • That elusive win in a Marvel Snap match (I recently played someone who used a Deathlok/Wolverine/Angel combo I really want to try, but still waiting to unlock Wolverine)
  • A little girl's 5th birthday party (at the playground, in the morning, with donuts and juice—pay attention parents, every word here is a thing of pure genius)
  • Weekend trips to the beach (St. Augustine or Crescent Beach or Jacksonville, occasionally Cedar Key, recently in the news after it was hit by a hurricane)
  • Looking forward to our next trip to Orlando to hang out with our friends and family there
  • Youtube-and-snacks Wednesdays, when the kids and I catch up on our favorite Minecraft Youtubers after school
  • Our cats Rocky and Gizmo sprinting toward the door in the morning after an exuberant night out in the yard
  • Fresh baked whole grain bread from the bread maker
  • Green curry and Thai tea
  • A new podcast episode from one of my favorite shows (currently Eff Won or Hard Fork or the Robcast)
  • Finishing a good show like Ahsoka, or starting one like Loki
  • Starting a good book, or giving up on a bad one

Now I want to know from you, Dear Reader, what are some of your favorite simple pleasures in life? Super boring or super exciting, I don't care... hit me with it! (I might share a few in the next email, but if you don't want it shared, just let me know.)

That's all folks, thanks for spending a few minutes of your precious time with me.

Good luck and Godspeed!