Author: Steve Ainslie

Sometimes it feels like all am I doing is closing another chapter of my life that was once brought me great joy. The chapter that closed this week is playing the drums. After suffering from a chronic foot/ankle injury for several years, I realized that the cause (or the cause of it never healing) was…

In Joan Didion’s book, The White Album, she wrote about college kids who protested and demonstrated on campuses during the late 60s. She interviewed Huey Newton, trying to get him to answer personal questions instead of spouting off well-rehearsed slogans and lines. She talked about upper class white kids from Santa Monica who proclaimed they…

AI has taken what algorithms have done to the Internet and 10x’d it. What algorithms did by creating clickbait, listicles, repurposed text and dismal editing, AI is now doing with news, video, audio, music and all other content. I see it clearly when watching videos on YouTube and Reddit. People are using AI to copy…

A few days ago, a man shot and killed the CEO of United Healthcare in what the news calls a “targeted assassination based on dissatisfaction with the US healthcare industry”. Since then, the online world has been filled with comments from people pointing out that this CEO and United Health’s policies have injured, bankrupted and…

On the Solo forum a user posted a meme that said “The best advice I ever received was…Decide what kind of life you want and then say no to everything that isn’t that.” Like many memes, it sounded wise. I did this to some extent throughout my life. In school, I wanted to be a…

After my wife died, I intentionally chose to live frugally and simply. My initial motivation was to conserve money since I was unemployed and living off of savings at the time. I grew to appreciate and fully embrace this minimalistic, anti-consumerist way of life. I’ve grown accustomed to questioning every purchase. I watch every dollar…

I was talking to the installer about unexpected issues he ran into when he was installing my doors and windows. I asked what he would do. He replied, “I’ll figure it out. It’s like working on a puzzle. There’s more than one way to solve every problem.” As I watched him and his assistant work…

Most of my life I envied men who could service their cars, do carpentry, repair their appliances and maintain their homes with skills they were taught by heir fathers. My friends worked with their fathers to build sheds and treehouses, change the oil and brakes in the family car, do repairs around the house and…

Last week, one of the window installers was coughing up a lung and going hoarse from some illness. I’m certain I caught whatever he had, because two days after he left, I was struck with the same sore throat, hoarse voice and nonproductive cough. I though it might be a mild cold so I took…

My 86 year old girlfriend passed away this week. She was my neighbor who introduced herself to me the day I moved in and insisted I come up to her house to see “how the furniture was arranged so you can get ideas for your house.” When she learned I was widowed, she was sympathetic…