Author: Steve Ainslie

In 2014, Ezekiel Emanuel — a health policy expert, medical ethicist, and oncologist — published an essay titled “Why I Hope to Die at 75.” In this recent article, Emanuel, who is now 65, explains why he will likely maintain his position to stop accepting all medical treatment at age 75. His original essay was…

Ever since Snickers died, Wiggles and I have been bonding more and more. I’ve noticed that she follows me around more and wants to snuggle in my arms more often. I have made deliberate efforts to pay more attention to her – leaving my headphones out during our and talking to her instead, playing games…

I have been reading Brett Easton Ellis’s book “White“, which is purportedly about social media, freedom of speech and likability. After a few chapters, I gave up. What I liked about the book was that Brett and I are both Gen-X kids so his cultural references to movies, being a latchkey kid, independence, school etc….

In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond wrote about a few island societies that thrived for hundreds or thousands of years. He compared these to other societies, many of which grew to huge populations before they eventually ran out of resources and collapsed (hence the obvious choice of book title). A community of the long-lasting, small…

When I was scooting my kitchen chair back from the table last week, I hard to push hard enough that I thought I better replace the felt pads on the legs because they must be worn down again. I have felt pads on the legs of all my furniture because it makes it easy to…

This week on NPR News, the lead story covered how Americans feel about abortion, politics, the economy, education, etc. They presented statistics about falling consumer confidence, a rise in political divisiveness, distrust in the government, yada yada yada. After a few minutes of this, they quoted the source of their data – a Marist/NPR poll…

I received an email from a someone I would describe as a distant relative of my deceased wife saying, “I had a fall and broke my femur.” Other than for one email a while back, I hadn’t heard from this person in the 4.5 years since my wife died. My wife was close with her…

I think about buying stuff a lot more than I buy it. I think about eating ice cream, chocolate, nuts and pizza a lot more than I eat them. I not able to avoid impulse buying and eating because I have some kind of extraordinary willpower. It’s because I’ve intentionally designed my life to make…

I don’t believe in god, an afterlife or reincarnation. I can understand why people do. I can understand why people want to believe. I can even understand why leaders and society encourage these beliefs. But the lack of evidence and the historical roots of these mythologies is enough to convince me otherwise. Yet still, it…

I have been drifting for a while. Me – drifting? I’m not the man I used to be when my wife was alive. That’s clear. My life and mindset are so different they would be unfathomable to the old me. I set small goals each day. Things like clean the house, do the laundry, swim…