Back into the Pool

Hi 😃 Been a while, eh? How’s it going around here? After making this post, I’ll have to try to catch up.

So… If any of my readers remain, I suppose you may be curious as to why I suddenly disappeared. Let’s try to tackle that.

This has been an entirely unplanned but in hindsight not unexpected “Hive vacation”. The short of it is that I had been posting daily for something like five or six years and when the day finally arrived that I just wasn’t able to post, breaking that streak, well, there was no huge incentive to jump right back into it the next day, so I didn’t. There’s always excuses not to do something, and I have many, so I took them. In addition to devoting more time to my company, I also played with the kids more than I had been. When I’m an old man looking back, I don’t think I will ever think “I spent too much time with the kids” — in fact, probably the opposite — so I don’t regret that call at all.

Beyond those two facts of my life — my company and family — I’ve never really given away many details of my life on Hive, so let’s pull back the curtain a little here.

In an event that has surprised exactly no one in my life and may not surprise many of my readers here who have been paying attention to my posts over the years showing an incredibly range of interests, an enormous number of personal projects, and the seeming inability to focus on any of them for long before being distracted by something else, I was diagnosed with ADHD and put on meds. I’ll write more about this in another post because it interests me (which in some ways is a great example of the problem) but for the moment, there we go. I don’t know if I feel too different, but it’s early. Dosages and or drugs may be adjusted, I’ve been told. I’ve further been told that for some, the drug is like a thunderclap—like instant enlightenment, satori, so to speak—leaving the user amazed at the new clarity they have. I’ve also been told that for some, there is unfortunately not much effect. But for most, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately for me it hasn’t been that first one, but I have hopes the middle way is already having some effect. We shall see!

That said, I’m not the kind of person who wants to give any suggestion or hint of an excuse for my actions or lack of them, so with the exception of this post and the next, I may not mention this ADHD diagnosis very much, if at all.

Beyond that, life goes on. It’s hot outside. It was somewhat cooler than usual before rainy season, but it’s been the typical super hot and super humid since, combining to give us a heat index around 56°C (133°F) or so on many days. Fun times. I’ve never been one to use heat as an excuse to not do things, but this year I have run into heat exhaustion a few times. Luckily I’ve been able to cool down before that progressed into heat stroke, but it’s kind of alarming to even get close to that. The headaches, nausea, and weakness as a result are no joke, I can say now from experience. I should learn my lesson and be more careful. I love being outside and doing things, so we shall see if the lesson sticks.

One thing: over the past year or two, men in Japan have learned from women the advantage of carrying an umbrella to block out the sun, and I have definitely seen the light in this too. If you’ve never tried it before, do so. You’ll be amazed how much cooler it is under the umbrella!

Anyway, that’s about it. Or all I’ll be saying about private things anyway 😃 Going forward, I hope to start posting here again. Maybe not daily, as I was before, but at least a few times a week. Let’s see how that goes!

So... how are all of you doing?