When you stop reading books, you lose your sharpness of speech, critical thinking, and imagination. A closed book is a closed mind. DON'T EVER STOP READING.
Does anybody else feel like life never really went back to normal after 2020?
And I’m not talking about masks, lockdowns, or any of the political debates. I mean the feeling of life itself.
Everything technically returned to "normal." The stores reopened. The roads got busy again. People went back to work. Life kept moving.
But something still feels different.
The years seem to pass faster than ever. Friendships feel more distant. Conversations feel shorter. People seem more distracted, more exhausted, and less present.
It’s hard to explain because nothing obvious is missing.
Yet somehow it feels like we lost something important along the way.
Life used to feel slower. More connected. More genuine. There was a sense of optimism, excitement, and possibility that’s difficult to describe now.
Maybe we're all just getting older.
Or maybe 2020 changed people in ways we're still trying to understand.
I can't put my finger on exactly what was lost.
I just know that life used to feel a lot more alive than it does today.
My son asked me a weird question when he entered high school:
"Can you tell all my friends that you drug test me randomly?"
I looked at him and said, "I don't drug test you."
He smiled and said, "I know. But if they think you’re a psycho who tests me every Sunday, I can say no to everything at parties without getting roasted. I just blame you."
Now, whenever someone hands him something stupid, he hits them with:
"Bro, I can't. My dad is an absolute lunatic, he tests me every week and he'll take my car for a year."
Done. Zero peer pressure. Zero lost street cred.
Parents: be the villain in their stories.
Give them the excuse they need to stay clean without feeling like an outcast.
In 2015, at the ECHO Klassik Awards, pianist Menahem Pressler, then 92 years old, was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award. After accepting the award, he asked if he could sit down at the piano and play a short piece.
He chose Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor. There was no orchestra, just a piano and a man who had devoted his entire life to music. The piece is not long, but under Pressler’s fingers, each note seemed to unfold slowly, delicately, and intimately, like a story being told through sound.