Pattern Machine

The mind is a reasonably fast, ultra-parallel, massively connected, super-hierarchical pattern machine.  As we get older these hierarchies of categories and categories of hierarchies get strengthened.  This produces hardening of the categories.  Unless we continue to grasp new ideas and concepts, this hardening will be more extreme.  It is good to confuse the existing patterns on a regular basis to help loosen the rigidity.

What Matters

One nice thing about getting older (one of the few things :-)) is that I have much less interest in things that don't matter that much. So, I don't spend a lot of time chasing things that burn time and money. But I do spend time and money on things that matter to me. More simplification and focus is calming.

What matters to me now? In no specfic order I'd say music, making a difference through my career, family/friend relationships, great ideas, health, financial independence, sex, mental clarity, spiritual search, seeing more of the world.

Maybe that's about it. Activities that enhance those things pretty much take up my time these days. Now that I wrote the list, it seems longer than I expected, cause it doesn't seem like I do as many different things as I did in the past. But, that's probably enough as I seem to stay busy most of the time with just doing the next thing.