Life is a Game of Connect The Dots

by Mike Levin

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Hello World! Hello Adi!

Well, what do you know! I actually thought about the topic of today’s live broadcast before I started. I think I want to let you hear me type…

Okay so now you can hear me type… and talk. But these are silent performances. Pushing things through the actual vocal cords changes things. I want my ideas to flow exactly like when I narrate to myself in my head, and it has a distinctly different vibe than when I talk out loud, even to you my YouTube audience. But as I’ve often said, I do this more for ME than for you… except maybe now I do it for Adi… At Eleven.

And so… and so… yes, life is a game of connect the dots.

Sometimes the dots are connected to reveal a picture you can paint in, thereby having achieved the higher levels of the Maslow self-actualization pyramid, mostly again for your own good… to live life well and to die with fewest open regrets. But perchance, leave something behind for future generations too in the form of the “completed” painting.

Nothing’s ever really completed. We go back and tweak constantly. Some achievements are best left as is, freeing up those tweaking resources to forge ahead onto new things. Do not sacrifice the future on the altar of the past. Did Star Wars really need to be redone?

Anyhoo, examples are too numerous in life to enumerate here. The important thing is to know such a game is going on and adapt your strategy accordingly.

That would probably about do it for this @11 video, huh? Let’s see… connect the dots, what else?

No perfect vision of a future. Remain adaptable. Have a pretty good vision of the future. Know what things you love.

But how will I know?

You don’t really even always know right away. Sometimes it sinks in over time that something you’re doing, some minor part of your life that plays 2nd fiddle to the “main event” as you tell yourself (and often other people tell you) may rise to become the main big thing.

Don’t worry about those cat fight sounds. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s Lynnie and Eri and Eri and Lynnie, two little kitties I know… 2 little kitties I know.

There once was a Billy and Sammy. They have a story. Tell it.

I have lots of stories.

You wouldn’t know it Adi, but your dad has led an interesting life.

My dad hardly knew his dad… Jack. Jack died when my dad was only 12 years old. My dad died when I was only 21 years old. My plan is to extend those time-ranges, even though I started out late too, having you when I was 40.

That makes the math easy in calculating ages, being born on a “zero” year. You’re welcome.

Anyhoo, most of the things I know are old-school. I just listed to the Funniest Jokes series on YouTube from George Burns, Cheech and Chong and Jimmy Stuart.

Jimmy Stuart was from before my time but had the funniest joke
George Burns was from my Alice in Wonderland ~7 to 12 years old, and I didn’t understand or appreciate his joke.
And Cheech and Chong, even though they were around back then are from my later years, and they had the funniest one of all.

Few things are what they ever look like at first, on the surface, don’t judge a book by its cover, and all that.

In life’s game of connect the dots, the image takes place slowly over a long period of time, perhaps your whole life.

There will be false starts, false stops and false images being revealed.

A certain sensitivity that the “green arrow” types of life despise will be your guidance in knowing whether you’re on the right track.

The goal here is to:

Feed your soul
Make your heart sing
And perchance leave something behind

And in that order too. Maybe the first 2 are the same. But the 3rd is very different. Megalomaniacs like every tycoon society covets focus too strongly on that last point, in fact trying to do it all in their lifetimes rather than left behind legacies. Folks like Bill Gates are the worst because they’re 2-faced copycats, just standing on the shoulders of giants where he knocked off some other poor chump. Folks like Bezos are a bit better, actually building something new although as a Philadelphian, I remember CD-Now very well and seem to recall that was first. Elon Musk come next, being of a much higher quality than Gates or Bezos, doing things genuinely first, highly disruptive to fortified and often corrupt industries, and having a wonderful vision of dying on Mars, but not on impact… even a great sense of humor. Autism will do that.

Remember the scale. Everything’s at least on a 2-dimensional scale, like autism and gender. That scale is often called an axis. On one side you have one thing and on the other you have the opposite. Think in those extremes in life, but try to always act in moderation. That will allow you to:

Always have considered the best & worst case scenarios
Illuminate some wiser path in-between that can be traveled
Make you keenly aware of life’s “razor edge” we all live on

And finally, things get complex. That 2-dimensional (1, really) becomes more complex when you introduce another axis. These are called quadrant graphs or plots or analysis… labels… poo!

Too much to talk about those. But when you connect the dots of life know it’s complex. It’s not a sequential process of increasing clarity, but rather a few steps forward, a few steps back, chasing rabbits down holes, coming back up and figuring out whether there’s anything you found/learned that you should incorporate into your developing… Uh, art style.

And I guess that’s where I’ll stop. A bit over 20 minutes… not bad.

Love you lots and lots, Adi of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

What matters most is what’s in your mind… but not only. It’s all on a scale. The now moment is worth slightly more than past and future moments, but not so much so that you should forget or play-down either.

Think! Observe! Actualize. Repeat.

Later Gator.

Loved going go-karting with you yesterday :-)