I wouldn’t say twilight, Jon, except in the sense that nothing is stationary and the overwhelm of obligations does only ratchet one way. But that’s just mechanics.
I continue to be reading as heavily as I can, trying to get a clear picture of things that are going on, as there is a lot going on. But I guess I would say that the state of my engagement with the world is moving (growing? or just updating?) in something like the way my engagement with my work is. In the early stages, when I hadn’t tried anything before, the ability to try something made that seem like enough to talk about. Much of it didn’t satisfy standards of really “meaning” something, and the various objections and complaints over the years enabled me to come into a more rounded understanding of that. It didn’t make the first efforts bad — one does what one can do at any given stage — and coming to understand their considerable shallowness wasn’t any disappointment or resignation. It was a kind of appropriate growing. But that also meant that the early efforts are not proper models for the efforts I need to be making now. I still need to try to come up with things that “mean” something. The standards involve more to check, my industriousness is poorer, but my tools and experience have expanded somewhat. So on balance, there is still a way to put effort into each day. About this I am not morose, only aware that there is a lot that needs better clarity than I currently see how to give it, and in dealing with current things as in dealing with work, it becomes increasingly not-okay for me to settle for bullshit (at whatever level I am currently capable of telling which part that is). There is an interesting freedom in this, too. By some bizarreness, I haven’t been thrown out of science yet, despite the fact that I never produced any of the standard metrics for being allowed to stay. The fact that the shadow of any future that can be used to threaten me isn’t all that long now, enables me to try to go after questions that really seem compelling to me, and to be slow or intermittent on making headway on them if that’s how it works out, and not being too distracted by the fact that to anybody outside looking in, it seems that I am terribly unproductive. I have watched other old people give up things that involve unknowable latencies, because they have lost the illusion of having unlimited time. (As if it mattered for them to get something done, irrespective of what that thing was.) If I can avoid taking that turn, I would like to do so. The accretion of obligations is a problem, for sure. Like you mentioned, and Glen seconded, I rarely read books any more. Though in something like acts of defiance (or ridiculousness), I still buy them from time to time because I wish to have learned what is in them. (It’s just all the other littler stuff that I am obligated to read, or to do, that keeps getting in the way.) That sets back having things to say as well, since one has to actually _do_ something new to have a reason to _say_ something new. But again, that limitation isn’t even interesting, since I think it is more or less the situation of everybody. So I continue to watch, and look forward to when something comes up that propels me, on its own, to engage with it. On list, or off. And of course, if I manage to accomplish _having_ a thought about something engaging, I will enjoy sending it. Eric > On Feb 3, 2026, at 19:45, Jon Zingale <[email protected]> wrote: > > I know I came to this group in what appears to be its twilight. The in-person > meetups are weirdly sad. I feel pressed to ask if it is the case that > everyone is either: > > 1. on vacation/ too busy > 2. too depressed / failing to find inspiration > 3. moved on to greener forums > 4. preferring the company of LLMs > ... > N. waiting for someone frail to post > > Sometimes I trawl reddit or whatever discord, but I cannot help but feel like > beacons of inspiration are becoming fewer and further between. This group has > managed to inspire me, keep my interest, for over a decade. In that time, I > pushed myself to understand perspectives that I would never have dreamed > existed. 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