October 24. Boundlessly stunned about the thoughts of other people. I can’t seem to calm down about it. At first I thought it was all a joke.

October 23. Reading the new book on Cancel Culture. Politically, nothing has engaged me more than that in the last five years. It is also the point at which J and I, when we discuss it, clash the most. I’m tearing my hair out. High Voltage.

October 22. Weekend with paint brush and drill. Buying power tools is my love language. – J

October 21. There aren’t many things I would want to tell my twenty-year-old self, except this: That it doesn’t matter what you do for a living, and you don’t have to worry about ruining your life if you choose the wrong job. I’ve racked my brains over this for years, all unnecessary. What’s important will prevail, and if it doesn’t prevail over some random job, it wasn’t important enough.

October 20. When we get to the point where artificial intelligences can instantly tell us every argument made anywhere in the world about something, and we move around in it like in a honeycomb net, an aquarium of rationality.

October 19. First business trip in almost a year, two and a half hours by car to Philly. I used to do this every week, now it’s a sunken form of existence, only gradually different from visiting a playground where you played as a child.

October 18. It’s a very strange state, not being adapted to your own technology yet.

October 17. For Germans, the way I use technology is alarmingly reckless; for Americans, the questions I ask myself about it are incomprehensible.

My right calf has been strained for two weeks., just below the knee. Getting better only very slowly. I wonder to what degree aging is a continual decline in fitness, or an increase in injuries and their slower and slower healing. i.e. small, painful, persistent irritations. J. says I need yoga.

October 16. To court with J. We had flown back from Sweden fifteen hours earlier than usual so we’d make this hearing. The defendant, as expected, does not show up. The judge can rule like a queen, and she rules that there will be another hearing in two months, and if he does not show up to that hearing, he will be brought to another hearing in handcuffs. – I am confused not only by the geological timescale, but by the arbitrariness of it. I would expect the law to function like a clockwork, where any action triggers a clearly defined response, all in a matter of days. Instead, we enter a bizarre world of laws which works according to its own laws.

October 15. Unusual return flight in the evening, after half a day with the children. Landed at nine in the evening, arrived in Newburgh at eleven. Feels all very confusing.