I believe in appreciating my life, enjoying what there is to enjoy. I like variety. I find that keeping my eyes open and my mind both accepting and probing, there is plenty to enjoy and be amazed about. I estimate that a good portion of my recent enjoyments have come from "Pocket", which lives on the new page in the browser Firefox. Google has made it clear that a majority of interest traffic these days comes from smartphones but computers have more power, more speed and more space both the monitor and the memory capacity. So, what I do and what I experience may well be different from other people.
My reading and writing are in English. I make use of Google Translate once in a while. Translate deals with something like 60 other languages. I am confident that people in many other parts of the world, even in other parts of the US, have very different experiences from me. I think that many people have some background and some experience of what might be called "general American life", even though there is no such thing. People over 65 differ from today's teens and 20 yr. olds. Those living on a farm, in a suburb and in a big city have very different lives from each other.
Because of the Pocket service in the Firefox browser, I recently came across this article by Emily Todd VanDerWerff
Even though there are unique or atypical things about me, there are plenty of the people who also like to be aware of the good parts of their lives and consciously appreciate and savor them. There are many people who want to express their thoughts and a good many dream about being paid for their writing. Because of nearly worldwide education, most people can read some language and write:
While only 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today the share has reversed: only 17% of the world population remains illiterate. Over the last 65 years the global literacy rate increased by 4% every 5 years – from 42% in 1960 to 86% in 2015.Sep 20, 2018
Literacy - Our World in Data
This is exactly the sort of change for the better discussed in Rosling's "Factfulness"
With free online publishing available, more and more people are writing these days and a good portion of the better writing is appearing online.
Much like calories produced these days, we are in an "Irtnog" situation
foretold by E.B. White in 1938 and explained by David Weinburger in "Too Big to Know". Nevertheless, you can enjoy lots of fine, helpful, mind-expanding writing these days. Here is a link to a search of popular, free (but often ad-overloaded) writing:
