Cool thing coming down the pipe on Amazon: "Starting January 20, 2026, Amazon will make it easier for readers to enjoy content they have purchased from the Kindle store across a wider range of devices and applications by allowing new titles published without Digital Rights Management (DRM) to be downloaded in EPUB and PDF format. If you take no action, the DRM-status of your previously published titles will not change but the EPUB and PDF downloads will not be enabled for existing DRM-free titles. If you want to allow reader downloads for these titles, follow the directions below on or after December 9, and select the option not to apply DRM." Meaning that for publishers like me who don't use DRM, people who buy my book will be able to download the DRM-free file without jumping through any hoops. I've already gone in and made the change that will allow downloads when they come online.

Breaking news that Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered, and at this point it looks as if the murder was committed by their son. I was listening to the introduction to an edition of Paradise Lost and Paradise found. It went through the life of John Milton. One of the most interesting points of John Milton's life is that in spite of his greatest work being about God and satan, heaven and hell, and you might assume that he did his very best to live a virtuous life, it is evident from the behavior of his daughters that he was not fulfilling his duty as the family patriarch in the absence of his late wife. They grew up and grew old resenting the man, and through that reflection of his own behavior towards them they ultimately mistreated him in his old age and disability when he lost his sight. Even after death, his daughters were spiteful towards him, and fought his widow for the remainder of his estate, ultimately succeeding at taking most of his assets. In the current era, I feel that there is no more salient lesson than this. The sins of the father do get passed down to their children, and the wages of sin is death. Of course, that's not the whole story. Absolutely, parents can neglect and abuse their children, or spoil them through excess, or simply fail to impart proper values upon them. However, even in the best of circumstances with the best parents available wanting for nothing and being given the best in instruction, some children choose evil, or through physical malady haven't chosen for them. When the parents pay the sins of the children in such a way, you can hardly say it is anything but tragic. I don't know what's the truth of this story is, whether it is 1, or the other, or some combination of the two. But for me, it is a whisper in my ear: Memento Mori. The only way we live on is through our children, and though we have not perfect control over the lives that they live after us they are reflections of us. More than any political advocacy, it is what we leave behind immediately surrounding us that defines our legacy. So if he was the architect of his own destruction, I feel pathos and pity for him, and if he was not the architect of his own destruction, then I feel deep sorrow at hearing of someone's good works crumbling within their lifetime. After a very tiny bit of research, it looks as if that son had been struggling with substance abuse since he was a teenager, even to the extent that he spent quite a bit of time homeless. Those struggles were apparently the subject of one of Reiner's films. The world is vast and broad and you can never really say with certainty anything, but the idea that a teenager with multimillionaire parents becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol does suggest me that it is by the fruit of their tree that you will know them. It isn't mandatory, it isn't written in the stars that substance abuse from their son is automatically the parent's fault, but typically you're going to be looking at either a child who is trying to fill a hole with drugs and I'll call that they can't fill with family life, or a home environment where drugs and alcohol are so readily available that even a teenager can quickly get their hands on it. A third possibility is just that the kid made some very stupid choices very early on and there's nothing anyone else could have done. I can't imagine being an old man slowly bleeding out because my son stabbed me in my life to death. I feel like the thing I would remember the most would be this thought that not only would I be dying but my son would end up dying in prison. The metaphor from Exodus about boiling a calf and it's mother's milk comes to mind.

Stoicism isn't being without emotions. Definitionally, stoicism is when you understand that there are things that you can change and things that you cannot change and you choose to focus on the things you can change rather than despairing. We have a lot of people today who think that the only way to make the world a better place is by effectively taking over the world like a super villain. A few more stoic fathers and we might see those same people passionately acting locally in ways where they can actually change the world. One caveat: this doesn't and has never meant "don't do hard things". What it means is that you can make the most impact right where you are, and focusing on a distant capitol you have little effect over (or worse, another countries capitol you have no effect over) when there's things to be done in front of you is a recipe for despair.