From a story in The New York Times

Well, let’s back up just a minute. My grandmother — my beloved grandmother, who’s like a third parent to me — had a saying that when somebody gets older, they don’t really change; they just become more so. In other words, whatever is their disposition — kind, they become kinder. Cantankerous, they become more ornery. And you just see this progression with Trump. He is just becoming more of what he’s been for a long time. And at some point, you become so much more, you almost tip over into alternate realities. And this is one thing that will never cease to amaze me: the independent standard by which he is judged. If anyone else in politics was doing any of this, you would really start to wonder, are they OK? I mean, is this person OK, right?

“The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

— H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) Via Philosophy Quotes

I just spent half an hour reading some notes I made long ago, most likely in my last two year in college, It must have been my first time through many books that I have revisited and treasure. One note that surprised me is from Bernard Malamud's The Fixer.

Freedom exists in the cracks of the state. Keep in mind that the purpose of freedom is to create it for others.

Now that feels like a warning from the past.

Substack user Joshua Corey writes 

In Russian novels characters in their fifties are routinely described as being “in the prime of life.” Clinging to this.  

Surprised to find a image of Claude Monet in his studio.