I don’t think I’ve really thought much about what I want. I’ve often thought I knew what I wanted, but I don’t think I really ever thought it through.

If I could do what I wanted for the rest of my life, what would I do each day?

What would I do on the last day of my life? I would like to see the ocean, I think. I would like to watch the waves crash on the rocks near Bodega Bay. I would like to smell the air and feel the bite of the cold wind or the heat of the summer sun. I would like to have my wife beside me.

What would I do the night before? I would love to eat an Italian dinner with my wife, and make love with her. If we’re still able to move at that point.

What things would I do, for all days between this one and that one?

I’d like to wake up in the light. I’d like to take a walk and see the world in the morning. I’d like to have a small breakfast, just a couple of things. I would like to read a magazine. Something new, current, to inform me and to give me ideas. I’d like to swim in a pool, perhaps, or ride a bike, and think about these things.

I’d like lunch to be a filling thing. More about comfort and pleasure, but eaten slowly. I would love to have someone to talk to, either my wife or son or someone else. Maybe I could meet a new person each day and have them over for something. I can prepare the food, serve it, have a conversation, and clean up.

Then one of two things occurs to me - I might read a book or watch a movie, or I might work. Either way, the area between lunch and the work day ends is really my peak time of day, I think. And I think that peak actually continues until fairly late, maybe 10PM or so. Probably I should be working from 2PM to 10PM or something like that if I am working a full-time job. If we’re talking about what I would choose to do, I suppose I might work from 2PM to 6PM. Either way, I see myself working until I’m no longer able to. I don’t mind that. But I do count homelabbing and side projects as work too, FWIW - anything related to my core information technology/computer science career.

Either way, we get to dinner. I would love to have dinner prepared for me and my wife. I think I’m more interested in cooking lunches and snacks and things like that than I am with cooking dinners. My wife and I inevitably get different things when eating dinner together, unless it’s pizza, and even then we still sometimes get different things. Within that, my wife and I have different preferences for a given dish - I add salt and spice liberally, she never adds anything - so cooking something that pleases us both is difficult. All this is to say that if I’m cooking for dinner, it’s likely for myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough confidence in my cooking to invite someone over for dinner, but maybe. It’s a nice idea, and one worth working toward.

I like a fire and a cozy room and a movie or a book. Or a laptop and work to do. Or a miniature to paint and music to listen to. It really doesn’t matter either way, I think I can be content with that. Then a shower and off to bed.

I’d like to go to plays more often, and movies. I’d like to use the library more. I’d like to try new restaurants when they open. I’d like to go to different places, all comfortable, and live there for a few months, and meet people and eat food and work and read. I’d like to travel all over Europe, while it’s still here. I’d love to hear and learn more languages.

With the exception of Europe, it’s striking that this is all very achievable, very doable, very possible, and completely different from how I live my life now.