A Random List of Things I Learned in 2022

It's been an interesting year.

Here they are, in no particular order, cause that’s how lessons come to us: a few bunched together followed by a long silence, profound, profane, maybe profitable. I hope a few of these might bring some value to you.

• If you use the Brave browser, not only does it block tracking, intrusive cookies, and squash annoying pop-up windows, YouTube works without any commercials (at least, it does for me). So basically, you’re getting YouTube Premium for free. (Don’t tell anyone.)

• If you sign up for a paid account in some online services in a different country, the annual fee is often much less than you’d pay in the US. Then the annual renewal fee stays at the price you paid in Thailand, Bolivia, or wherever you initially signed up.

• The world’s leading beerologists have finally found a way to create non-alcoholic beer that tastes like beer. Check out Athletic Brewing (Especially their IPAs and All Out Extra Dark. Use code CHRISRYAN20 for 20% off your first order. They don’t sponsor me, I just figured I could get a discount for my readers if I asked, and they went for it!). The boozy, slurred brain-fog was never what I liked about beer. It was the frothy, frosty flavor I was after. In fact, after a couple of IPAs, I was kinda bummed that I got too buzzed and bloated to keep drinking. Within a couple of weeks of deciding to give up booze for a while, I read this article in The New Yorker extolling the new technological breakthroughs resulting in non-alcoholic beer that tastes like beer. There IS a God, and (s)he likes a cold one!

• So far, 957 people have decided to toss me $5 a month for this newsletter, for which I’m profoundly grateful. Please consider joining them, so we can push it over a thousand.

• One of the advantages of getting older is that you’ve seen a lot of it before, because many aspects of life are cyclical. Here’s one I’ve managed to take advantage of: When there’s lots of cheap money in the economy (low interest rates), nonsensical schemes sprout up to absorb that money, like mushrooms in a wet forest. High-priced art, NFTs, cryptocurrencies, Tesla stock, GameStop, tulips, flipping properties…. A long time ago, a very wealthy man told me that the time to get out of a market is when “normal people” are getting in, because markets exist to pump money from the lower classes to the upper classes. He was right. I’ve seen it happen over and over. If you’re going to play these games, get in early, get out early.

• Even good people can act incredibly selfishly and self-destructively when they’re in pain. I had a few experiences this year that reminded me of something I learned in the rainy summer of 1978, when I was briefly a lifeguard: a drowning person will try to kill you before they’ll let you save them. In their panic, they’ll climb on top of you and cling to you, suffocating their only hope. My take-away is not that suffering people can never be trusted (show me someone who isn’t suffering and I’ll show you someone you don’t really know). My take-away is that we must always protect ourselves first. It helps nobody to be the person who drowns trying to save someone. And ultimately, people need to save themselves. At most, we can encourage them, but we can’t ever do it for them.

• Somewhat related to the previous one, there’s no shame in asserting legitimate authority. If you’re the boss, act like the fucking boss. If you’re the parent, be a goddamn parent! You’re not your kid’s pal. Sometimes it sucks to be in charge, but not as much as it sucks when nobody knows who’s making decisions. That’s a brutal mess. If you have a dog, that dog needs you to be the alpha. If you have a kid, that kid needs you to assert your authority. It lets them relax in the knowledge that you know what you’re doing, so they’re safe with you.

• If you get Covid, and feel sick, embrace it. Don’t try to get back on your feet ASAP. That virus is lingering, just waiting for you to push a little too far, and it’ll rise back up and bring you crashing down.

• Safaris are insanely over-priced. Right now, there are people paying $500/night for a canvas tent in Tanzania a few miles from villages where people don’t see $500 in their entire lives. The entrance fee for Serengeti National Park is more than the plane ticket from Europe to Tanzania. Lions are cool, but wow.

• When someone close to you dies, their physical absence may allow their spirit to come closer. It’s been a bit over four years since my dad died, and this past year I’ve started to notice that as my more recent memories of his last years fade, memories of his previous incarnations expand to occupy that space in my consciousness. The young, funny, wild, goofy, happy Frank I remember from my childhood grows closer as memories of an older, tired man recede. This is a huge gift I didn’t see coming.

  

  With Frank, Beth (sis), Julie (mom), and a strange dude named Butch, circa 1973.