The last thing my grandfather taught me before he died.

The thing that makes life interesting is erosion. Despite our best efforts, despite our constant bias to fight death and destruction, things are always and forever falling apart. None of us get to win this fight. Over a long enough time horizon, everything ends, everyone dies, every system fails. I am trying to learn how to not automatically see this as bad news, or maybe a better way of putting it. I want to embrace this reality about life instead of shy away from it. It's a fundamental truth that we must all contend with. Watching my grandfather die last year made entropy unusually visible. He had been on a steady decline for a decade with Parkinson's. But in the final year of his life, things rapidly accelerated. It was jarring to see him visually change, to sag and droop, to tremble and fade. I was never close to my grandfather. I never felt seen by him. I cannot write about him with the warmth that I usually enjoy writing with. All boys yearn for the love and care of their grandfathers. Mine did not understand me, and he didn't try. He shushed me as a child. I feel he put up with me more than anything. And that's okay. There's no law of the universe that says you need to be close with your grandfather. It was a relationship void of intimacy. I am convinced that it wasn't the generational, religious, or cultural gap between us that made none of this work. It was the emotional gap that proved insurmountable. And still, watching him fade left an impact. I could feel the deep-seated aversion to dying that feels programmed into the recesses of my operating system. Seeing him in the final months and weeks of his life, I was both tempted to avert my gaze, and at the same time, it was impossible to tear my eyes away. What really broke my heart was watching my father grieve the passing of his father. I know he struggled to feel seen by his father because he spoke to me about it. I felt deeply for my dad because I know what it's like to be loved by a dad. And I know because my dad made an effort in ways his did not. And I know it was still a big challenge for my dad. I know I triggered him. I have no small presence and never have been. I know I frazzled him sometimes. But my dad... did not simply put up with me he always wanted to get to know me what a difference that makes my sense is that my grandfather feared death absolutely as the powers that be pulled him out of this life and into whatever comes next he resisted i could be wrong but i suspect he was racked by regrets things he didn't say and didn't do but he didn't have the words or the tools to do anything about it As his strength left him, something interesting happened. Perhaps not by choice, but because he was so drained of resources. The hard shell of a man that had been all I'd ever known softened and gave way to someone else. Someone who wept. Someone who could no longer hide behind forced jokes and advice no one asked for. I'm sure he hated it. But I liked this new person more. I liked the softening. The show of emotion. I could feel something from him for the first time ever. It happened against his will. Death forced his hand. What if instead he didn't resist? Entropy is obvious as death approaches. The mind and or body give out. But it's always there and it's always happening to all of us, shaping all of us all the time. I am feeling it a lot this year. I have felt it with every challenging period I have traversed. This year, transforming a house in the countryside is no different. It has stretched me. I have aged as the time has passed by, but I have also aged in another way. I am being chipped away, molded, sanded down. All of these renovations, the costs, the time and energy it takes, and the time alone, it all far exceeded what I ever thought. I did not calculate how dramatically all of this would shake up my life, how interrupted I would feel. I am not naturally gifted at this. I did not foresee how much I would have to plan around other people's schedules, around the weather and the seasons, around trips to the hardware store, around French holidays. But then, life is always exceeding what we think or project or expect or plan for. Life is interruption, and interruption is what I was looking for. We must engage with the whole thing. To resist death is to resist life. It can be stressful attempting to do that which you do not know how to do. I don't think excessive stress is good for you. I'm not advocating for it. I'm not romanticizing it. In an ideal world, you would never go through stress like this. You would never crash and burn. But we don't live in a world like that. We live in a world where things go off the rails, often. We live in a world where everything falls apart, eventually. I don't believe we come here to have a smooth ride. And I must remind myself that a smooth ride was never what I came for in the first place. A smooth ride would mean I am never challenged to question what I assumed to be true. And that's not what I want. So why have I stuck with this house project so far? Why have I stuck with anything, ever? Because that is what feels right to do right now. I am demystifying this life. I am learning what I am made of. I am collecting life lessons and life experience. And I'll know when I am done here. Life is eroding me. It always has been. And more than any previous year of my life, I am letting it happen. Instead of this being a failure, I like who I am slowly becoming. I don't wish this kind of wear and tear on anyone. And yet, it is maybe the best thing that has ever happened to me. I'm letting it smooth out my rough edges. I'm letting it open me up in ways I did not know were possible. In the face of all of this life that's happening, I am softening. There is an art to doing this with balance, and it is an art form I am far from mastering. It's silly to needlessly grind yourself down. I am not saying we must burn ourselves out. Simply that it may happen on the road to learning what works. You don't need to be a hero. Sometimes you will find yourself in situations where you simply have your back against the wall, where you must rise to the occasion. Situations that you will clumsily navigate with great tribulation. It will feel hard. Do not fear the slog. Be immortal. This is the price of entry to a life that isn't played safely. What all of this is making me realize is that it is the heart that matters above all else. I cry so often recently. Out of a profound love for my friends, I cried watching one of my friends perform a new song on stage. I cry when I think about how much I love another friend of mine that just got married. how beautiful he is and how much he lets his heart lead him in everything he does i cried at the dinner table with two people i had only met the day before as one of them opened up about trauma she had experienced as a child and the forgiveness she found for the perpetrator her father i have needed life to knock me around a bit to wear me down and loosen up my armor and it feels so good to have this newfound connection to my heart that is the real reward for all of this discomfort. My accomplishments don't matter. How much money I make doesn't matter. There's no winning, no destination. We're just here to learn. And sometimes that means walking into the fire. Wear and tear is a part of the gig. That's when real change can happen. And that is the part I am really interested in. We don't get to be superheroes that save the day. We have a bias against the falling apart of things. But there is no day. to be saved. I struggled to accept a lot of things that happened in life. My own impermanence in this mind and body certainly being one of them. But that's okay. That's true for all of us. I think we're here to slowly learn how to accept just a little more of what's happening. And then a little more. And then even a little more than that. This video is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. One of the greatest tools I discovered this last year in the face of so many new challenges is AI. I've already said it, but this house project has kicked my butt. When I began to feel overwhelmed, I had the tendency for the first time in my life to freeze, to feel paralyzed. I didn't even know where to start or I'd get stuck not knowing how to proceed and begin floundering. Floundering leads to panic and avoidance. You don't learn much when you're floundering, panicking, avoiding. In particular, this last summer, I began to use Claude as a kind of soundboard to help me wrap my brain around how to do different DIY projects, what they entail, as in helping me understand the nature of what I was about to tackle, what to keep in mind, what possible solutions exist, what they cost, where to find the products, in what order I should do things. Then I'd often try something out and report back to keep developing and updating the plan. It's just unbelievable. It has become a tool I use every day, not to replace my brain, but to help me better understand why things are the way they are, to figure out the next step. What is a wall stabilizer? Why is this paint hardening so quickly? This can't be normal. I like the feeling that no matter what I'm doing, even if I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm still giving it my absolute best shot. No stone left unturned. It's just how I like to operate. I don't do things halfway. AI is a tool. possibly a more powerful tool than we've ever seen before like our computers like the internet tools of this power must be used with intention and it can help you boldly try things you may not ordinarily try with its help a friend and i built a chrome extension to remove the stats you see on youtube studio within 30 minutes because i don't want to be so influenced by constant metrics and there was previously no way not to see all of it when uploading new videos that was so cool the code has been written we have youtube studio claude is the ai for problem solvers it can help you do way more than just good enough get started with claude using my link in the description thank you for watching please give this video a like if you enjoy this video essay format and there will be more for me soon

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