Nova Daily - 28 July 2025: Cherish

Hi

Earlier today I saw a clip from one of my favourite authors, Robert Greene. I've been using material of him in several of my blogs, because I think that there's a lot to be gained from it. He describes his own outlook on life as radical realism. Seeing things for what they are.

Cherish

In 2018, Robert Greene suffered a stroke that left parts of his body dysfunctional. He realised from that point on that he'd never be able to run for sports anymore. Or to swim. When looking at people who could, he realised how lucky they are that they can still run or swim. And he also realised that many of these people weren't quite aware of the fact that they were lucky to be able to do these things.

You cherish breathing fresh air when you have a bad cold. You value your electricity and internet after a power-down. You tend to value people more when they walk out of your life.

Life can take everything away from you. It fits to sometimes pause, think about what you have, and cherish those things. For all I know, tomorrow my house might catch fire and I'd lose all my belongings. I might miss a step, fall down a flight of stairs and end up fully paralysed. A mishap beyond my control could ruin me financially. There's no telling the future. But the fact that I'm able to do what I love to do is really rare and precious, and I can realise how fortunate I am to be able to write and share my thoughts with you, someone I happened upon by sheer chance.

Even if this moment between my thoughts in the now of writing and your reading of it in the timeshifted now is temporary, it will forever have happened. My present, your past. Your present, my future. Timeshifted, ephemeral, yet eternal and worth to cherish.

Today's game

Today's game was a nice Hedgehog. I have a superficial understanding of this system but I'm not that well-versed in its details and peculiarities. Still, I managed to get a good game going, and I won rather convincingly as my opponent's patience apparently ran thin and they went for ...d5 in the end when it lost virtually on the spot.

I do believe that I played a good game today, but I'll be able to tell when I've studied it more in-depth.

For closing: