The Myth of Being “Done” (and Why I Don't Buy It)

Because life doesn’t come with an expiration date, no matter what society tells you

Expiration Date – Rendered by the author in Midjourney

By now, we're all pretty familiar with the unspoken cultural norm that says once you reach a certain age, life quietly rolls down the shutters on you, whether you're ready or not. The fun is supposed to be over. You’re no longer “the target demographic,” no longer the shiny thing in the spotlight. If life were a high school cafeteria, you’ve basically been quietly reassigned to the side table with the wilted salad at that point.

Naturally, no one really says any of this out loud (except when they do). It’s more in the way advertising pivots away from you, in the roles women are offered in movies, in the slightly pitying tone people use when they say things like, “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about all that anymore.” The underlying meaning is that your days of being alive-alive are over, so please enjoy your new hobbies — couponing, knitting, and hoping for grandkids.

Well, I'm here to tell that that’s nonsense.

The Myth of Being "Done"

If you’re a woman, especially, you’ve probably already felt it, even if you're still young. It's like someone stamps this social expiration date across your forehead at some point in your 30s or 40s. By then, apparently, your best hair days are behind you, your skin is now public property for retinol marketing campaigns, and if you still want to feel attractive or adventurous? Well, that’s honestly seen as kind of sad.

But here’s the thing that I've personally noticed. The desire to feel beautiful or alive doesn't necessarily go away. Society just keeps telling you it should. Like, “Thanks for playing, we’ll take it from here. Go sit down.” And it’s maddening.

It's also problematic because we eventually start to absorb those messages and believe them. Even people who don’t consciously subscribe to the idea that fun, beauty, and vitality are youth-only clubs can still feel it creeping in. Even people like me, who've never really valued social norms or cared about meeting them. That gnawing little whisper inside: 

"Maybe it really is over. Maybe I’ve already had my shot at life."

But then something happens.

The Loitering God Manifesto

On wasting time with dignity, and why it might be the holiest thing you can do

Somewhere out there – in the alley behind your favorite coffee shop, perched on a bench at the edge of the park, or leaning casually against the convenience store wall – lives a god you won’t find in any official pantheon. 

This god doesn’t ask for tithes, penance, or a 10-point productivity plan. He doesn't have a spreadsheet for your soul. His temple is a bus stop with a schedule that never quite lines up. His hymn is the click of a half-melted ice cube in a paper cup. His holy text is oddly elegant graffiti scrawled on the bathroom wall.

I call him the Loitering God. 

And honestly? I think we need him now more than ever.

Who (or What) Is the Loitering God?

The Loitering God is the patron saint of “hanging around.” Of lingering where you don’t technically “need” to be. Of moments that don’t look like much on the calendar but end up meaning so much more than the so-called big-ticket events.

This god is not here for hustle. Don't expect him to make an appearance to bless your 10,000 steps, your inbox zero, or your color-coded planner. Instead, he blesses the cigarette break, the side-street wander, and the leaning-too-long on a railing while your mind drifts far away somewhere, deliciously off-track.

Where other gods might demand sacrifice, the Loitering God simply asks you to waste some time with dignity.

The Holy Articles of Loitering

The Loitering God isn't big on rules and rigid ways of doing things. But if he were inclined to give you a few directives to follow, I imagine they'd read a little like this.

1. Thou shalt waste time without shame

Sit on the curb. Watch ants. Reorganize the fridge magnets into an epic poem. Follow all those weird little urges you get to do something just to satisfy your curiosity. In the Loitering God's world, none of this is a waste.

2. The bench is an altar

Every time you sit without rushing, you consecrate the act of existing in the space you're in. Plastic bench at a bus stop? Sacred. The grass outside the laundromat? Holy ground. 

3. To dawdle is divine

The universe doesn’t need you to move through it at full tilt all the time. Sometimes the most miraculous thing you can do is stall, wander, pause, and see what appears in the gaps.

The Secret Economy of Attention

How the quiet choices of focus shape the architecture of our lives

The Weight of Air – Rendered by the author in Midjourney

I’ve been thinking a lot about attention lately. I'm not talking about the kind where you’re standing at a podium and someone taps a glass with their fork to get the room quiet (though, admittedly, that would be satisfying). I mean the subtler, everyday kind – where we place our focus, what we let take up space in our brains, and which plants we choose to water with our gaze.

I'm realizing that it’s funny how little we talk about it when attention is arguably our most precious currency. Seriously, forget Bitcoin, forget dollars. Attention (and time) is what really makes the world go round. And unlike money, there’s no way to earn more of it. You get the same 24 hours as everybody else, the same finite mental resources. Once you’ve spent them, they're gone. 

Attention as a Form of Power

Sometimes, I imagine my own little cache of attention as little golden coins in my pocket. Every time I look at something, think about something, or click on something? Clink, there goes a coin. And those coins eventually accumulate wherever they fall.

If I spend them on my writing, my garden, my rituals, my people? That pile eventually grows into something lush and sustaining. But if I spend them on doomscrolling or what some toxic frenemy probably thinks of my spiritual beliefs? Well, then, congratulations to me, because I just fed the weeds. Again.

When I was younger, I didn’t realize that what I gave my attention to would ultimately dictate the texture of my future life. I thought it was all just harmless distraction. But now, at almost fifty, I look around and see exactly where all my attention has gone. Every corner of my existence bears the imprint of the choices I’ve made about what I feed.

Facing the Abyss vs. Buying the Mural

  A consumer guide to spiritual choices nobody asked for

Threshold of the Unnamed – Rendered by the author in Midjourney

I've come to a weird, random observation today, as I often do when the weather is too warm and humid for my own good. The process of building any kind of spiritual life is a lot like shopping. And to abominably oversimplify the matter, you’ve got two main products on the shelf to choose from – The Abyss™ and The Mural™:

• The Abyss™: Comes with existential dread, an occasional sense of being stared at by the void, and (if you’re lucky) moments of raw, unfiltered truth that rearrange your molecules a little bit. Side effects include insomnia, journaling in the middle of the night, and annoying other people by constantly saying things like, “But how do we know reality is real?”
• The Mural™: Brightly colored, easy to install, and guaranteed to hide any terrifying questions behind deceptively cheerful paint. Comes with bonus potlucks, matching T-shirts, and a sense of belonging with lots and lots of other Mural users. Just don’t ask why the mural smells faintly of mildew or what's actually in that potluck casserole.

Most spiritual people I've known throughout my life, understandably, go for The Mural. It’s user-friendly. It so often comes your way via a smiling salesperson. It looks awesome in photos. And the Abyss? Well, it doesn’t even come with a warranty, and what passes for customer support is literally just... deafening, frustrating silence.

But here’s the thing about The Mural. It might sound like the better deal at first, but sometimes the paint peels. Sometimes it outright cracks on a level that's impossible to ignore, and you realize you’ve been staring at drywall this whole time. 

And when that happens, the Abyss is still waiting for you there, like that one weird friend you have who doesn’t text back for six months but will almost certainly show up at 2 AM when your life falls apart.

The Mural Option: Comfort at a Price

Like I said, The Mural has its perks. It’s safe. It’s predictable. It tells you what to think and how to live. And if I'm honest, that can be really appealing when the world feels like a dumpster fire (and when doesn't it). The Mural will never look at you and shrug before saying, “We don’t know what happens when you die.” And it has this very nice brochure with diagrams, thank you very much.

But comfort isn’t free. The cost of The Mural is your human curiosity. It’s your right to ask the kind of questions that don’t have quick, well-packaged answers. It’s the muscle of critical thinking, which atrophies if you don’t use it. And if you do start poking at the moldy corners and the little patches of peeling paint, you will almost certainly find yourself shamed back into line. 

In other words, The Mural is lovely until you notice how very fragile it truly is.

The Abyss Option: Uncomfortable but Honest

The Abyss absolutely does not care about your comfort. It's not going to hug you when you’re scared. It won’t hand you a pamphlet while silently smiling at you through kind eyes. It’s just kind of... there, dark and deep, refusing to make things easy for you or anyone else.

And yet, The Abyss is honest. It doesn’t sell you answers that it can’t back up. When you face it directly, something shifts, even if you're not immediately sure of what. You realize that uncertainty isn’t death but... possibility. You discover that awe can indeed coexist with terror. You may even realize eventually that sometimes they’re the same thing.

The Abyss teaches you resilience, forcing you to build meaning with your own hands instead of waiting for someone to spoon-feed it to you. And it forces you to decide what’s worth living for, not because someone promised you heaven points, but because you’ve looked into the darkness and chosen anyway.

Blogging Isn’t Dead. It Just Stopped Caring About Being Cool.

On choosing permanence over platforms

Retro Tech, Eternal Words – Rendered by the author in DALL-E

So, a little confession for today. I still blog (duh). And not on some influencer-approved “personal brand” site, either. On Blogger, of all places (obviously). That’s right, the same platform I first embraced back in the early 2000s, when everyone had a sidebar full of blogroll links and comments sections that felt like coffee shops.

And by now, I’ve lost track of how many people have told me blogging is dead over the years. It died when Facebook took over. It died when Twitter (sorry, X) became the default megaphone. It died again when TikTok convinced the world that everything worth saying can (and should) be boiled down to 30 seconds of frantic hand gestures and on-screen captions.

But here’s the thing. Blogging didn’t actually die. It just stopped being trendy. And honestly? There's a part of me that likes it better this way.

The Myth of the Dead Blog

Seriously, we’ve been pronouncing blogging dead for over a decade now, like we're living in the digital answer to Groundhog Day. Every few years, a think piece pops up declaring blogs obsolete and on their way out for good. 

Yet, while the crowd stampedes toward the Next Big Thing, the millions of blogs out there just… keep going. They're quieter, sure. But they're definitely still there, like a stubborn patch of wildflowers growing through the cracks in the sidewalk.

I imagine it's because for some of us, blogging was never about being the hot new thing. It was about having a place to put our words where they could potentially be discovered by others. It still is.