Last week I was in Austin, TX, for an academic conference and the weekend before that I was at my mom's wedding. Only one more wedding to go this year in Arizona and then maybe a wedding break for a bit. Over the course of life, it seems that the rate of weddings, births, and passings is non-random in one's own attendance. People spend a lot of time with those who are in a similar age of life and this plays a part. I suppose that's why some people jokingly refer to the late twenties or early thirties as the era of weddings and babies relative to teenage years or one's fourties. But as far as I know, there is no perfect, externally set time time to have a kid, get engaged, or die. It's a rate of occurrence that is circumstantial and related to the pace of human life itself. Our actions and reactions to these events is tied to the age and time at which they occur. That is my takeaway from doing something, anything, at a certain time and age.
As for my own academic journey and career, time is of the essence. There is always another project to consider and opportunity cost to evaluate. If you are not weighing one project against many others, maybe you need to seek out more ideas to compare against.
The castle that the wedding took place at.
Brett and I at the Solid Freeform Fabrication poster session last week
