Labor Day marked the end of summer. The days were shorter and nights cooler.
The parks were still green and the afternoon sun was as fierce as ever.
Life was good, Bill kept reminding himself. His Tuesday started with a brief
exercise routine followed by two hours of dictionary reading over coffee. Toward
noon, he hopped on the north-bound train with his e-bike and got off in 13min at
Menlo Park. He reached the Redwood City gym at a quarter to noon, early enough
for a nice warmup before the jiu-jitsu class. An hour of sweat later, spent and
content, he peddaled at an easy pace through one of the wealthiest neighborhoods
back to west Mountain View. In two hours, packing a bottle of juice from half a
cantaloupe, he was on his way to pick up Tim.
As usual, the kid was wasted after robot-building: "I did average and got 10 out
of 13 in the morning American History AP quiz."
"Don't sweat it. Your job is to take good care of yourself and do the best you
can." Shoving the vacuum bottle in the kid's hands, Bill couldn't help dropping
in his wisdom: "My son, life really will start at 40."
The boy rolled his eyes and turned to his phone.
"By the way, do you know how much does the juice cost?"
"No."
"Take a guess."
"Eight dollars?"
"$8 would buy two cantaloupes which make four of these! Of course I have to shop
and chop and juice but compare that with how much your Boba tea set you back." He
had a lot to say against what he thought was merely flavored sugary water, which
should be banned for corrupting the youth. But he knew he had no say in the
matter. So he shut up and meanwhile the kid dozed off at the back.
Cooking was simple. Dad simmered his weekly tuna sauce with fresh heirloom
tomatoes in a cast-iron dutch oven, boiled 8.8oz of dry spaghetti (half of the
package), mixed them, and it was done. He went on to blanch two big heads of
broccoli, to balance out the rich pasta. His theory was that a good meal had
to have a contrast: the yin and the yang.
"Tiiim!" dad hollered and the boy came down from the third floor. It often
reminded Bill of 40 years ago when he and his mom were living in a room on the
south end of a main thoroughfare in his hometown. The room was about 16 square
meters split into two by a faux wall plastered with newspaper. Those were the
days when neighborhood kids were let loose on the streets and parents needed not
to worry if they didn't turn up in two hours. When dinner was ready, mom would
come to the front gate of the three-family quarters and holler into the street,
one direction at a time, and he would say goodbye to his chums and with a light
and expectant heart, ran back to mom.
Tim was pensive over his meal: "Saturday I'll be busy with robots again. 10am to
6pm. I'd rather stay home. At least I get to sit."
"Don't you have breaks? And the lab has no seats?"
"There are a few sought-after stools but otherwise, no." Tim sighed: "Life's
meaning is struggling for existence."
"What?"
"That was what we learned from Christian Ethics today. Albert Camus imagined
Sisyphus happy pushing a giant stone uphill."
"That's not bad. Of course there was Viktor Frankl, a Nazi camp survivor, who
turned the question on its head: It's wrong to ask about the meaning of life, he
said, life demands you to give it a meaning instead."
"Hmm. That makes sense, too." Tim agreed. "Mr. Spitz also mentioned Epictetus."
"Really? What did he say?"
"I forgot."
"That guy wrote his own epitaph. You know what he said? 'Here lies Epictetus, a
slave maimed in body, the ultimate in poverty, and favored by the gods.'"
"Thanks dad. I'm going back to grind away."
"Enjoy."
