Now that the Robot Hacks event is over and I’ve had the distinct pleasure of experiencing the inside thrills of the maker movement, as well as insights into yet another social media community (in this case, loosely called Google Plus), I can move on to the next great thing in my life, such that it is (my life and/or the next great thing).

Running my fingerprints on top of new plastic keys, a familiar keyboard layout that’s easier to use than previous iterations of the QWERTY format in laptop/notebook PC form factor, I pull deep within myself to understand the makings of the universe as we know it and the parts we don’t readily describe in scientific journals.

I wonder about the health of my heart muscle and its connected parts.

Upon what do we, as social creatures, depend to defend our concepts of self?

What forms of affirmation give us meaning/purpose?

My life has been a mix of ups and downs, a set, a series of events, the interaction of states of energy, that is incomparable.

Thus, I can draw no conclusions nor can I learn a lesson from the life currently in action.

Earlier today, I played family computer technician and reinstalled corrupted printer drivers on my mother’s PC after replacing the printer cartridges.

Now, while I type, my mother sits back in a recliner chair and reads a book from the local library, String Quartet No 77 by Haydn performed by the Carmina Quartet plays on the tellie in the living room; my wife plays a game on her tablet PC while watching a game show on the tellie in the dining room of my mother’s house; my sister and her husband take a scuba diving trip to the island of St. Thomas while my nieces and nephews spend time with family around the country, primarily the southeast section of the continental United States.

I contemplate the near future of family and friends.

I project the recent past forward to days ahead.

What is next?

I could be happy as I am in this moment, no local disruptions to the quiet lives sitting in chairs, eyes occupied with printed pages and interactive viewing windows.

I have no need of cultural shifts or political manifestos.

The universe is readily providing me with entertainment rather than myself struggling to get basic necessities from the universe.

Long ago, I made sure I had an escape route to get me to this point of middle-aged bliss.

I need not worry about what’s next.

Something will happen to keep me entertained.

Something always does.

Whether I live another second or another century, on this planet or another celestial body, the universe benignly provides the raw material and access to [the creation of] tools that convert the material into nourishment of my body.

The only struggles are the ones that I invent in my thoughts.

In the population of seven-plus billion of us is this one person who has been blessed with a good life, a life that can end at any moment because all major goals are achieved, the remaining goals more dessert after a fulfilling meal.

The result of delayed gratification, setting one’s means to exceed one’s needs so that one day a person could live off the compounded wealth of delayed gratification, a quiet life in the backwaters off the aquatic fast lane.

What’s next?

What relatively inexpensive entertainment shall I find to keep me occupied until the next one and the next one and the next until one day I lack existence, my body no longer a living entity seeking selfish justification?

We want to say our cultures are perpetuating themselves for reasons other than the inertia of reproductive sets in motion.

We like phrases like, “I ended up a billionaire only because I started out wanting to do good and never stopped.”

I am not one to rewrite history, paleontological or cultural.

Do I have a reason to give for finding some entertaining input that’s novel yet cheap?

In this tiny, humble corner of the multifaceted Internet, how long is simple happiness sufficient for my existence?

Je ne sais pas.