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My 12 Favorite People and Websites on the Internet
If you were me a few years ago, this would be the best page on the internet you've ever landed on. It's a list of people and websites that have had the greatest impact on me, with links to the pages I've found most profound or taken the most from.
There's a lot here—if you're into it, bookmarking this page might be a good idea.
Without further ado, my 12 favorite people and websites on the internet:
In Memory of an Astronaut
I met Steve “Boomer” Santistevan because, like him, my life was saved by the staff of Phoenix Children's Hospital. I had an infection of the fluid surrounding my brain and spine, causing a brain-damaging stroke. Boomer had a brain tumor that was supposed to be the end of him. Yet, there we were—still breathing and more alive than ever before. We were the embodiment of the best possible outcomes of our afflictions. I woke up from a coma and made a full recovery. Boomer defied death, miraculously navigating the narrowest path of survival through dozens of brain surgeries.
Hanging onto the fringes of life and peering over the edge changed us. For us both, life was no longer a struggle, but a gift. We knew there was no such thing as the "daily grind." Every day was a miracle. And anyone who might disagree just didn't understand.
We also found purpose in giving back to the non-profit children's hospital that saved our lives. I chose to ride a bicycle across the United States as a fundraiser. Boomer ran marathons, walked, and participated yearly in the Ignite Hope Candlelight Walk at the hospital, a moving experience I regret not sharing with him.
We're Not Beginning at the Beginning
We began in the middle of the story. Though our beginning may seem like the beginning, it wasn't. We tend to think with storyboards that span the length of our lives—birth to death, beginning to end. Such a storyboard is a bit small, though. Much happened before we arrived and much will happen after our departure.
In regarding the start of our lives as the beginning of all that composes them, we overlook what has come before us and tend to forget that what came before is—get this—almost entirely responsible for our reality today.
It's not just inventions and material advancements of the past that built the physical reality we were born into. It's all the ideas conceived in the past, from democracy to evolution to economics. Logic itself was birthed by the Greeks and handed down through time to us. The language we were taught and the words contained within it allow us to express ourselves but also limit our self-expression to the words those of the past made available to us. Human behavior, expectations, our interpretation of reality... almost everything we know and do stems from those who came before us.