A Birthday Note of Gratitude

Today marks another trip around the sun for me, and I find myself reflecting not just on the passage of time, but on the unexpected journey that has brought us together through these words.

Writing has always been one of my deepest passions—a way to make sense of the world when clarity seems in short supply. For years, this remained a private pursuit, words accumulating in journals and drafts never quite ready for other eyes. Oh sure, there were tentative steps—a little Medium blog that gathered digital dust, tweets that vanished into the algorithm's abyss—but nothing quite like this.

When I left my job and started Notes From the Circus, I had no idea what it would become. My starting assumption was I'd move into another job in the tech industry—another role as a tech executive. That didn't quite happen. I just knew I had a lot of ideas in my head and a love for writing. Then the world started falling apart, and suddenly I had even more to say. So here I am—and more importantly, here you are.

Your response has been the most meaningful birthday gift I could imagine. Each of you who subscribes, who takes precious minutes from your day to consider these essays, who reaches out with your own reflections—you've created something I never fully anticipated: a community of minds holding the tension between what is and what ought to be.

This, in many ways, embodies the essence of what I've called the Grand Praxis: the recognition that meaning emerges not from the elimination of tension but from its creative transformation. In your engagement with these ideas, you've demonstrated that we need not collapse complexity into false simplicity. That we can acknowledge both empirical reality and the human need for meaning without sacrificing either. That the space between seemingly opposing values is not a void to be filled but a fertile ground where new understanding takes root.

In a world increasingly optimized for alignment rather than truth, for comfort rather than clarity, you've shown me that there remains a profound hunger for thinking that refuses easy answers while still insisting on the possibility of meaning. You've confirmed my belief that we can face reality squarely without surrendering to cynicism or despair—that we can maintain the rhythm established in that first movement, the dance of complementary forces that makes all existence possible.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And yes, I'm fully aware that I've turned these phrases into something of a personal brand. (I can almost hear some of you good-naturedly groaning as you read them yet again.) But behind this recurring motif lies something I deeply believe: that certain stubborn realities exist independent of our wishes, and acknowledging them isn't a retreat from meaning-making but its essential foundation.

And speaking of stubborn realities—I'm now officially one year older. The calendar makes no exceptions, even for those of us who write about time's passage. But what makes this particular trip around the sun special is not the number it represents, but the company I've found along the way.

Whether you've been here since the beginning or joined recently, whether you agree with every word or find value in productive disagreement, please know that your attention and engagement mean the world to me. In a time of epistemic chaos, your willingness to engage thoughtfully with complex ideas is itself an act of resistance—a refusal to let the center collapse, a commitment to pushing back the flood of entropy that threatens meaningful discourse.

On this birthday, my wish is simple: that we continue this journey together, holding the productive tensions that make meaning possible, remembering what's real while imagining what could be. For our soul is meaning, constructed such as it is, through the connections we forge and the conversations we nurture.

With profound gratitude,

Mike