Happy Birthday

Posted January 27th, 2026

I was born on January 27, 1960, so that makes 66.

But the years don’t weigh on me.

 

As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized happiness is made of simple things: the waking smile of a man I’ve loved for 20 years, a quiet morning, a clean space, not staying out late, a safe home, and people who don’t drain my energy.

I don’t miss the youth that’s gone.

No matter what some may say, thinking to offend—this leg can still go up high.

What I miss is the world those years took away with them.

They tell us life expectancy has grown.

That may be true, but at what cost?

With what sacrifices?

I don’t care if I seem old because I long for the world of my youth.

I truly miss that world.

I’d give anything to go back to before the unbearable, everywhere, non-stop system propaganda of today, before the doom-scrolling through social media and the algorithms engineered to divide.

The technological progress of the last twenty years has been the crowbar that polarized society, split families apart, reduced politics to pure business, and turned every narcissist into a keyboard warrior feeding their ego with hate.

I’d like to return to the days of family values, of belonging, of professional integrity, of personal responsibility.

I’d like to return to a science that works in silence, far from the social spotlight, in service of the weakest—not the richest.

That is the true burden of my old age today. Not the years I carry, but the world that is no longer here.

More than “happy birthday,” what’s needed is the strength to endure.

HPA