Much in the way Taiwan’s nuclear program rivals Washington’s

A very good thought you have left here.

Yes, there are some that seem to grow into their own skin as they age, and I can imagine you being one of those, in your poetry and writings.

Work is defined in physics as moving a weight a distance, and in us humans I can see work as a form of growth.

In the context of growth, I wish you the best in the weight you carry, the distance you have traveled, and the growth your work will mean to others, if you are so fortunate.

The problem with the GOP has arisen because of the failure of GOP strategists to tie strategy and tactics together in a way that brings strategy into the real world. Once it is in the real world, others can and will evaluate it, all the while evaluating also the tactics— a) to see if tactics match up with strategy or serve strategy, and b) to see whether the tactics and strategy are both desirable. Incidentally, this applies to those observers who already fill the so-called “base” of the GOP, to fence-sitters, to opponents, and so forth. To put it another way, the GOP has failed to tie together The Dream and The Method in a logically consistent way for all observers. Even members of the GOP have come to doubt the union of Dream and Method; fence-sitters look upon this union with suspicion; and foes of the GOP have been permitted to define that union because of the vagueness of it.

As for, “when I was young I thought that I didn’t want work to define me, but now as I grow old I am less sure,” I am sympathetic. There was a time when I was young that I definitely wanted my work to define mean, but in vain. It didn’t match me. And of course there were many times that I didn’t want my work to define me. As I’ve grown older, I’ve more and more been wanting work to define me — just not the work that others assign to me.

I have begun the final remodel. I am in the Data phase, and the data almost killed me, as I added knowledge. I ended up with a fractured spine and one rib. It was nothing that needed any medical attention except for some ibuprofen, drop that oxcondone as quick as you can, then go on muscle relaxers until you can feel that the bleeding has stopped. I don’t know if it works or not, but my pain is more real now and not a cause from spasmodic bleeding.
But that is what knowledge is all about, pain, unless you handle the taking of all that data carefully.
I knew better than to use the top step of anything, but then I did so despite the knowledge that I had–until the odds of getting hurt caught up with me.

Maybe my update will make more sense, although I doubt it. I once said that I wanted to be a community organizer, and I suppose that still holds true.
Data first (construction) as an observation, write it all down in some form of orientation (logic)–Knowledge (destruction) next (decision making), as you add the math (ethics)–Act and write it all down into some kind of narrative (tempo) that can last for generations (my nephew James).

This is, perhaps, what is called a false-flag operation–a rose by another name is just as sweet.