I’d watch it.

I could get into this hygge thing. The Danes have had a good idea or two.

Enter hygge (pronounced “hoo-ga”). It’s a Danish word without a precise analog, but loosely translated as cozy contentment. It’s an important part of the Danish world view — people talk about how hyggeligt it will be to get together, and how hyggelig that get-together was.

Sounds nice. I’m thinking that a nice curl-up with a good book would make for a nice break. But…

Appropriate to Denmark’s climate (and our winter), hygge is about hunkering down: It’s all candles, blazing fires, warm blankets and fuzzy slippers, reading nooks (called hyggekrog), comfortable pants (hyggebukser), wollen socks (hyggesokker) and tea.

I’m getting a bit hoogaed out just reading about it. I’ve got a hyggekrog and some nice hyggebukser and hyggesokker, and I was going to get a cup of hot tea, but this is getting to be a bit much. Also, a fire isn’t the most efficient way to heat the house, and they say I also have to consciously hygge, and that candlelight is important? Nah, I prefer the pleasant glow of a flat screen.

Way back when I was a kid, there were a couple of things I looked forward to on Sunday morning: 1) Sunday school, 2) my grandmother’s French toast, and 3) Walter Cronkite’s television series, The 21st Century, which was all about the wonders to come in that magical rolling over of the calendrical chronometer to a grand round number. None of this lasted. Sunday school, obviously, did not stick. Grandma died. And Cronkite was basically wrong about everything — the vision of science in the late 1960s was all about engineering, and the space program, and you may have noticed a dearth of jet packs and moon colonies.

One aspect that was somewhat successful was that at least once a week I was thinking about my future, which, as it turned out was another example of a colossal failure of imagination. I tried to picture what my life would be like in the year 2000. I could do arithmetic, so I calculated that I’d be 43 then — really old. Unimaginably old. Older than my parents then, even. I guessed that I’d be bald, because everyone told me to look at your mother’s father to see what would happen to you…and yeah, he was really bald. I knew that I’d be old enough to qualify to run for president (not that I had the slightest interest in the job). Beyond that, nothing, except for the bit about living on the moon with a jet pack.

Now I’m well into the 21st century, and I’ve just turned 60 — impossibly ancient, an age my 10 year old self would have found inconceivable, incomprehensible, and totally discombobulating. So I tried flipping my perspective. Instead of imagining the future, imagine trying to explain the last half century to myself.

First, the important stuff: not bald yet. Also, not president, and given the string of crooks and incompetents you’re going to witness in the coming decades, You should be happy that your resume is going to be untainted by the title.

Next, the bad news.

People you love are going to die. You’ll never get used to it, you’ll never get over it, and by the time you’re 60 you’re going to be carrying around a lot of scar tissue deep down inside. This is inescapable, sorry.

The space program as Cronkite knew it is a dead end that will sputter out and become tediously mundane. There will be really cool robots, though.

You’ll become a tiny bit famous, which isn’t a good thing, because you’ll get nothing out of it but a hell of a lot of hate mail. You’ll get to wake up every day to a chorus singing about how much they despise you. Don’t worry too much though, because the scar tissue will actually help.

Most people mostly suck. The world is an unjust place. Fight against it, you’ll only regret those moments when you let injustice pass by.

Hey, think about this: you’re going to have a longer life than your father will. Try processing that when you’re 10 years old.

I guess I also suck to say that to a kid.

It’s OK. There is some good news.

Science turns out to be cool. Think about the questions more than the answers, and you’ll be perpetually surprised when the answers do emerge.

You find someone you can trust and rely upon. Stick with her, and be reliable and trustworthy, too. It makes all the difference. You won’t be able to imagine life without her, and she’ll help you get through the rotten bits.

You’ll grow up. That’s bittersweet, as you’ll find out when you have kids of your own — they’ll become the most important people in your life, you’ll like them, and then they’ll just keep changing and growing up and becoming people who don’t need you anymore. It’ll feel strange — both deeply proud and regretful at the same time. It’s uncomfortable and confusing, like most of life, but worth it.

Other stuff will happen. Most of it isn’t important. Not even Walter Cronkite’s imaginary future, and especially not Sunday School.

WTF is wrong with you?

Here’s yet another story about the sexist culture at that place. She’s recounting how a pig named “Mike#2” was allowed to run rampant.

Other female employees who were his seniors often discussed in private about his lewd comments and sexist behavior but no one was ever brave enough to complain to the senior management and HR because the management is known to ignore the complaints and many times punish the women by accidentally leaking the names of the women over private chat groups. Travis is well known to protect high performing team leaders no matter how abusive they are towards their employees. The HR team was known to be deftly afraid of Travis’s tendency to blame and ridicule the women and yell at HR whenever they went in with complaints of abuse. I heard about Travis personally congratulating Mike#2 for meeting strict deadlines months after I complained to HR about my abuse. It was clear to me that the regressive and abusive attitude towards female employees was trickling down from the top. After several months of this abuse and failed complaints to HR, I couldn’t stand it any longer. The animosity towards me got worse and in my performance reviews, it was noted that I was not a team player, not creative, directionless. There were days when I would come home from work and lie down in my bed till the alarm woke me up. I would cut my mom’s calls and reject meeting requests from friends. I would wonder why I went to grad school instead of wearing heels and marrying a rich guy so I would never have to work. It was then that I knew I had to stop this vicious environment from destroying my life. Within three days of my last performance review, I quit. I wore my New Balance sneakers to work, surrendered my employee tag, mobile phone and computer. I deleted the Uber app on my phone. Even though I don’t work at Uber any longer, the damage that was done to me by Uber’s work environment ruined my spirit. It damaged what was most precious to me : dignity and self respect. This abuse happened not because I didn’t wear heels or because I was directionless. It happened for the sole reason that I am a woman who told a man what she really thought.

And now the NY Times breaks a story about how Uber evades regulatory oversight.

Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service was being resisted by law enforcement, or in some instances, had been outright banned.

The program, which involves a tool called Greyball, uses data collected from Uber’s app and other techniques to identify and circumvent officials. Uber used these to evade authorities in cities such as Paris, Boston and Las Vegas, and in countries including Australia, China, South Korea and Italy.

Uber is unethical inside and out. I’ve never used it (not that there’s much opportunity in Morris, Minnesota) and never will.

I have a sore throat. And a hacking cough. And sinuses full of phlegm. That combo means every night is a struggle to get any sleep, and tonight I’m staggering out of bed at 2am.

What it also means is that every day I’m in a foul, snarling mood, ready to punch Nazis in the face, but also so debilitated that there’s no way I could adequately carry out said punching. This is an injustice.