Two of our kids went to visit my parents a couple days ago, so my wife and I are home with just our youngest for a few nights. It’s strange. It kind of feels like it felt when we only had our first. It’s so quiet, so insanely quiet.

In fact, I’m laughing as I write this thinking about just how quiet it is compared to normal (read as: insane) daily life. Babies cry and all, but the truth is once you have older ones, you realize that those little cries and protests are really just cute and kind of pitiful, even if they seem furious.

There is something vital in us that seeks out friction and new horizons, physical and mental.

But of course, they don’t feel like that at the time when you are new to everything with your first kid.

Cry babies

I remember one time, probably two or three days after we left the hospital with our son, we called the 24-hour nurse line because we were concerned he might hurt himself from crying so much. She very kindly assured us that everything was fine and that we shouldn’t worry about him hurting himself due to crying.

My wife and I think about that story probably every six months or so. We laugh so hard about how little we knew, how nervous we were, and how loud those weak, little screams from a 5-day-old mouth must have felt to our uninitiated ears. We weren’t used to crying, we weren’t used to holding a little human screaming his hardest. We genuinely thought he might blow a blood vessel or something.

Now it’s different. When our 5-month-old cries, we aren’t particularly disturbed or shocked. It’s just what they do. We know the kinds of cries (my wife better than I), and it’s just not a big deal. They aren’t even loud, or at least not compared to the cries from a 2-year-old in the throes of an illogical tantrum.

RELATED: My son and daughter are fundamentally different — and it’s a beautiful thing

Fox Photos/Getty Images

0 to 1

It felt so hard when we only had our son six years ago. That leap from zero to one is a big one. Up until that point, you have basically spent your life being selfish. In your quiet, organized, little apartment where nothing is moved unless you move it, where no one screams for no reason, and where you actually have time to relax, life is very easy. So that leap with your first is big, and the chaos feels like a lot.

But now? This brief return to life as a family of three feels like a vacation. There are no messes unless my wife or I make them. I don’t have to admonish someone every 10 minutes for not doing what they should be doing. I can get so much done, we have so much extra time, and everything is so quiet.

It’s funny how easy that thing that seemed so hard feels now. As we have more kids, we adapt to more chaotic circumstances. We are able to take on more stuff. We are able to manage more people. Our love expands, and so does our bandwidth.

The thing is, we don’t feel it happening when it’s happening. The stress keeps right up, following a straight line so we don’t realize we are becoming more competent, and it isn’t until we are able to visit ourselves in our prior situation for a few days that we are able to really see how far we have come.

Sink or swim

This phenomenon doesn’t only apply to raising a family. It applies to our work, our adventures, and all of everything we do. We adapt to our environment, rise to the occasion, and our capacities expand when needed. If we stop, look back at our lives, and really think about how we have grown, we see that often we’ve grown the most when we have been forced to.

We grow when we take on things we don’t think we can handle. We don’t know how we are going to do it — whatever it is — but we jump in, do it, and two years later, it’s just what we consider to be normal, and we are ready again for a new challenge. There is something vital in us that seeks out friction and new horizons, physical and mental. And so we keep doing that over and over again throughout our lives, and we keep getting stronger and more capable as the years pass, even if we still feel kind of like we don’t know anything at all.

It’s possible to try to avoid struggle and the growth that comes with it. It’s possible to try to take the easy way out. But life finds a way of demanding more of us. Whether we like it or not, we are thrown overboard and told to swim, and more often than not, we find that we can swim quite well.

​Parenthood, Lifestyle, Men’s style, Babies, Experience, Family life, The root of the matter 

As the war in Iran rages on into its sixth week, President Trump has issued yet another threat against Iran — yet this threat seems to include a different target as well.

Early on Tuesday morning, Trump posted a strange warning message that included the Iranian people.

‘We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.’

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump said on Truth Social. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”

Trump went on to suggest that Tuesday night would be a deciding moment for the future of the Iranian people and regime.

RELATED: ‘Give it up or go to jail’: Trump vows to hunt down whoever leaked info about downed pilot in Iran

Kharg Island. Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images

“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

President Trump previously set a hard deadline of 8:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday night for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz. An official told NBC News that the U.S. has struck military assets on Kharg Island, prior to the deadline.

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​Politics, Kharg island, Operation epic fury, Iran, United states, Trump, President trump, Donald trump, Strait of hormuz, Regime change 

Artemis II made history on Monday night as it flew around the moon in the farthest manned flight from the Earth.

On Tuesday morning, NASA released some stunning photos from the historic flyby.

‘On the far side of the Moon, 252,756 miles away, Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy have now traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history.’

The White House and NASA posted some of the most stunning photos on social media, including a total eclipse from behind the moon:

RELATED: WATCH: Trump tells moon-looping Artemis astronauts what’s next in out-of-this-world phone call

NASA

Reminiscent of the famous “Earthrise” photo taken by William Anders on the Apollo 8 mission, NASA also published a photo of “Earthset.” According to NASA, this is the first photo from the far side of the moon ever taken.

NASA

NASA Artemis also posted a photo of the Orientale basin, most of which is not visible from Earth. This perspective will allow new discoveries to be made.

The account describes the photo and the new discovery: “The Artemis II crew captured this image showing the rings of the Orientale basin during their lunar flyby on April 6. At the 10 o’clock position of the Orientale basin, the two smaller craters — which the Artemis II crew has suggested be named Integrity & Carroll — are visible.”

NASA

The flyby of the moon lasted several hours starting Monday afternoon.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman celebrated the historic moment with an exciting update on Monday of the progress of astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen:

Artemis II has reached its maximum distance from Earth. On the far side of the Moon, 252,756 miles away, Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy have now traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history and now begin their journey home. Before they left, they said they hoped this mission would be forgotten, but it will be remembered as the moment people started to believe that America can once again do the near-impossible and change the world. Congratulations to this incredible crew and the entire NASA team, our international and commercial partners, but this mission isn’t over until they’re under safe parachutes, splashing down into the Pacific.

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​Politics, Nasa, Artemis ii, Moon, Moon photos, Artemis ii photos, White house, Jared isaacman, Earthrise, Earthset, Orientale basin 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was dragged through the mud in a new in-depth report that features former colleagues and current board members referring to him as sociopath and a liar.

Altman, 40, has yet to respond to claims made in a recent report, some of which were uncovered in secret memos to OpenAI’s board members.

‘He is a sociopath. He would do anything.’

According to the New Yorker, OpenAI’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, sent the memos to three other board members in 2023. One of the memos about Altman began with a list titled “Sam exhibits a consistent pattern of.” The first item on the list was “lying.”

The memos also alleged that Altman misrepresented facts to executives and board members while deceiving them about safety protocols. Unfortunately for Altman, the claims did not stop there.

“He’s unconstrained by truth,” a board member told the New Yorker. “He has two traits that are almost never seen in the same person. The first is a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction. The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone.”

The outlet said that the unnamed board member was not the only person to describe Altman as “sociopathic” without being prompted. Not long before his 2013 suicide, according to the New Yorker, coder Aaron Swartz warned at least one friend about Altman, whom Swartz had known from their time together at Y Combinator. His warning: “You need to understand that Sam can never be trusted. He is a sociopath. He would do anything.”

Sutskever additionally implied that he did not think Altman should have power over others, saying, “I don’t think Sam is the guy who should have his finger on the button.”

Others described him as more ambitious than anything else.

RELATED: Sam Altman tells BlackRock he wants AI on a meter ‘like electricity or water’

Former OpenAI board member Sue Yoon said Altman was “not this Machiavellian villain” but was able to convince himself of his own sales pitches.

“He’s too caught up in his own self-belief,” she reportedly said. “So he does things that, if you live in the real world, make no sense. But he doesn’t live in the real world.”

Other anonymous colleagues cited by the New Yorker said that Sutskever and similar detractors were simply aspiring to take Altman’s throne. Still, even many neutral comments did not help Altman’s portrayal in the report.

“He’s unbelievably persuasive. Like, Jedi mind tricks,” a tech executive colleague of Altman’s reportedly said. “He’s just next-level.”

At the same time, OpenAI is allegedly in the midst of unleashing superintelligence that Altman himself says will be so disruptive that it will require a new social contract.

RELATED: Sexting with chatbots is too far, OpenAI decides

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Altman told Axios that there would be widespread job loss and a threat of cyberattacks coupled with social unrest.

“I suspect in the next year,” he said, “we will see significant threats we have to mitigate from cyber.”

Altman proposed a new deal with citizens that includes a public wealth fund, taxes on “automated labor,” a 32-hour workweek, and the “right to AI.”

That confirms previous reports that Altman wanted to put AI on a meter like electricity or water, to both democratize its usage and limit the possibility of overburdening the electrical grid.

OpenAI did not respond to Return’s request for comment about the claims made about Altman and who they were coming from.

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​Return, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Openai, Chatbot, Altman, Board members, Tech