The Digital Hangout of James Hill: Author, Marketer, Entrepreneur
“Why are you standing there, intentionally antagonizing my dog?” The person addressing me and my wife with this rather perverse question was a neighbor I’ve never met (a medical doctor of some sort, I’m told) who lives catty-corner from us in a large, beautifully restored Queen Anne. It was about 9 PM on a cold … Continue reading The Virtues of Cultivated Doubt
Sometimes, objects from our past can surprise us by assuming unexpected new significance.
Improbably, we received both calls on the same late-January day, at nearly the same time. As I sat in the family room hearing about my brother Geoff’s throat cancer diagnosis, Barbara was in the dining room speaking with her brother Alan. He’d just been informed he had non-small cell lung cancer, very likely terminal. When … Continue reading The Two Faces of Cancer
Back in 2016, I stepped away from my 30-year career in marketing communications. Since then, I’ve thought about business nearly as much as I did when I owned a company. Retrospect, it turns out, is a marvelous business professor. Most recently I found myself questioning whether I sold my business at the right time. What … Continue reading The Perils of Thinking Small
The other morning, I was walking my dog when a neighbor curiously regarded my three-month-old Saint Bernard puppy and asked, “You got another dog?” “No,” I replied. “My other puppy died a month ago.” “Oh my god,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” I went on to explain that Lando was two months shy of his … Continue reading The Puppy After That One
Having reached the august age of 61, I find myself at the doctor's office more often than I'd like. For some reason, these appointments cluster in the spring in a bizarre rite of seasonal self-preservation. In the past three months, I've gone for my annual physical, a head-to-toe skin exam with my dermatologist (skin cancer … Continue reading The Medical Rites of Spring
I saw this article yesterday and wanted to share with those of my followers who are interested in prostate cancer. This sounds like a promising development in the detection of high-risk, aggressive forms of the cancer. Very much worth a read. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/20/discovery-of-bacteria-linked-to-prostate-cancer-hailed-as-potential-breakthrough
In Aristotle’s Politics, the philosopher quotes an ancient Greek saying: Well begun is half done. Not being an Aristotle scholar, I learned the phrase from Mary Poppins, who, most will agree, made Greek philosophy cool again. This catchy axiom stuck with me over the decades, and I still find myself reciting it when undertaking a … Continue reading The Thing About Bad Beginnings
The other day, I was working out at the YMCA when I ran into a successful fiction writer who lives in town. This fellow is a legit author, having published a shelf-full of books, won prestigious awards, and earned a substantial Wikipedia entry. We got to chatting, and he very politely asked how my writing … Continue reading For the Love of the Work
At any given point in my father’s life, he owned a poodle. Not necessarily because he chose to, but because life, with its infinite array of surprises, kept presenting him one. In all, I believe, he owned six: Nicole, Taffy, Buffy, Duffy, Nefertiti, and Poppycock. The last of them, Poppy, outlived both my parents and … Continue reading Why We Have Pets