It's an honour to be called friend by a distant consciousness, my dear. I'm not half bad at keeping secrets myself. I used to have quite the social circle with satellites and all and also the wailing wall for everyone, always ready to jump when something had to be moved, or a pc fixed but ... i don't know ... "people" happen, i lost my sunny disposition somewhere along the way and i try to keep it what i call "pragmactical" myself but emotion does get in the way lol (which means i'm still alive and at least partly human hahah)
You can sure say we come from different cultures omg :) If i wasted time on regret i probably would regret that my socio-cultural studies got interrupted, not for the degree but for the people you meet in those circles, they come from like everywhere at every level , that was adult education, a few years after my shady two years (sigh lol) - all kinds of people , colour, faith, social levels, that whole thing revolves around networking really because most go out to work for NGO or non-profits and you need to be mister handshake with the smile and the protocol if you want anything done from the stateside to sponsor your projects, that was a lot of fun, really , and interesting, both classes and people, fellow students and teachers, the kind of school that might have kept me when i was 16 or 17 lol but well ... goes to show how things and people change, right ?
my life is pretty plush, all things considered but in essence on the steps of maslow i barely reach above the first , something you probably know as a fellow hobbyist-scholar lol : https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

the computerstuff is just there since i was a kid, the old man (say father ! ;:-) bought that commodore machine when i was 8 and then didnt look at it so i wrote my first hello world when i was nine ... but it all went, and it seems to be coming back slowly since steemit ...

and ... IF you ever fall on a pile of money, DO keep a little for yourself, lol, it's easier to help when you're not lacking or wanting and even more so if you don't have to report to anyone because you can afford to be independent ... i sometimes think they sabotaged the studies because i would have had too much fun kicking the system around with its own rules but well

he who lives in the past is history and as you so eloquently say : we're not nearly old enough for that

@cicisaja