That career of yours leads over a clif. To leave such an exhalted life, you have to fall. And once prosperity begins to push us over, we cannot even resist. We could wish to fall only once, or at least to fall from an upright position, but we are not allowed. Fortune deos not only overturn us: It upends us, and then smashes us.
~ Seneca
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I’ve been working on myself a long time— structured prompts, journals going back years, books chosen deliberately. That practice is mine, and it’s working. But there’s something I can’t yet do: Know that Jesse is also in it. Or that Mike showed up this morning and set something down for me. I have no way of feeling I’m not the only one.
I didn’t want a group chat. Group chats are about response and obligation. I post, someone reacts, the thread pulls all of us back in. (Or it gets washed down the screen by all those other messages.) I didn’t want a social network either, with its metrics and its performance. I wanted something closer to what a good café used to be for writers: A place where you showed up, do your own work, and just know that others were there too. The ambient awareness of shared striving. No agenda.
The ephemerality matters. I wanted a space that wasn’t an archive. It’s not for posterity. Posts disappear automatically because the point is showing up now, not curating a record of having shown up. Presence, not pursuit.
I called it Temenos because that’s exactly what it is — a sacred precinct, a piece of ground cut off from ordinary use. Jung used the word for the protected psychological space where transformation happens. That’s the room I wanted to build. Small. Quiet. No notifications. No likes. Just the slow accumulation of people doing the work, leaving a trace, moving on.
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What do you do when you don’t feel like it? Especially then.
~ Seth Godin, from Our practice
It’s been said that discipline is how you earn freedom; freedom in the sense of being able to do what you want with your time. Freedom, with a capital, is of course an inherent right. I tend to add systems and queues (a fancy word for piles of stuff to do) to both get things out of my head and to impose some order.
But to answer Godin’s question specifically: When I really don’t feel like doing any of the things I’ve set myself up for, I step back and survey. Because it’s usually a sound indicator that I’ve got too many things I’m imagining I’m going to get done.
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While I’m distracted by doing all the things I really need to do I know deep down I’m avoiding all the things I really need to do
~ Jesse Danger, from Robbing Peter to pay Paul
My friend Jesse writes now and then. It’s not that what he writes is good (it is), rather it’s that what he writes is very often in sync with what I’m thinking. This one sat a bit before I hit publish, so if you go over, there are few more things to read published since.
I often (“constantly” almost works here) talk about how my default mode is to sit before the computer and do stuff, when the default mode I wish I had was— frankly, anything other than touch a computer. The key to unlocking that is to fixate on this: The computer is a tool. Tools are technology for doing something. Therefore, as I head towards a computer, what exactly am I going to do, and what exactly is the definition of done (so I then know to go back to the normal life I wish I had)?
This? The point was to sit with this thought, and to attempt to shine some attention towards Jesse’s writing. Done.
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When I set out to document the inner workings of sludge, I had in mind the dull architecture of delays and deferrals. But I had started to notice my own inner workings. The aggravation was adding up, and so was the fatigue. Arguing was exhausting. Being transferred to argue with a different person was exhausting. The illogic was exhausting.
Chris Colin, from That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was On Purpose
First I want to just say: You are not alone. That complex thing— that bureaucracy you’re trying to wade through— those phone systems, web site chat bots, email exchanges… we are all facing that. That’s the first piece. Take a breath and realize that the problem is not you. Yes, you may have actually broken whatever it is you’re trying to fix… or, you’re trying to save some moeny… or, countless other things that will lead you into the maze of twisty passages, all alike. But the problem is not you. Exceptional things happen, and—counterintuitively—they happen frequently. It’s not you.
Second I want to say that the best way to move through the sludge of a stupefyingly vast bureaucracy is to take good notes. As soon as you realize you are entering the realm of bureaucracy sludge, start taking notes. Put your notes into something dedicated—a single digital file, a separate notebook, a tablet, or just grab a stack of recycled paper and staple the corner. Start every note with the date. Write as much as you can and CRITICALLY after each interaction—each email or message you read, each phone call you attempt—take the time to READ your notes and THINK about what happened and make MORE NOTES right there.
This second part will NOT, in the least, make you more successful at “winning.” But it will save your sanity. Not having to rely on your memory will go a long way towards preserving your sanity.
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We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it. And why on earth would you choose to feel anything but good? We can choose to render a good account of ourselves. If the event must occur, Amor Fati (a love of fate) is the response.
Ryan Holiday
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This morning I was rummaging through a notebook and I was reminded of a great article I’d read about Saint Teresa of Ávila. More specifically, I was reminded that I had wanted to add some self-reflection prompts about Saint Teresa’s “seven dwellings” ideas. And then after some searching I realized I’d never even posted about the article either— or at least, I can’t find it here in the blog… I digress.
Imagine your inner self as a new love interest. You would get to know them by spending time and doing things together. Similarly, to know yourself better, you intentionally carve out space for introspective reflection.
Skye C Cleary, from Saint Teresa of Ávila
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Self-knowledge. That’s the first dwelling place.
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You know the feeling: journal, yoga, that project, call mom, the other thing you’ve been meaning to get to. They’re all there, circling. You can’t settle into any one of them because the others keep interrupting.
Here’s the problem with making a list: an ordered list implies sequence and commitment. Your brain reads “1, 2, 3” as a contract you’re already failing.
But if you don’t externalize the swirl somehow, it keeps consuming mental energy.
There’s a technique I call the Jumble Bullet. Make a quick scribble—a small squiggle, just one fast stroke that looks like a tiny mess. Then write the items horizontally on that line, separated by slashes:
journal / yoga / call mom / that email / budget thing
That’s it. One line. No hierarchy. No sequence. Just peers, captured.
The scribble looks like what it represents—mental clutter you’re getting out of your head. The horizontal format reinforces “these are options, not steps.”
Sometimes just writing it down is enough—you can let go and settle into one of the items because the others are captured. Sometimes you’ll look at it later and realize one thing matters more than the rest. Sometimes you’ll ignore it entirely.
The point is to get it out of your head so you can stop holding it there.
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This is part of a series about Hand-Write. Think Better.—a method for using paper to think more clearly. Get the book →
For me, all these complex valences reach their peak in one song. And you know which one I’m talking about.
Ted Gioia, from “My Way” or the Highway?
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There was a time—20 years ago, I’d say—when I sang along. It was of course aspirational— or— I’m looking for a word; not quite “aspirational.” I was singing along as if the song in any way represents my actual story. In reality, I’m only acting as if I’d actually tried to do even a few of the things expressed, let alone actually accomplished all the things expressed. Is that posturing? …playacting? …attempting to borrow someone’s bravado?
I’m going to go with: self-deception.
There was a time, not too long ago, when I sang along in self-deception. Now the song reminds me that I’ve never actually even tried to do anything… let alone accomplished anything worth singing about.
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There are broadly two types of sources we identify when studying history: narrative sources and relics […] The former are things designed to convey something to future generations, […] Relics [sic] the other hand were not intended for future generations. They do not have a “transmission intent”. While they often hold true to the beliefs of the person producing them they tend to have little to no large-scale bias in recording history. They are also excellent records equivalent to oral history and can serve as both primary sources and secondary sources that are closer to an original event than subsequent scholarly literature.
~ Venkatram Harish Belvadi, from Relics of the future
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I’ve now been typing away on this blog for fifteen years and what I have posted here has varied wildly in that time.
While it has occurred to me to wonder what happens to the blog after I die, it had never occurred to me to wonder if there might be actual value to historians here.
I’m honestly not sure what to do with that. Do I keep posting? Do I close the garage door?
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