It’s the messiness

17 Hours Ago

It turned out in retrospect that the messy diversity of the forest had been the source of its resilience. When stresses such as storms, disease, drought, fragile soil, or severe cold struck, a diverse forest with its full array of different species of trees, birds, insects, and animals was far better able to survive and recover. A windstorm that toppled large, old trees would typically spare smaller ones. An insect attack that threatened oaks might leave lindens and hornbeams unaffected. The rigidity and uniformity of the system meant that failures were not small and contained but systemic.

~ Tiago Forte, from Productive Disorder: The Hidden Power of Chaos, Noise, and Randomness

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I’m simply stuck, staring at: “The rigidity […] of the system meant that failures were […] systemic.” I’m filing this under Stuff I Wished I’d Learned 30 Years Ago. I often say that I use systems and structure as a way to multiply my efforts. And that’s true. But I’ve learned that the real reason is that I’m afraid. The big why behind my hyper-organization, maximally-complex systems, and endless aligning of figurative ducks is my desperately trying to control the world around me. With realization comes… the recognition that I have a lot more work to learn to not do.

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Pragmatism

1 Day Ago

Pragmatism is not so much realism as flexibility. There are a lot of ways to get from point A to point B. It doesn’t have to be a straight line. It’s just got to get you where you need to go. But so many of us spend so much time looking for the perfect solution that we pass up what’s right in front of us.

~ Ryan Holiday

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Returning

2 Days Ago

I recently returned from a whole bunch of movement. I was at the annual American Rendezvous event in Somerville MA, followed by taking the Level 2 ADAPT Coach Certification course. Immediately followed by some just-for-fun hard work at Vandrar Hem.

This morning I sat down on the concrete for meditation and it was sublime. 10, 15, or maybe even 20 minutes of simply sitting and breathing. Weeks of continuously have a “next thing” on the schedule every minute of every day is its own type of exhausting. This morning I was recharging via stillness. But completely still (like being totally active) is not the correct state.

What I had failed to cultivate in my recent travels was equanimity.

Too often, equanimity is described as a practice or technique that aims at the production of something – usually a state of stillness. Other proposed aims include a ‘countercultural’ refashioning of the self: eg, ‘to disarm the way we define ourselves in terms of achievements, fame, praise, and what we’re told should make us happy’, as the meditation teacher Christina Feldman and the psychologist Willem Kuyken put it in Mindfulness (2019); or being compassionate and caring instead of discriminatory and judgmental.

~ Michael Uebel, from Equanimity is not stillness – it is a mobility of the mind

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Hopefulness

3 Days Ago

Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position—it is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.

~ Nick Cave

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It matters that you notice

4 Days Ago

Whether you’re a binge-watcher or a doomscroller or some other type of time-bider, the following is probably true for most people reading this: There are things you want to do with your life that you’re not doing. You know these things are worthwhile. You know these things are possible.

~ David Cain, from How to Start Doing the Things You Daydream About

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Cain draws our attention (often in his writing) to the noticing part. That is the really difficult part. If you’re not noticing that there’s a tension in your life, then you’ll surely never change.

Beyond noticing comes relaxing into the feeling. Then deciding whether the tension and the feeling represent something to allow to bloom. And deciding what to let go of to make room for that new growth.

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Reality

7 Days Ago

In this modern age, very little remains that is real. Night has been banished, so have the cold, the wind and the stars. They have all been neutralized: The rhythm of life itself is obscured. Everything goes so fast and makes so much noise, and men hurry by without heeding the grass by the roadside, its colour, its smell and the way it shimmers when the wind caresses it. What a strange encounter then is that between man and the high places of his planet!

~ Gaston Rébuffat

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Persevere

9 Days Ago

Persevere in what you have begun; hurry as much as you can, so that you will have more time to enjoy a mind that is settled and made flawless. To be sure, you will have enjoyment even as you make it so; But there is quite another pleasure to be gained from the contemplation of an intellect that is spotlessly pure and right.

~ Seneca

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Long live the indie web, indeed

10 Days Ago

So, here’s something of a little manifesto or rallying cry:

  • If you only spend your time on Facebook/Twitter/Medium then stream in, stream out – you’re going to get what you ask for. A fleeting set of stories loosely bound.
  • So, spend time in the corners of the web. Subscribe to some newsletters. Bookmark some forums and blogs in your browser and show up regularly. It’s hard, there’s no stream. But you’ll start to find the mom & pop internet not the shopping mall internet.
  • Dabble with your own space. Dabble with your own voice. Own your own platform.
  • But don’t stop there – own your own distribution too! Build a newsletter. Build a messenger bot to alert people to new posts. Build your own stream. Create a shared delusion of showing up regularly.

Long live the indie web.

~ Tom Critchlow, from Indie Blogging & Distribution

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I was a frequent user of the Internet before the web. Today is vastly better than then. The web straight up kicks ass, and the web is not just alive and well, it’s flourishing. If you aren’t seeing great content, you simply haven’t yet figured out where to look for it. Go look. (Right after you go read the above, of course.)

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Benefit

11 Days Ago

The one way to guarantee we don’t benefit from failure—to ensure it is a bad things—is to not learn from it. To continue to try the same things over and over (which is the definition of insanity for a reason). People fail in small ways all the time. But they don’t learn. They don’t listen. They don’t see the problems that failure exposes. It doesn’t make them better.

~ Ryan Holiday

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21 lessons

12 Days Ago

In this article, I wanted to share some of the many lessons I’ve learned from George over the years and in the process of working on the book with him. His wisdom and example have influenced my life in ways I never could have imagined—I hope these 21 lessons impact you as much as they have impacted me…

~ Ryan Holiday, from 21 Powerful Life Lessons From My Mentor (George Raveling)

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I’m not even quoting a single one, because you should go read them all.

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Memento mori

14 Days Ago

On a personal level, I have found that keeping reminders of mortality close at hand provides me with the clarity to see what truly matters to me, and the courage necessary to live a life aligned with my values. Because I have, for decades, been asking myself what I would regret if I were to die – and because I made changes in accord with those answers – I live a rich and fulfilling life that I appreciate every day.

~ Joanna Ebenstein from, Reflections on mortality can help you live well now – here’s how

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Hear! Hear! And I’ll keep talking and writing about memento mori.

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A body called life

16 Days Ago

Adapted from a series of Instagram posts by Weiss, the film blends reenactments, live action and, of course, some exquisite microscopy to explore how his tendency to seek ‘comfort in unusual places’ culminated in his spending up to 16 hours at a time with only single-celled organisms as company.

~ from, A body called life

Watch.

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Professional

18 Days Ago

He smiled a little. He looked forward, thinking, perhaps about the movie, as if it hadn’t crossed his mind for a long time. Then he grinned and said: “Money job.”

~ Ben Stiller from, Gene Hackman’s Simple Truth

It’s not clear, of course, exactly how Hackman meant for Stiller to take his simply reply. But, having seen The Poseidon Adventure, I’m taking it this way: Hackman is a consummate professional, able to deliver. “You need what done? I can do that.” That’s a professional.

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Tranquility

19 Days Ago

[Do not disquiet] yourself by running about from place to place. Thrashing around in that way indicates a mind in poor health. In my view, the first sign of a settled mind is that it can stay in one place and spend time with itself.

~ Seneca

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