Author: Craig Constantine

Prosperity

Published January 12, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 12  ·  

Notice a subtle point here: Seneca isn’t saying that prosperity is not worth pursuing. It is, after all, a preferred indifferent. But it is preferred only insofar it doesn’t get in the way of conducting a virtuous life, as one gets the sense Lucilius was worrying about insofar his own pursuits were concerned. Which is why his friend reminds him that he is under no obligation at all to live in the fast lane.

~ Massimo Pigliucci, from Seneca to Lucilius

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Just yesterday, for the first time ever, I considered removing the rear-view mirror from the Jeep. (Instead, I twisted it upwards to view the roof.) Since the Jeep is slow and old, as am I, there is ALWAYS someone tail-gating me. I’ve narrowly avoided accidents, where watching the tail-gater behind me distracted me from the road ahead. I’m so much in the “slow lane”, I am literally being run over. Where, really, are you going?

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How many programmers does it take…

Published January 11, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 11

Having to do everything turned out to be a real benefit later on, I was comfortable with such diverse things as communicating with customers, designing UI, identifying and tracking plans, architecture, and other non-programming tasks. With today’s roles unless you are in a startup environment (sometimes not even there) as a programmer you rarely get to do anything but write code. People even joke about programmers doing other things like designing.

~ Andrew Wulf from, How Many People Does It Take To Write Software

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I certainly didn’t do anywhere near everything. (Notably, it doesn’t seem I got very good at communicating via the years of my early experience.) But I agree with the general sentiment. It’s all the peripheral stuff that I had to sort out, figure out, build, do, etc. which I think turned out to be the keys to my later — dare I say it — “success”.

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The Great Depression was an energy crisis

Published January 10, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 10

When I put together a chart of per capita energy consumption since 1820 for a post back in 2012, there was a strange “flat spot” in the period between 1920 and 1940. When we look at the underlying data, we see that coal production was starting to decline in some of the major coal producing parts of the world at that time. From the point of view of people living at the time, the situation might have looked very much like peak energy consumption, at least on a per capita basis.

~ Gail Tverberg from, The Depression of the 1930s Was an Energy Crisis

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One of my rules-of-thumb is to thoroughly read everything written my Gail Tverberg.

Years ago, I found a web site called The Oil Drum which was a collecton of superlative thinkers all writing about things related to petroleum. Actually, it still IS a superlative collection, because they’ve left it up as-is to be an archive.

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Music in human evolution? Aposematism?!

Published January 9, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 9

… the goal of aposematism is to advertise that, as a piece of prey, you are decidedly unprofitable for the predator. If a predator can easily recognize you (and other members of your species), and remembers getting burned during past encounters, it will quickly learn to stop attacking you in the first place.

~ Kevin Simler from, Music in Human Evolution

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Long [long!] ago humans stood up (makes us easy to see),
moved into the open grasslands (makes us really easy to see),
lost our claws/protective-thick-skin/fangs (makes us soft and easy to kill),
did NOT have tools other than rocks we could pick up (makes us unable to defend ourselves),
started singing ON THE GROUND (makes us easy to hear and find, NO OTHER ANIMAL DOES THIS),

… and then we took over the planet.

AND we are the only animal that uses RHYTHM,
ALSO, all humans dance (ever have the urge to tap your foot or more your head to music?)…
Wait, also, why do we always — every society, every religion, every military — ALWAYS retrieve/prepare/handle/bury our dead?

APOSEMATISM !

Intrigued? Click that link… I’m a simple person, with a small brain, and I’m easily amused. This article. BLEW. MY. MIND.

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Rats? Moloch?

Published January 7, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 7  ·  

Like the rats, who gradually lose all values except sheer competition, so companies in an economic environment of sufficiently intense competition are forced to abandon all values except optimizing-for-profit or else be outcompeted by companies that optimized for profit better and so can sell the same service at a lower price.

From a god’s-eye-view, we can contrive a friendly industry where every company pays its workers a living wage. From within the system, there’s no way to enact it.

~ Scott Alexander, from Meditations on Moloch

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I confess to having had only the slightest awareness of Moloch in the biblical or general senses. So just skimming the WikiPedia article and then taking the time to read this piece from Slate Star Codex was like discovering a new window on the world from my mind-palace.

Moloch.

This is the problem. (With everything.) Individually, everyone acts according to their interests and beliefs. The result? …look at the world around you.

How could one go about changing the world? (That’s a rhetorical question.)

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Suffering

Published January 6, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 6  ·  

Krishnamurti has this definition of suffering that I really like, “Suffering is that moment when you see reality exactly as it is. When you can no longer run away from it, when you can no longer deny it.”

~ Naval Ravikant, from Naval Ravikant — The Person I Call Most for Startup Advice (#97)

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I don’t know anything about Krishnamurti. But I know a good statement that cuts right through all the day-to-day bullshit; That right there is one.

I’ll save you some digging: Naval is quoting Jiddu Krishnamurti, apparently from The Book of Life: Daily Meditations.

…also, go listen to this entire podcast. It’s insanely long at 2+ hours, but Naval is a real down-to-Earth guy with a lot of useful advice on how to live.

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Intersection of three lines

Published January 5, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 5  ·  

The three lines cross in that intersection, and you’re like, “Okay, I think I know where I am.” In the case of your “why,” one great intersection is saying, “Hey, what would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail? What would be the things that I would just love to be doing in my life if I could not fail? Unfortunately, somewhere along the line between high school, college, and maybe even before high school, kids stopped dreaming up crazy ideas, and they start thinking, “Okay, well, this is what society expects.”

~ Alden Mills, from Podcast #130: Become Unstoppable With Alden Mills

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1. What would I do if I couldn’t fail?
2. Whose lifestyle would I like to follow?
3. What am I passionate about, and in what can I find purpose?

The answers to these questions will not tell me what to do, nor how to live my life. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what to do and how to live, (and I hope I will always be working on that.) But these three questions are an excellent triplet of tools for picking at the bigger picture.

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Gratitude

Published January 4, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 4

I am left with one thing: my ordinary, present self who is as empty-handed as he was the day before diagnosis — no better equipped for the ensuing battles of life, no better shielded from pain he will yet face. And it is not just heroic pain. It is the hurt of parking tickets, the ache of commuting, the grief of deadening routine — small pains to which I was immune while they were eclipsed by cancer. But that moon has since passed.

~ Philip Garrity, from Gratitude: In Sickness and Health

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Persistence

Published January 3, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 3

If you’re growing at all as a human being, then you’re going to be a different person each year than you were the previous year. And if you consciously pursue personal development, then the changes will often be dramatic and rapid. You can’t guarantee that the goals you set today will still be ones you’ll want to achieve a year from now.

~ Steve Pavlina from, Self-Discipline

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I am noticing the confirmation bias effect often. In the last year (or so) I’ve been paying more attention to goals– what is a good goal? how to set a goal? how to plan to reach a goal? The more I work on the skill(s) related to goals, the more I’m find I’m tripping over more and more writing such as the above. I’m willing to bet the writing isn’t happening more frequently (notice the year in the URL above).

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

~ Robert Frost, from Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

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Simplicity in 2018

Published January 1, 2018  ·  All posts on Jan 1  ·  

Paring down one’s possessions and schedule are go-to ways to seek simplicity because they are outward, accessible, concrete actions that produce fairly immediate results. Their weakness, when practiced as their own ends, however, is that they lack a set of overarching criteria for how they should be carried out, as well as intrinsic motivation for following them through.

Practicing outward moves towards simplification, without this set of criteria, is like placing spokes in a wheel, without connecting them to a hub.

Simplicity needs a heart, and its center must be this: having a clear purpose.

~ Brett McKay, from The Spiritual Disciplines: Simplicity

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Throughout 2017 I’ve been slowly paring down. Fewer physical things sure, but also changing out some things and hobbies and projects and people. Can I eliminate one? Can I replace two of something with a simpler one?

I’m a “systems” person. I get things done via the observe, orient, decide, and act loop. For 2018 I’ve no delusions of rewiring my brain and kicking all my systems and processes to the curb.

I’ve realized, (far too recently,) that I need to take more time to “zoom out” and to take the time to consider how the really big things in my life fit together. Do they fit together? What if some really big component of who I am — even if it’s a great, fine thing — doesn’t fit with the rest of everything? What should I change; everything else, or that one great, fine thing?

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I do love to spend the indoor, chilly, winter season thinking about the big picture — and now, perhaps a bit more of the really big picture.

Goodbye 2017! I will look back on you fondly.

MEMENTO MORI

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Erwan LeCorre

Published December 31, 2017  ·  All posts on Dec 31

We need to empower human nature; to rewild it.

~ Erwan Le Corre from, Finding Purpose and Rites of Passage – Erwan Le Corre #56

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In episode , “Finding Purpose and Rites of Passage,” Daniel interviews Erwan LeCorre, the founder of the increasingly popular MoveNat system. It’s a great interview as it gives Erwan sufficient time and space to expand on his ideas. Too many podcast interviews are just “plug pieces” for books, but this interview is completely different. Erwan and Daniel have an inspiring, long, and wandering (in a good way) discussion that will give you some insight into Erwan’s way of thinking.

…and I’ll mention tangentially, that if you read CinĂ©Parkour and Breaking the Jump thoroughly, there are also a precious few breadcrumbs to be found there too.

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§14 – Precommit

Published December 28, 2017  ·  All posts on Dec 28  ·  

This entry is part 26 of 37 in the series Study inspired by Pakour & Art du DĂ©placement by V. Thibault

The devil is in the details?

On one hand pre-committment gives you the power of hindsight; the power of having a higher view point– the executive-level view. You can sort out all the nuances and make an objective decision. But the downside is that you’re intentionally surrendering the ability to make flexible, quick decisions down the road when your day-to-day passions might lead off in a new direction.

Do I want to be sacrificing following my passions?

I’ve attempted — sometimes even “done” :) — big projects where I’ve invested a lot of time up-front thinking, planning, and then started off on the journey. But later, in the midst of the journey, I started to have doubts. Not small, nagging doubts, but well-founded, objective doubts. When that happens I’m faced with letting go of the sunk cost of the prep work that went into the pre-committment. I start thinking, “Look at all this planning I did. Look at how far I’ve come! This doubt must be unfounded.” And suddenly all my pre-commitment is working against me. Granted, the original intention of the pre-committment is to make it easier to achieve my goals, but it can pile on sunk costs, or worse, pile on guilt, which never serves me.

In the end, it seems I simply have to know myself: These days, a 30 day challenge is something I can probably do, but 100 days will probably become a drag.

The devil really is in the details.

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Like a wine sommelier who does not drink

Published December 26, 2017  ·  All posts on Dec 26

I have found that part of the struggle of actually finding happiness as an artist is the very fight to not define success by the way that the rest of the world defines success. Which is hard because you have to fight the same battles every day. Because you go out into the work environment and the entire industry– And even to a certain extent your own fans because they’re sort of all drinking the same Kool-Aid– are all telling you “Success is defined by this, success is defined by this, and success is defined by this.”

And you’re there in your own little bubble going, “well, no that’s not really true.” I know that there is that superficial level of success, but then there’s also my personal success which no one else can define for me. It really is only defined by how happy was I when I woke up this morning, and how happy am I when I’m bedding down at night. That’s not reflected in any of the billboard charts or any of the iTunes downloads.

So success has this very two-faced essence where, as an artist playing the game in the industry and putting out music and putting out books and so forth, you kind of have to play that game a little bit and ride the balance of trying to get your books on the New York Times best-selling list and know what to do to do that. But also, simultaneously, not drinking the Kool-Aid. Instead, like swishing it around in your mouth, getting the taste, and then spitting it out. …like being a wine sommelier who does not drink.

~ Amanda Palmer from, Amanda Palmer on How to Fight, Meditate, and Make Good Art (#67)

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I am continuosly going through cycles of expanding the bells-and-whistles on everything I’m doing– more social posts, more this, more that, more cow bell… and then– as Amanda puts it– spitting the Kool-Aid out, stripping things back down to a new, better core and then again plowing forward.

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§3 – Reviewing

Published December 25, 2017  ·  All posts on Dec 25

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Travel Gear

This third part — the last of the think-y pieces, I promise! — is about the process of reviewing and continuous improvement. The subsequent parts of this series are small ideas and inspirations about the literal things to take with you traveling.

Hey, great trip. Welcome home. Drop your bag. Sleep if you need to. But now it’s time to review!

Overture: Missing or broken.

Here you’re reviewing the things you did not have with you. You’re trolling your recent experience in search of things to add to your packing. Either things to always carry, or maybe just things to have on hand, ready to pack, to give you more options on future trips.

If you recorded any notes, (“I wish I had brought…,” “Widget is broken,”) go over those notes and turn them into decisions:

Buy some thing, (or add it to your general list of things to do, “buy this thing when I have spare cash”,) find a solution for some problem, (or add “find solution to the problem” to your to-do list,) etc. Then get rid of the notes!

Aside: Those notes are the result of what is called “capture.” You had an idea, you captured it, but that’s not a solution. You have to convert that “captured” item into something; buy it, fix it, or turn it into however you keep track of things to do.

Beginner level: Did I use it?

As you handle everything you’re unpacking, ask: Did I use it?

YES? Great, put it away. (Working it to neutral of course! Wash it, refill it, fix it, etc.)

NO? Why did I pack it? Should I pack it next time?

Some things always get a pass. For example, my medical/urgency kit usually does not get used, but I’m always going to carry it. Ditto for a few things like my travel flashlight. I put all of these “they get a pass even though I did not use them” items away first.

Anything left? Great! These are your first batch of things to review. Ask yourself: Why did I pack this in the first place? What was I thinking? What was I preparing for? In the future, would I be ok without this?

Aside: I once went over-night hiking along the Appalachian trail. Although we were planning to stay in a shelter, we brought a tent in case the shelter was full. I carried a hammer in case we had to drive tent stakes. I brought a hammer on a hike along a mountain full of rocks on the chance we might need to drive tent stakes. By the end of that hike, I had learned a very important lesson about carrying things which I only _might_ use.

Intermediate: Start keeping track of what you pack.

Along the way, I started keeping lists– eventually very detailed lists– of everything I packed. I started by writing a list of what I was thinking of packing. Then as I packed, and added or decided against packing items, I kept the list up to date. When I returned, I would sometimes add notes about things I didn’t use, along with my decisions about whether I should pack that next time. For me this was particularly helpful for some of the less-used things I kept forgetting.

At the “Beginner” level, we gave a pass to anything we used. But at this level, we want to start thinking about anti-packing things even though we’ve used them.

Advanced: Actively removing items and weight.

Once you know what you are packing, you can go after obvious things to save weight and space:

One of the heaviest things in my bag turned out to be my iPad with its attached keyboard-cover in a Pelican case. I realized that for $20 I could buy a smaller version of the same keyboard cover, which not only weighed less, but also fit into the next size smaller Pelican case. This ended up being a huge weight and volume savings.

I travel with an external battery and charge devices from the battery. I charge the battery when power is available. I realized that I never drained the battery completely, and sometimes I’d go entire trips without recharging the battery. Since I was already carrying the charging cable and power brick, I bought a smaller battery which weighs half as much.

Soon I had “minimized” all the big items, and reached a point where I could fit everything I needed into my bag. At this point I was traveling comfortably. As my trips became more complicated and involved more movement, (walking longer distances, more complex transportation combinations, etc..) it became obvious that weight was the limiting factor.

I eventually went so far as to weigh everything. I literally weighed every individual item, to the gram, and put them in an outline with sub-totals. I can literally pack using the outline and predict what the final pack will weigh.

Why on Earth would I want to do that?!

When I had things in an outline with sub-totalled lists, I could look at each unit, (M’Urgency kit, bathroom kit, sleep system, etc) and look at the heaviest ones. I could then search for solutions to shave weight a tiny bit at a time. It adds up, and I was easily able to turn a 30 pound pack into a 25 pound pack, and know exactly what to pack if wanted to set a weight limit. (For example, if I know I have to be out-and-about for long periods with my entire pack. I can pack ultra-light sacrificing some comfort of course.)

Wrap up

This part concludes the large introduction pieces of this series. The following parts are actually the parts of the series which I first began writing. As I collected and organized them, I realized I needed to capture all the information in these first posts.

I hope you’ve found these introductory parts useful, and I hope you find more useful ideas in the following posts!

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Human Violence

Published December 24, 2017  ·  All posts on Dec 24

None of us are the products of ancestors who refused to defend themselves.

~ Rory Miller from, The Blueprint of Human Violence – Rory Miller #32

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I’m not a big fan of the Rewild Yourself podcast, and the audio quality on this episode is particularly egregious. BUT…

This is episode with Rory Miller really dives into human violence in a way that separates fear (“I’m afraid, so I’ll be violent”) from violence as a tool. And make no mistake: Violence is a tool. Humans use tools.

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