When the resistance shows up, I know that I’m winning. Not my fight against it, but my fight to make art. […] The resistance is a symptom that you’re on the right track. The resistance is not something to be avoided; it’s something to seek out.
~ Seth Godin
slip:4a1225.
(Part 6 of 46 in series, Level 52 countdown)
What started as the usual mowing, turned into a burly shovel session expanding and connecting these garden beds. Tomorrow shall be more running.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
~ Alvin Toffler
slip:4a1224.
(Part 5 of 46 in series, Level 52 countdown)
At least the pace was sub 12-minute, bit faster than my trail “runs”. (I’m thinking running every-other day is prob what I should be doing.) Tomorrow: Lawn mowing (with the human-powered push-mower.)
I don’t collect many souvenirs. Sometimes I buy postcards when I visit places… and then I tape those into my journals. But in a very real sense a lot of what I write in my journals is meant to be a souvenir. Either way, the physical or the notational souvenir, is meant to trigger some memory.
Even institutions built for the express purpose of information preservation have succumbed to the ravages of time, natural disaster or human conquest. The famous library of Alexandria, one of the most important repositories of knowledge in the ancient world, eventually faded into obscurity. Built in the fourth century B.C., the library flourished for some six centuries, an unparalleled center of intellectual pursuit. Alexandria’s archive was said to contain half a million papyrus scrolls — the largest collection of manuscripts in the ancient world — including works by Plato, Aristotle, Homer and Herodotus. By the fifth century A.D., however, the majority of its collections had been stolen or destroyed, and the library fell into disrepair.
~ Adrienne Bernhard, from Shining a Light on the Digital Dark Age
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Always I’m thinking: Do I really want to add this thing to my pile? There’s a timeframe of only a few decades where any thing, or notation, has the chance to jog my memory. Sometimes I think of taking a photo… and then I think, why? Why this image right here? Maybe it would be better (I continue thinking) to just relax and enjoy the moment. Even the Library at Alexandria’s enormous collection was surely only a minuscule fraction of what humanity had created to that point. Why take a photo? Why make a notation? Why build a web site? :)
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People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed. Never throw out anyone.
~ Audrey Hepburn
slip:4a1223.
(Part 5 of 46 in series, Level 52 countdown)
Simple walk for active recovery. Tomorrow I’m heading to a nearby park to try running a set distance at faster pace.
There is the eternal war between those who are in the world for what they can get out of it and those who are in the world to make it a better place for everybody to live in.
~ George Bernard Shaw
slip:4a1222.
(Part 4 of 46 in series, Level 52 countdown)
Basic trail loop “run” this morning. Tomorrow is going to be a long walk as a bit of recovery.
In the tradition of the literary and philosophical movements, each Open + Curious Salon is an opportunity to gather in real-time. It is a space where the exchange of ideas flourishes, where minds come together in spirited discussion, and where conversation skills are honed and practiced. Within the walls of the salon, the spirit of intellectual curiosity reigns supreme.
Details at https://openandcurious.org/
What if I don’t know how to take something apart? One option is to apply excessive force and break the thing open. That works, but obviously sacrifices the thing; this is particularly useless if I wanted to take something apart because I need to fix it, or understand it. Generally, the smash method always works, but is almost never useful.
Yet thought also goes wrong somehow, and produces destruction. This arises from a certain way of thinking, i.e., fragmentation. This is to break things up into bits, as if they were independent. It’s not merely making divisions, but it is breaking things up which are not really spearate. It’s like taking a watch and smashing it into fragments, rather than taking it apart and finding its parts. The parts are parts of a whole, but the fragments are just arbitrarily broken off from each other. Things which really fit, and belong together, are treated as if they do not. That’s one of the features of thought that’s going wrong.
~ David Bohm from, On Dialogue p56
I’m perpetually on a journey of self-awareness. I’m quite often applying my mind to understand things. This idea from Bohm about fragmentation, and in particular fragmentation being bad because it misses out on the relationships and inherent properties of the natural parts (in the sense of disassembled-watch parts versus smashed-watch bits). This idea of fragmentation is a warning against my running with the first way I manage to understand something; just because I’ve found one way to understand (smash) something into understandable pieces, doesn’t mean that’s the best way.
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Useless to possess an obedient mind unless one profits to the furthest possible degree by its obedience. A prolonged primary course of study is indicated. Now as to what this course of study should be there cannot be any question; there never has been any question. All the sensible people of all ages are agreed upon it. And it is not literature, nor is it any other art, nor is it history, nor is it any science. It is the study of one’s self. man, know thyself.
~ Arnold Bennett
slip:4a1221.
(Part 3 of 46 in series, Level 52 countdown)
Simple enough, and nice to do something strength oriented. Tomorrow will be another run around my familiar orange-trail loop.
[P]owerful questions are the ones that cause you to become an actor as soon as you answer them or even reflect on them. You no longer have the luxury of being a spectator of whatever it is you are concerned about. Regardless of how you answer these questions, you are guilty Guilty of being an actor and participant in this world. Not a pleasant thought, but the moment we accept the idea that we have created the world, we have the power to change it.
~ Peter Block
slip:4a1220.
(Part 2 of 46 in series, Level 52 countdown)
This is a local trail that I frequent. It’s a loop with ~60m of total elevation. Super easy, but it crushes me every time.
Tomorrow: A 15-minute drill (pick number, do that every minute, last minute do double) of pushups and squats.
I expend a lot of time and energy thinking about technology. I’m often trying to share some idea with others, or trying to make a change in the world. But year by year I’m shifting to spending more of that time and energy simply deciding what technology I want to adopt. Mastodon and the corresponding ActivityPub technology which creates the Fediverse is a great example. Should I join in on that new technology and create a presence there?
Grasping the value of new technology requires imagination. But unless you have skin in the game that doesn’t seem worth the effort because technology is supposed to make things easier and simpler, not wrack your brain.
~ Morgan Housel, from Why New Technology Is A Hard Sell
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Housel’s covers that, and three other intriguing points about why new technology is a hard sell. I’m left wondering could I use the points raised in the article to help me make decisions about technology? If I flip the article’s thinking over (from an others-directed “why doesn’t technology get adopted” direction to a self-directed “why I might not adopt technology” direction) then I can ask myself corresponding questions. For example, for the quoted point above, I can ask: Am I engaging my imagination at all when considering some piece of technology? (Aside: I decided, yes, and you can search for @craig@constantine.name wherever you are in the Fediverse.)
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True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
~ William Penn
slip:4a1219.
(Part 1 of 46 in series, Level 52 countdown)
The idea is to post here every day to report that I did what I was supposed to do. I’ll include what I plan to do for the next day’s activity. That forces me to plan ahead a bit. That’s the magic sauce because when I fail to plan, I fail.
This is not going to be a 45-day sprint of insane challenges. The idea is to be disciplined. Each day, plan something that is appropriate for me to do.
This post also presents a gallery of the ALL images in this series of posts. The gallery is dynamic so it will automatically grow as I add more posts to this series.
Reading time: About 8 minutes, 1700 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/42
I love a scenic overlook, but give me a few minutes and I’ll be sitting with my eyes closed listening to the scenic overlook. I once dove in the ocean at the edge of the continental shelf—it’s a long story—but the sense of lack of place when you gaze into the abyss is unsettling. Sitting and listening to a vast landscape is the closest I’ve ever come to that. (And without feeling like complete panic is right behind the veneer of my thoughts.)
The World Soundscape Project worked from the basis that any given soundscape (or sonic environment) is a representation of how that environment is perceived by listeners within it. Soundscapes are themselves influenced by human behaviours. As a combination of all sound within a particular location, soundscapes may therefore comprise natural sounds as well as those from social and technological sources. As these sounds change, so does the ecology of the soundscape.
~ Neil Clarke from, Acoustic ecology and the World Soundscape Project – earth.fm
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Soundscapes are amazing. I’ve always been fascinated by sound, and how our aural sense is a very old sense; it is connected to a much older part of our brain. Sound is very important to our sense of being. We hear in the womb, and at twilight our hearing recedes last to gracefully ring down the final curtain.
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