Scree – Page 108 – Craig Constantine

Nonequilibrium? →

Published June 14, 2022 · All posts on Jun 14 · Society

I don’t know if you like parties. I don’t know if you’re organized or punctual. But I bet you don’t like rotting smells or long swims in freezing water. That is to say: People are different, but only in certain ways. What’s the difference?
~ “Dynomight” from, Are some personalities just better?

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This article is about personality types, and it goes down the rabbit hole, (in a good way.) We’ve all learned about the theory of evolution, and there are countless examples where it’s used to explain—or at least to try to imagine—how some specific feature of ourselves came to be so.

Way down in that article he mentions in passing that we—us, the people—might not currently be in equilibrium with the current selection pressures. This was a startling thought for me. Evolution can be fast—a gene mutation leading to a significant change in one generation—but I’ve always had the impression that it is most often slow and steady. I’ve always imagined a big-ship with a small-rudder metaphor. And I’ve always had the impression that who we are genetically, (the big ship) has its rudder set for straight-ahead. I’ve imagined that at some point in our distant past, selection pressures made us who we are as a species, and that was then. This is now, when we’ve been on a stable, no-changes evolutionary course for all of recorded history.

What if, let’s say around the time of the invention of the transistor and computers, the social pressures changed drastically. That is to say: Suppose that introduced a major change in the rudder’s position? Suppose we, the big ship with the big pile of DNA-encoded information, are right in the middle of a slow course change. What if right now, important and noticeable features of our biology and psychology are being strongly differentially selected?

Space with Lorraine Margherita →

Published June 13, 2022 · All posts on Jun 13

How can curiosity and conversation techniques enhance personal and professional dynamics?

This conversation explores how curiosity fuels both learning and the sharing of insights in professional settings.

My brother used to tell me, ‘They asked you, just say you don’t know,’ and I was like: What? No! I’m going to look for the Answer.
~ Lorraine Margherita (3:11)

The discussion begins with reflections on curiosity and its role in personal and professional growth. Lorraine shares her passion for learning and how this trait influences their consulting and podcasting work. The conversation goes into how decision-making frameworks like flat or teal organizational models can benefit from fostering a culture of curiosity.

Attention shifts to techniques for facilitating meaningful interactions, with a focus on balancing agenda-driven sessions and the organic needs of participants. Tools like the talking stick and the deliberate use of silence are explored as methods to enhance communication and collaboration. Lorraine and Craig also examine the challenges of creating space for authentic dialogue while maintaining productive boundaries.

(more…)

By which handle →

Published June 13, 2022 · All posts on Jun 13

It’s easy to think negative thoughts and to get stuck into a pattern with them. But forcing myself to take the time not only to think about something good, but write that thought down longhand was a kind of rewiring of my own opinions. It became easier to see that while there certainly was plenty to be upset about, there was also plenty to be thankful for. Epictetus said that every situation has two handles; which was I going to decide to hold onto? The anger, or the appreciation?
~ Ryan Holiday from, One Day Of Thanks Is Not Enough: Gratitude is a Daily Practice – RyanHoliday.net

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The idea that there are two handles to every impression is a blazing reminder that impressions are neither inherently good nor bad. It is our own reasoned choice which adds that evaluation.

People make the difference →

Published June 11, 2022 · All posts on Jun 11 · Society

The world economy doesn’t behave the way most people would expect. Standard modeling approaches miss the point that economies require adequate supplies of energy products of the right kinds, provided at the right times of day and year, if they are to keep from collapsing.
~ Gail Tverberg from, Is it possible that the world is approaching end times? | Our Finite World

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Since we finished remodeling our home, this is the time of year when I pay a local company to dump two cords of split firewood in my lawn, (a pile about the size of a small car.) On my patio this morning, as the sun climbs above the old, worn-down mountain behind our neighborhood, the world smells like fresh, black coffee and green firewood.

I remain very optimistic about our world, and our economy—local, national and global. Because: People. Heating primarily with wood only works well for us for a few reasons: The housing density is low enough that multiple wood stoves is sane in a neighborhood. But the housing density is also just high enough that the stores are very close by. These trees grew relatively close, were sawn and split by a local company, and traveled not too far to get to my yard. Troy—the firewood guy—and I will both work very hard though, in the entire process of my heating with wood. Meanwhile, street gas (which isn’t even available on my block), propane (which I use to cook with), and electricity (which is my secondary heat source via heat pump and baseboards) are rising steeply in price.

Lumber prices are also crazy-high. (What was once a $2 2×4 is now nearly $10.) And Troy has resumed sawing lumber, something his father used to do with their equipment decades ago. And he’s taken on another person part-time. Yes, he asked me for more money to cover the fuel-cost of delivery, but the firewood is still less than the other fuel (gas, electric) options available to me for next heating season. My point here is that if everyone keeps making manageable decisions sooner rather than later, things will work out. The difficulty that I see for most people is being honest about what things they have to eliminate, in order to be able to keep their personal universes going.

Or soon every day will have gone by →

Published June 10, 2022 · All posts on Jun 10

… and soon the day has gone by and we wonder what we did with the day.
~ Leo Babauta from, Interstitial Ritual: Finding Focus & Mindfulness in Your Day – Zen Habits Website

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I marked this for “read later” back in December 2021, and am just getting around to reading it. I know that many—most? all?—of the amazing coincidences I find in my life arise from my innate, monkey-brain drive to see patterns and causation where none actually exists. I don’t care. It’s a nice coincidence that I’ve just gotten around to reading this, while in the past couple of weeks I’ve been simplifying and focusing on a small number of things that I want to be working on.

73 years in 5,000 words →

Published June 9, 2022 · All posts on Jun 9 · Society

If you fell asleep in 1945 and woke up in 2018 you would not recognize the world around you. The amount of growth that took place during that period is virtually unprecedented. […] And if you tried to think of a reasonable narrative of how it all happened, my guess is you’d be totally wrong. Because it isn’t intuitive, and it wasn’t foreseeable 73 years ago.
~ Morgan Housel, from How This All Happened

The story this tells is one I’d never seen woven together this clearly. Over many years I’d heard each of the pieces which are included, and this lays out a coherent story that looks like a Chutes and Ladders playing board. (To my astonishment, I just learned that the beloved children’s board game I’ve mentioned is a dumbed-down version of a very old game called Snakes and Ladders.) If history is any teacher—and it is, because history rhymes—I will certainly be unable to imagine the actual story of the coming years writ large. That’s not a bad thing! Be sure you at least scroll to the bottom of that article as the author is optimistic. As am I.

In a completely different vein, as I was adding tags to this post I made an interesting discovery. I always create a tag for the person who wrote whatever-it-is that I’m referencing. I was surprised to find out that I already have a tag for Housel despite my not recognizing the name. Click the tag below, as it turns out there’s another gem from 2018.

Eleven ways to really screw yourself up →

Published June 8, 2022 · All posts on Jun 8 · Books

Most things in life aren’t black and white. Overly dualistic thinking isn’t true to reality. Life is full of nuance. A goal can be worth pursuing even if it doesn’t garner the highest success; there are worthwhile things in both flawed people and flawed philosophies.
~ Brett McKay from, The 11 Cognitive Distortions That Are Making You a Miserable SOB

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I’m not even sure how to classify this article for you. It’s short enough that you can just go glance at it. You’ll either shrug it off as simplistic (or possibly even offensive), or you’ll find the list of common cognitive mistakes useful. My pull-quote is indicative of the mistake of “splitting” thinking explained, not of the article overall. This mistake was—is still?—my biggest problem.

On the topics of depression and cognitive mistakes, from personal experience I recommend as useful Stoicism in general, and the more modern, (than the one McKay is referencing in the article above,) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple. To be fair, David Burns, the author of the book McKay is summarizing, was instrumental in bringing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy into the mainstream.

Doing discourse better →

Published June 7, 2022 · All posts on Jun 7 · Conversation

Do conversations have known best practices? How much do they improve the odds of landing on the truth?
~ “Dynomight” from, Talking about sugar

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I hate this terrific article. It’s completely stuffed with great ideas and great questions… and exactly zero answers. It starts talking about the particular type of conversation where two people acting benevolently are trying to find the truth about something under discussion. (Here I snicker at all of humanity, and myself, because we’ve been having conversations for like a gazillion years and we don’t yet know how to do it well.) It then narrows down to discussing just online conversations. Said narrowing feels like a great idea because there are a lot of online conversations and it feels like something we should be able to be good at. (Again here, snickering is warranted.) Anyway, at least some people are trying. Maybe, just maybe this is the epoch we get it sorted out?

Surface area of concern →

Published June 6, 2022 · All posts on Jun 6

Our “surface area of concern”—the number of events we pay attention to on a regular basis—has expanded alongside technology. This is not an inherently negative thing, but becomes one when it adds chronic stress, leads us to burnout, and affects our mental health.
~ Chris Bailey from, Your surface area of concern

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This is a precise and powerful way to describe something which lies at the root of many other phrases: Information overload, multi-tasking (as a way to fail), and spreading our attention too thin (as another way to fail), are just three examples. I’ve long since decided that I do not need to have an opinion on most things, and that frees me from feeling I need to notice as many things as possible.

For many years—but explicitly I have 3 years of journal entries where this is glaring—I’ve lamented wanting to spend more time on some specific things. And yet my days slip past doing other things. I’m not talking about things which get planned—a day at the beach, dinner at someone’s house, or weekend work in the yard. No, I’m talking about that, “where the hell did today go?” stuff. If you like visuals: The glass jar that I filled slowly all day with the sand of small things, only to realize at day’s end that there’s no way to put these larger rocks in. Ever. Because every tomorrow is like today. Dammit.

About a week ago I decided—memento mori, ya’ know—it’s time to flip that shit over. For several years now, I’ve been starting with pretty consistent morning routine. After that, I have four things that I want to do, and I’ve been doing those next. Sometimes that means I don’t touch anything else—not my phone, not my email, not other people, not bills, not even voicemail from roofers—until 4 in the afternoon. It sounds crazy, I know. Guess what? Every day I look at those four things and go: Shazam! Progress! …and it turns out that I then go on to pour in a ton of sand too—return that call [from yesterday], mow the lawn, run an errand, interact with people, etc..