Priorities →

Published August 7, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 7  ·  

Having priorities isn’t enough for me to end up sane. I’ve overcome the naive urge to line up everything into a single-file queue; That’s not how life actually works. Leaning into parallel-ism is the way. Social engagements bubble up on their own, and I lean into those whenever I can. Maintenance and administrivia need to be regimented and so I’ve process-ified everything so the important but not-urgent things get attended to. One must have the mental space—the ability to sit with one’s thoughts—to really think about life.

At the individual level, it is not enough to work on good ideas. You must only work on the best ideas. It is not enough to ask “is this good” you must also ask “is there something better?” As painful as ruthless prioritization is, it is not as painful as failing to do it.

~ Andrew Bosworth from, Half Staffed is Unstaffed

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Unfortunately, prioritization stands upon the idea that “best” or “better” have meaning. I have no interest in being particularly disciplined at anything. (Setting aside various comments people make about how much I get done.) I have no interest in doing what’s “best”. I have a moral compass I’m comfortable with, and I enjoy creating things (like great conversations).

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Your real job →

Published August 7, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 7  ·  

I tell my students, when you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.

~ Toni Morrison

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32 — Walking →

Published August 6, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 6

This entry is part 15 of 46 in the series Level 52 countdown

Active recovery day. Oof, pebble wrestling always pays off. Tomorrow: A loop of our usual trail run.

August 06, 2023 — #44 →

Published August 6, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 6  ·  

Reading time: About 5 minutes, 1100 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/44

Graphic →

Published August 6, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 6  ·  , , ,

I’ve been stumbling more over graphic depictions and graphic novels. There’s this fun book Out on the Wire by Jessica Abel which describes the storytelling secrets of the new masters of radio. I’ve read another graphic novel about finance and the visual element really brings the stories to life. (See Craig learn, sorry.) In hindsight, I don’t understand at all why this would have surprised me. I spent gobs of time reading comics like Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County in book form and they’re graphic novels if you read the entire arc in one go.

Our thoughts are a composite process. We really do think with our entire bodies.

~ Alex Pavlotski from, Habit Change and the Embodied Mind | alexpavlotski

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Pavlotski is another example. I had a wonderful conversation, Ethnography, leadership, and trajectory, with him for the Movers Mindset podcast. He is probably best-known for his work visualizing Parkour, but there’s much more to his work than just the drawing portion. This is not just a guy who does parkour, who also happens to draw kewl cartoons.

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Perspective →

Published August 6, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 6  ·  , ,

Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

~ Miyamoto Musashi

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33 — Bouldering →

Published August 5, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 5

This entry is part 14 of 46 in the series Level 52 countdown

Fun little session with just enough pebble wrestling to get a good workout. Tomorrow’s activity will be walking.

Truth →

Published August 5, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 5  ·  , ,

The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.

~ George Orwell

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34 — Jump-rope and rail balance →

Published August 4, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 4

This entry is part 13 of 46 in the series Level 52 countdown

Circuits of jump-rope and rail balance, two wonderfully antagonistic activities; get all wound up jumping, then try to be calm and balance. Repeat. Tomorrow: We’re heading up to the local rocks to do a little bouldering.

You had me at trees →

Published August 4, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 4  ·  

Trees often have my attention. I find myself thinking about the spot where a tree is standing. Whether its seed fell there, or someone planted it, that spot is it. The tree is simply going to stand there as the sun whips across the sky thousands of times. I imagine the tree turning its leaves quickly (in tree time) to catch what light it can during each flash overhead.

Intrigued by this unheard of species, Wang set out to see it for himself and to collect specimens, which he shared with colleagues. One of them was Hsen Hsu Hu. A diligent paleobotanist, he had read of Miki’s fossil discovery five years earlier. As soon as he saw the peculiar needle pattern, Hu recognized the “water fir” as a Metasequoia.

~ Maria Popova from, The Remarkable Story of the Dawn Redwood: How a Living Fossil Brought Humanity Together in the Middle of a World War – The Marginalian

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There’s a lot of interesting leaps in the story Popova shares. Across a war, across two cultures, but the vast time this tree has crossed is insane. We have fossils of this tree… and we still have the live tree. My mind boggles.

But mostly, Popova had my attention at trees.

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