Slips

Published December 30, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 30  ·  

I was leisurely tinkering my way through my morning, and my mind kicked out a few ideas. It always does that. Yes, I talk about my mind in the third person, because sometimes I think I have a Tulpa.

The first idea that popped up was about sending a message to someone to wish them a Happy New Year. At the time, I had not yet awakened the sleeping dragon—my computer. (I could say: My personal Eye of Sauron was still closed.) Things change for me once I awaken the dragon each day. But I have this idea to send a message, and it’s important, but I don’t dare awaken the dragon to ask if I can just send this one quick message. I’ll look up again and it’ll be 4 in the afternoon. Instead, I grabbed one of my precious slips and jotted a note.

Holding the slip I realized this was brilliant. I recently bought a brick of 1,000 3×5 cards because the slipbox is voracious. I have plenty of these little slips. So why hadn’t I done this for the past year that I’ve been keeping a slipbox? Why did it happen for the first time today? It happened because I used to see the slips as precious; They were nice, heavy, beautiful 3×5 cards that sit close at hand and are supposedly waiting to become immortal slips in the slipbox. Just the other day, I used the last one of my original stash, and I broke open that new brick… and realized I’d bought cheap-ass crappy Amazon knock-off 3×5 cards. (I had only spent $13 for 1,000 so I wasn’t too upset.) When that idea to send a message popped into my brain, I thought: “well, I have 1,000 crappy slips to use up . . .” and this little queue of individual ideas quickly appeared on my desk.

No, the coffee mug does not currently contain rum.

The lesson I re-learned this morning is that even a slight change of context can have an outsized affect on something. (In this case, my “precious” slips [you’re hearing Gollum aren’t you?] had become “crappy” slips.)

Setting aside what you think of my specific anecdote here, where might you make a small change and discover some surprising benefit?

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Inner knowledge

Published December 29, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 29  ·  

Make yourself proud. I think we spend too much of our time trying to please everyone. And we forget that it’s all already within. Your instinct, your inner child, your soul, all of those know what’s good for you and the world. The public opinion of your friends and strangers online, not so much.

~ Jérôme Jarre

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Connection

Published December 28, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 28  ·  

After a long time, I realized that people weren’t sitting out there waiting to cruelly judge me. They also weren’t sitting out there waiting to hear me expound on my incredible expertise. What they wanted more than anything else was a sense of connection, and I could provide that by being genuine and present. I realized that what I also wanted was connection, and I didn’t need to be a perfect speaker for that to happen.

~ Sharon Salzberg

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Get off my star map

Published December 28, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 28

The plaza’s terrazzo floor is actually a celestial map that marks the time of the dam’s creation based on the 25,772-year axial precession of the earth.

~ Alexander Rose from, The 26,000-Year Astronomical Monument Hidden in Plain Sight

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These weren’t on my mind when we planned our visit, but it was a rare moment of delightful recognition when I spotted them. So often I find interesting places, and then never get there.

And sometimes I go places specifically after finding them on the Internet.

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Positive impact

Published December 27, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 27  ·  

In stressful moments, I try to take distance from the situation, take time to reflect. Whatever the problem, I typically ask myself, “Am I able to make a difference right now?” If I don’t see a clear way to make a positive impact, I reflect further. I think that patience in problem-solving can often be underrated.

~ Eric Ripert

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Be polite

Published December 27, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 27  ·  

Be polite, on time, and work really fucking hard until you are talented enough to be blunt, a little late, and take vacations and even then … be polite.

~ Ashton Kutcher

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How does one take notes…

Published December 27, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 27  ·  

…when the goal isn’t to end up with a pile of notes?

There are many scenarios where, over time, I do want to end up with a collection of notes. This is straight forward; start taking notes, and keep them somewhere. Bonus points if you review them, or use them as reference, or do anything with them.

But what if I have a scenario where I want to “do a better job” but I don’t care at all about the notes themselves. Suppose you have a regularly scheduled recurring meeting, but you don’t need a historical collection of notes. In fact, suppose you don’t actually need notes, but you think: It would be nice to know what we did last time, so we can follow-up next time.

And so I’m thinking this would be easy. I’ll just have a pile of notes (physical, digital, whatever) and I’ll go through them and … wait, what, actually? Recopy them? gag, that’s tedious. How many do I keep? How long do I keep the old ones? Here’s what I came up with…

I’m working in a single digital document. I have a heading, “Ongoing,” at the top that has the big things we currently have on our radar. The list has some dates with notes; “Oct 2020 — started that big project” and similar things.

Next I have a heading, “Jan 5, 2022” with the date of our next scheduled meeting. When that meeting arrives, I start by doing something very weird: I add “9876543210” on the line below the heading. Then I take simple bullet-point notes under that heading. “We discussed the foo bazzle widget needs defranishizing,” and similar items. Before our meeting ends, I add a heading for the date of the NEXT meeting, ABOVE this meeting’s heading. This pushes the heading and notes down the page a bit.

Then I continue reading. The heading just below this meeting’s, is the date of our last meeting. Just below the heading is “9876543210”, which I put there when we had that meeting. I delete the “9” from the front. I read my notes from the meeting. I may even edit them. Sometimes things that were obvious then, don’t seem so obvious a week later.

Then I continue reading. The next heading is the one from two meetings ago. Just below it is “876543210” — think about that, if it’s not obvious that last week, I read this part and already removed the “9”. So this week, I remove the “8.” Read the notes.

I work my way down each of the historical dates. Snipping a lead number, off the front of the line after each heading. 7. 6. 5. etc.

At the very end of the document, I find a heading that is from 11 meetings ago. Below the heading is “0” — because I’ve looked at these notes 9, 8, 7, 6, etc deleting a digit each time. These notes are now quite old. In fact, they should be irrelevant after 11 meetings. If they are not, I figure out what I have to add to “Ongoing” (the very topmost heading)… or perhaps I put a note under the coming meetings heading (just below “Ongoing”.)

It sounds wonky, but it’s magic. One digital document, you can skim the entire thing right in any of the meetings. You can search in the document. I can be sure I’m not forgetting things, but I can be sure I’m not making a huge collection of crap I’m never going to look at again.

Care to guess where that delete-a-digit each time comes from? It’s an idea from book printing. When they used to set type (physical lead type in trays) they would put “1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10” (or other orderings of the numbers) in the cover plate. Then print the book. What printing? This one is “1” Next printing? …they’d just chip off the “1” and print “2 3 4 5…” in the book… second printing. They still print those weird sequences of digits in digitally printed books. I believe this one is a second edition, 3rd printing…

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Choose wisely

Published December 26, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 26

For this coming year I’ve been trying on a number of phrases. Selecting a yearly touch-phrase is a fairly new habit. The oldest one I’m aware of is from 2012, but I’ve not had one every year since 2012. Each chosen phrase has been in English, with last year’s being the sole exception. For 2022, I’m going to stick with English; The point of these phrases is to remind me of… something. I’m generally too clever by half, so keeping it simple is invariably the right choice for me.

In the recent weeks I’ve been letting my mind wander around, while keeping the thought that I’d like to find a good phrase for 2022. This is quite intentionally a way to shift my mental context, to adjust what I find salient. One pays attention to what one finds salient. In my recent wanderings, I found myself returned to a post about focus.

“Choose wisely,” indeed.

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Failure

Published December 25, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 25  ·  

Turns out they were the best decisions of my life. Because each one of those difficult decisions that looked like failures (at first) took me a bit closer to my real self. Each of them empowered the real me. Each of them woke me up from the illusion. At this point, I can see a clear pattern of rejection every time I try to get closer to my real self, so the feeling of “looking like a failure” has become more of fuel than a burden.

~ Jérôme Jarre

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Empathy and compassion

Published December 25, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 25

With emotional empathy, you actually experience a weaker degree of what somebody else feels. Researchers in recent years have been able to show that empathic responses of pain occur in the same area of the brain where real pain is experienced.

~ Shane Parrish from, Making Compassionate Decisions

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It seems obvious to me that being empathic is helpful since it suggests where to direct one’s compassion. However, is it necessary to be empathic in order to be compassionate?

Without compassion is empathy beneficial? Without compassion might empathy actually be harmful?

Why is my mission creating better conversations to spread understanding and compassion?

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Risky

Published December 24, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 24  ·  

My main motivation as an artist has always been to create something different. I think the most that any of us can achieve is to find a way to say something new. But this type of thinking is rarely rewarded when it’s time to publish. Newness is seen as a liability. Publishers want something that has been proven to work. This means that the best art will always be the riskiest.

~ Brandon Stanton

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Before the fall

Published December 24, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 24  ·  

Pride is generally an emotion encountered only when looking backward. But we can also experience it when looking forward to each day, each month, each year, each decade, and even to the end of our life when imagining what we were able to accomplish in that time.

~ Chris Bailey from, What do you want to be proud of?

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I’m also familiar with, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” I’m not certain the meaning of haughty, although I’d bet that one who exhibits indignation, (anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment,) would qualify as “haughty.”

And I sometimes joke that “indignation” is my other superpower.

All of which, I suppose, it a good thing. There are situations where indignation is righteous. But I’m well aware that my indignation—when it flares—is not. So maybe this exercise of looking forward could be a way to refine my pride? If I imaginatively project forward I can consider something I’d be proud of. Then, if I imagine not succeeding at that something, the pride disappears… and does indignation appear?

Does that seem right? …if success or failure in something, which is never actually in my control—reminder: the dichotomy of control—determines whether I experience pride or indignation, is that something actually one worth pursuing?

Could I find instead something about which I’d feel pride regardless of success or failure?

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Do something

Published December 23, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 23  ·  

Posting about it isn’t doing anything. It’s just like talk … it’s cheap! Too many people think they are supporting a cause, and the only thing they are doing is posting about it on social media. Doing something is doing something, everything else is just talk.

~ Ashton Kutcher

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Quantitative versus qualitative

Published December 23, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 23  ·  

That is how we are still conditioned socially as adults: Do, achieve, produce results, instead of be, feel, enjoy the process. Quantitative over qualitative. We are obsessed by performance and “tangible” results. But that is one of the great teachings of Parkour and ADD: That the path is just as enjoyable as the destination; That sometimes it is even more important, and that oftentimes it is the destination.

~ Vincent Thibault

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Which hour to value

Published December 23, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 23

However, the value of saving the marginal hour today is to increase the total number of one’s working hours by one, resulting in a new hour at the end of one’s career, not a new hour at their current skill level.

~ Mark Xu from, Your Time Might Be More Valuable Than You Think

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I’ve made the point that it’s endlessly useful to put an explicit value on my time. I believe my logic and reasons still hold. But this idea, about needing to consider the value of the additional hour towards the end… well that, I’d never thought about. Which is daft of me, because I do often think about the marginal cost of things, and this idea is simply pointing out the marginal value gained by saving something now.

Hopefully, my occasionally marking, “duh,” on my map as a reminder to myself, helps you in some way.

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Refuge

Published December 22, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 22  ·  

Keep this refuge in mind: The back roads of you self. Above all, no strain and no stress. Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal. And among the things you turn to, these two: Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist.

~ Marcus Aurelius

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What to focus upon

Published December 22, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 22

The practice is simply this: pause to consider what you’d like to focus on.

~ Leo Babauta from, Becoming Nimble at Dealing with Ever-Changing Plans

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I’m great at focusing, but am weaker at intentionally choosing what I’m focusing on. I’ve no idea when I realized I was weaker at the latter point. While it’s clear I have a lot of habits and behaviors which work well to help me deal with the weakness, I cannot recall if those developed simply by trial and error.

One habit which works well to avoid disaster is dump it out of my brain into an outline. An emergency spillway prevents complete failure of a dam, but if water ever goes over the emergency spillway, something is terribly wrong. That’s me and brain-dump outlining. I flip my 40-minute sand timer and start a fresh outline, saving it to my computer desktop. (Aside: There is never anything on my computer desktop.) As I’m outlining, panic often nips at my heels. Eventually, I get most everything down. I find long strings of knock-down-doable domino tasks. And I usually find at least one Big Question buried in there.

And then I close the document. It’s cathartic. It’s as if, having written it down, it’s in some sense done.

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Passion

Published December 21, 2021  ·  All posts on Dec 21  ·  

Don’t try to find your passion. Instead master some skill, interest, or knowledge that others find valuable. It almost doesn’t matter what it is at the start. You don’t have to love it, you just have to be the best at it. Once you master it, you’ll be rewarded with new opportunities that will allow you to move away from tasks you dislike and toward those that you enjoy. If you continue to optimize your mastery, you’ll eventually arrive at your passion.

~ Kevin Kelly

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