Moving the goal posts →

Published June 21, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 21  ·  

Do you think it is easy writing all these thoughts for this blog/email? It’s a strange experience for me. The writing is really easy—I’m just tapping some little keys and moving a few ones-and-zeros—and my brain has never not been full of thoughts and questions. The writing is really hard—for over a decade I’ve been crafting digital output in various forms for this site, using various systems and routines but it’s an endless task.

So what [is it]? What determines success? Hard work or good fortune? Effort or randomness? I think we all understand both factors play a role, but I’d like to give you a better answer than “It depends.”

~ James Clear from, Absolute Success is Luck. Relative Success is Hard Work.

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The odd thing is that whether I think the writing and all the web site work is hard or easy depends on what I think I am trying to accomplish. To be widely read? …to generate income? …to help others? …to write a certain amount, or for “the most years”? —yikes, this is extremely difficult and arduous work. If my goal is a bunch of stuff over which I have no control, ouch.

On the other hand, when I manage to write because I enjoy fiddling with technology, because I’m curious and love to see/hear others be curious, because thinking and writing and thinking more lead me to clarity and insight… well suddenly it seems so easy.

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The choice →

Published June 21, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 21  ·  , ,

It’s a choice. The choice between being the linchpin (the one people can’t live without) and the cog (who does what she’s told). The choice between doing art (and forging your own path, on your own terms, and owning what happens) and merely doing your job (which pushes all the power and all the responsibility to someone else).

The good news is that it’s your choice, no one else’s.

~ Seth Godin

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Lazy summer afternoons →

Published June 20, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 20  ·  , ,

If I want to recall peace, serenity, pleasure, I think of myself on those lazy summer afternoons, with my chair tipped back against the wall, the book on my lap, and the pages softly turning. There may have been, at certain times in my life, higher pitches of ecstasy, vast moments of relief and triumph, but for quiet, peaceful happiness, there has never been anything to compare with it.

~ Isaac Asimov

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Fabulous hair →

Published June 19, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 19

Is this a bat? …a werewolf? I’m not sure, but its hair is fabulous!

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Rambling →

Published June 19, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 19  ·  

I’ve too-recently discovered the value of perambulation. Although, I can walk great distances when I’m going somewhere specific, I find a simple stroll is so much better for my mental flossing.

I once walked the distance covered by the Hobbits, from the Shire to Mt. Doom in Mordor. It was an engaging challenge (and the Hobbits did it much more quickly that I managed—which gave me new found respect for those little people) but it eventually became just a thing I was ticking off. Each time I walked one of a very small few routes that I’d measured, I simply added to the tally. Somehow, having a destination made the walks (those whereupon it occurred to me that I was getting closer to Mordor) not feel like perambulation.

That “life affirming” element lives in the rigor of the act. The days are rigorous if nothing else.

~ Craig Mod from, The Performance Art of the Walk — Ridgeline issue 150

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Maybe my problem is simply my work ethic. I have a crushing work ethic and it’s taken me a great deal of effort to let go of feeling guilty when I’m not working. If I’m on a journey—a walk or a project—if there’s a destination, then my work ethic rears its ugly head and tries to suck the perambulation out of it.

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Apparently worthless →

Published June 19, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 19  ·  

Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.

~ Thomas Merton

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June 18, 2023 — #37 →

Published June 18, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 18  ·  

Reading time: About 5 minutes, 1100 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/37

There was a script? →

Published June 18, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 18  ·  

I’m pretty sure there was no script. If there was a script, I definitely never saw it. In the very early days, there was for my part a lot of, “why?” Why, why, why, but seriously, why? There was a prolonged period of, “what if…” and a long list of things that got tried. (We jumped ATVs over people. Just sayin’.) Then there was a too-long period where I realized that when I multiplied my power of agency by my charisma I could achieve much mischief; never quite Evil per se, but rather than get myself into trouble I realized it was fun to get others to get us all into trouble. (I was aiming for “get themselves into trouble” but I usually missed that mark.)

Gaining agency is gaining the capacity to do something differently from, or in addition to, the events that simply happen to you. Most famous people go off-script early, usually in more than one way.

~ Simon Sarris from, The Most Precious Resource is Agency – by Simon Sarris

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You know that stupid question, “if you could get a message to your younger self, would you and what would you say?” I think I finally—51.5 years on!—have a message which I definitely would send back to myself: “Make more decisions; don’t often go with the first idea you have.” Whether it was mental or physical or who-knows-what, I was too often fast out of the blocks at the sound of the starter’s pistol. But too rarely did I consider if I even wanted to be in the race. I was crawling, and one day I stood up and ran (according to my mom, and apparently saying “why? why? why? why?”) so I’m confident I had the agency thing sorted. But what was I seeking? To where was I running? And really, maybe just right here in this moment is sort of nice, no?

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Seek the truth →

Published June 18, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 18  ·  ,

Seek the truth: It always shows us what we should do, what we should not do, and what we should stop doing.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Just time →

Published June 17, 2023  ·  All posts on Jun 17  ·  ,

[I]t has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time you can obtain money—usually. But though you have the wealth of a cloak-room attendant at the Carlton Hotel, you cannot buy yourself a minute more time than I have, or the cat by the fire has.

~ Arnold Bennett

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