The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.
~ Neil Gaiman
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The small choices we make on a daily basis either work for us or against us. One choice puts time on your side. The other ensures it’s working against you. Time amplifies what you feed it.
~ Shane Parrish from, The Small Steps of Giant Leaps
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I don’t truly know if I’m unique. For me, the only way I can manage to feel as if I’ve enough time in my day is if I’m ruthless with myself about not giving my time away. I’ve spent so many decades feeling harried and busy… only to realize, duh, I did that to myself. I’ve spent so many dark days simply wanting some peace… only to realize, duh, all this craziness, I chose that. Somehow, I managed to slowly let this same idea Parrish mentions seep into my bones. Now I feel like I’m able to relax and simply experience being, through most of my days. Sometimes, I even take naps. My 25-year-old self would be horrified.
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Stop searching for magic tricks. Roll up your sleeves and get to work. The fool will find this idea depressing. The wise person will find this liberating. So it goes.
~ Hugh Macleod
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Ultimately, the goal is not to stop using the internet, or even minimize its use, but to put it back into a box in the basement where it belongs. The first step is to discover what I’m up against. If I find a way to make the internet small again, I’ll write a book about it so others can do it too.
~ David Cain from, How to Make the Internet Small Again
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I’ve been beating this drum for years, (eg, here’s a search for “use you”.) I don’t want to put the Internet literally into a box and then stuff it in the basement. (Even setting aside that I don’t have a basement.) The Internet is nothing more than a tool. The Internet, but also TV, food, politics, religion, music, your car(s?), books, or even hoarding [sometimes misspelled “collecting”] things… one can have a dysfunctional relationship with anything. (Truth in blogging: My addiction is TV and snacking.)
Don’t think my little paragraphs here are meant to diminish what Cain wrote. Go read that, it’s better than what I’ve written here. Rather, my point is simply that we each need to figure out—for each of those things I listed above, and every other thing—are we using it, or are we letting it use us.
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We now live in a world where [our relationship with detah] is the complete opposite. We have to repress the very thought of it. We can’t see it anywhere. It’s put into hopitals where it’s sanitized, where it happens behind closed doors. Nobody ever talks about it. Nobody tells you this is probably the most important life skill that you could have—to know how to deal with that fear of mortality. Nobody teaches that. Your parents don’t talk about it. Your girlfriend or boyfriend—they don’t talk about it. Nobody. It’s a dirty little secret. But it’s the only reality we have. We’re all going to die.
~ Robert Greene
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Maria Montessori’s ideas about education stem from the principles of choice, individual dignity, spontaneous order, experimental discovery, and freedom of movement. They stand in radical contrast to traditional schooling, too often based on authority, central planning, rigid instruction, and force. She once described children in such schools as “butterflies stuck with pins, fixed in their places.”
~ David Kirby from, Maria Montessori’s ‘Libertarian View of Children’
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This is a great introduction to Montessori, both the person and her ideas about education. Back in the Precambrian Era, my school district did a few decidedly Montessorian things. Did those make a difference for me? …were they the most important things in my primary education? Great questions for which I’ve no answer. I will say that my greatest memories—the ones that are about education, not the ones which simply happened in and around my schooling as great as those are—from primary education are from those decidedly unusual-for-that-time methods. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
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How does expertise in book editing influence podcast production and storytelling?
Podcasting challenges traditional storytelling approaches from book editing.
It’s hard finding that story, and everybody of course talks about it— all the [professionals], you know, in their newsletters and books— and I’m like where is it? Where is it?! Help me out. I know it’s here somewhere.
~ Christi Cassidy (6:30)
The conversation centers on the relationship between book editing and podcast production. It explores how skills in editing text, such as identifying verbal tics and structuring content, translate to editing podcasts. A notable challenge is finding a coherent story arc within the fluid and nonlinear format of audio conversations.
Further discussion touches on the creative aspirations for podcasting, including integrating layered audio elements such as music and sound effects to enrich the listener’s experience. The practicalities of podcast artwork and the psychological impact of visual elements in audio media are also examined.
(more…)What role does problem-solving and creativity play in the intersection of programming, parkour, and personal growth?
The discussion reveals how creativity and self-discipline shape one’s approach to challenges in life and movement.
Sometimes the right thing to do is to walk away from the problem or to recognize that it’s not the right time or you’re not in the right place for it.
~ James Adams (14:39)
The conversation explores the intersection of programming, parkour, and personal growth, highlighting the common thread of problem-solving. A discussion unfolds about how programming serves as a versatile tool, akin to a multipurpose screwdriver, allowing for efficiency and creativity in tackling challenges. This framework extends to parkour, where physical and mental obstacles mirror problem-solving in technical domains.
The social dynamics of parkour play a significant role in fostering confidence and personal development. The practice’s non-competitive, collaborative nature offers opportunities for self-improvement and resilience. Topics of balance and burnout emerge, with reflections on the importance of stepping back when challenges become overwhelming. Additionally, James shares insights into his Parkour Clinic project, which provides free sports therapy consultations, blending his technical expertise and passion for movement.
(more…)Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
~ Bertrand Russel
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What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.
~ James Baldwin from, The Light Between Us – The Marginalian
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I’m not sure how many things I’ve linked to over on Popova’s Marginalian project. By now you should be directly following it and reading everything she’s publishing. I’m frozen by indecision; there are so countless many superlative books, and Nothing Personal is yet another one. Drat!
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