Freedom is the capacity to pause; Your list of three people

Published October 13, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 13

Freedom is the capacity to pause in the face of stimuli from many directions at once and, in this pause, to throw one’s weight toward this response rather than that one.

The pause is especially important for the freedom of being, what I have called essential freedom. For it is in the pause that we experience the context out of which freedom comes. In the pause we wonder, reflect, sense awe, and conceive of eternity. The pause is when we open ourselves for the moment to the concepts of both freedom and destiny.

~ Rollo May from, “Freedom and Destiny”

Check out Maria Popova’s, “Existential Psychologist Rollo May on Freedom and the Significance of the Pause”
Existential Psychologist Rollo May on Freedom and the Significance of the Pause – The Marginalian

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…and my favorite season is here! I love the cool evenings, and how the knowledge that Daylight Savings is about to kick in makes me pay extra attention to my time outdoors in the evening. One thing I love doing is walking while listening to podcasts where I often find inspiring gems.

Here’s an example from The Tim Ferris Show Episode
General Stan McChrystal on Eating One Meal Per Day, Special Ops, and Mental Toughness (#86) – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

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Around 1 hour 20 miutes in, Chris Fussell says:

I had a great mentor of mine, early on in my carrer, say, you should have a running list of three people — you can but you don’t need to share it with them or the world — that you’re always watching: Someone senior to you that you want to emulate; A peer who you think is better at the job than you, and you respect; And someone subordinate who is doing the job that you did a year or two or three years ago better than you did it. If you just have those three individuals that you’re constantly measuring yourself off of, and who you’re constantly learning from, you’re going to be exponentially better.

~ Chris Fussell

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Aside: DST should be abolished. It no longer saves us energy (it’s original purpose), but it does cause a statistically significant rise in traffic accidents:

Daylight Savings Time and Traffic Accidents | New England Journal of Medicine
(that’s the actual New England Journal of Medicine mind you.)

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Day 69/100 – rain

Published October 9, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 9  ·  

This entry is part 72 of 104 in the series 100 Days of Training (2017)

Haven’t been out in the rain in a while. Drizzling, dreary and humid. 30 days to go on this challenge (and I’m experimenting with a dietary change for these last 30 days. Big post at the end. :)

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Day 67/100 – hiding

Published October 7, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 7  ·  

This entry is part 70 of 104 in the series 100 Days of Training (2017)

spent hours today running around Leaser Lake. Really enjoyed a drive through my old high school stomping ground on my way to help train search-and-recovery dogs. Perfect weather to play in nature while not following the paths

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Way too much fun

Published October 7, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 7  ·  

Ima b covered in poison-ivy. #dontcare “Professional Scent Item” is going on my resume.

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shhhh

Published October 7, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 7  ·  

Roxy has to find me from upwind…. she was so close, she heard my radio chirp…

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quick HIDE!!!

Published October 7, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 7  ·  

currently running through the woods trying to hide from an SAR dog. Sweaty Italian with dog treats…. I’m doomed.

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§6 – Sleep Epilogue

Published October 7, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 7

This entry is part 6 of 13 in the series Changes and Results

Here are a couple more things which I’ve read about, but haven’t tried as part of my sleep hacking.

Sleep journaling

Some people have suggested keeping a sleep journal. In it you record everything related to sleep: notes about your last meal (what and when), what time you go to bed, when you wake up, perceived quality of sleep, dreams… everything. You would then be able to review this sleep journal periodically and use it to inspire changes in your sleep rituals.

The best way to improve you sleep is to conduct experiments. Change some detail and then sleep with that for a month. Then review your sleep journal notes to compare with the previous month.

In my general life hacking, I was often changing many things at the same time. Some of the details of sleeping which you would hack on with a sleep journal, I was already hacking and tracking.

Sleeping alone

My Grand-parents’ generation seems to have slept more frequently in separate beds than is popular these days. (A quick search of the Internet leads me to believe as many as 1/3 of couples currently sleep in separate beds on a regular basis.)

I haven’t graduated to this level, yet. But I can tell you that having another person immediately next to you whose movements, or snoring, may wake you, is just another thing to mess up your sleep. When I first started hacking my sleep, I realized that we were waking each other up frequently in the night. It turns out that if I’m only sleeping lightly, the other person’s movements will wake me. But it seems that as my sleep quality has improved, movements and sounds are now much less likely to make me.

That said, if you wanted to try separate sleeping, you could try sleeping on the floor (with futon cushions, or air mattresses.) You could then move your bedding closer or farther apart as the mood strikes, and still be on a solid surface which would not convey any sense of movement from the other person. You’re still close enough, of course, that sounds could be an issue.

Aside: This is one reason why I prefer to sleep on my air mattress on the floor when I travel. Sharing a pull-out sofa or large bed with someone I don’t know, is the worst-case scenario for being disturbed all night.

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How the brain really works, butterflies

Published October 5, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 5  ·  

The key insight: the brain is a multi-layer prediction machine. All neural processing consists of two streams: a bottom-up stream of sense data, and a top-down stream of predictions. These streams interface at each level of processing, comparing themselves to each other and adjusting themselves as necessary.

~ Scott Alexander from, Book Review: Surfing Uncertainty | Slate Star Codex

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This seems to be rocking my world. There’s an actual theory of how the brain works?

So we are likely getting more lead, more omega-6 (and relatively less omega-3), and less lithium than people in 1850. If there has been an increase in crime and other undesirable/impulsive behaviors, I think these biological insults are at least as worthy of examination as political changes that have occurred during that time.

~ Scott Alexander from, Proposed Biological Explanations For Historical Trends In Crime | Slate Star Codex

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…and my brain thought that this (aside from the actual data and science in the article) seems like a very compelling look at the big scale; tiny changes making subtle tidal shifts at the hundreds-of-millions-of-people scale.

Butterflies and radar: The Charming Culprits Behind Denver’s Mysterious Radar Blob – Atlas Obscura

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…and this popped up today, right before I saw a Cosmopolitan (aka Painted Lady) this afternoon.

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Day 65/100 – walking

Published October 5, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 5  ·  

This entry is part 68 of 104 in the series 100 Days of Training (2017)

long walk to/from lunch with a stop at out veggie plot in the community garden. Some people plant flowers to attract the polinators into the garden. Here’s Cosmopolitan (or Painted Lady) and a classic Monarch. MUCH nicer than a lame shot of me. :) on these either.

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Interesting

Published October 5, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 5  ·  

Found this in the camera roll from last weekend – I rounded the corner to this park and had a major case of deja vu… until I realized a very important scene from #personofinterest was apparently shot here… anyone else agree? Finch in the wheel-chair, with the car bomb . . .

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The keys to life

Published October 4, 2017  ·  All posts on Oct 4  ·  

The keys to life are running and reading. When you’re running, there’s a little person that talks to you and says, “Oh I’m tired. My lung’s about to pop. I’m so hurt. There’s no way I can possibly continue.” You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you’re running, you will know how to not quit when things get hard in your life. For reading: there have been gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There’s no new problem you could have–with your parents, with school, with a bully. There’s no new problem that someone hasn’t already had and written about it in a book.

~ Will Smith

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