Music or no? →

Published April 29, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 29

Music and exercise were inseparable for me. That is, until this past year. I can’t remember the last time I had music playing in the background while I exercised. And, strangely enough, I’m digging the silence. Here’s why you might hit the off button on your audio player too.

~ Brett McKay from, The Case for Not Listening to Music When You Work Out

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Two years ago I nearly became a runner. I was starting to run short distances pretty often. And I was always running with a specific music playlist.

But that’s the only activity I do with music— hiking, biking, rock-climbing… no music. Parkour? Absolutely not, because I need to hear the noises I’m making as part of the feedback. (Am I landing softly? What rhythms am I generating? How’s my breathing? AM I breathing?)

These days I’m doing everything—including driving long distances—in silence.

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It’s vastly more complicated →

Published April 28, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 28

Most modeling efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic have sought to address urgent practical concerns. But some groups aim to bolster the theoretical underpinnings of that work instead.

~ Jon Fox, from Chasing the Elusive Numbers That Define Epidemics

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Setting aside the specifics of 2020 and the pandemic, the human race is taking enormous strides forward in biology, virology, epidemiology, and a couple other -ologies I’ve not bothered to look up. Also, Quanta Magazine consistently hits it out of the park with article after article like this one—deep dives on all sorts of science and mathematics topics.

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Choose today →

Published April 27, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 27  ·  , ,

Stick to what’s in front of you—idea, action, utterance. This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.

~ Marcus Aurelius

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Meridian →

Published April 26, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 26  ·  

So meta even this movie?!

Yes, I really should never be watching visual entertainment. But sometimes the day goes so insanely well, that I have to choose what to do with the last hour or so of my day: Start something else, or choose some entertainment. Why I sometimes choose entertainment is left for another day. I digress.

I watched this 10 minute long film called Meridian the other day. Film Noir. Clearly a new movie, but set in 1947 Los Angeles. Hard boiled detective and a green partner. Mysterious woman. Missing people. The ocean, freak storms. It was almost surreal—parts of it definitely were. It has a story, but no resolution. Sometimes you just have to Wikipedia…

oh! Now I get it. It is literally a digital codec test piece. Really, go read the short Wikipedia article on, Meridian (film).

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Two roles in a conversation →

Published April 25, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 25  ·  ,

I assist in an online podcasting workshop where a student recently asked:

Could knowing all these [interviewing] techniques be making us more aware of the style, and […] getting us further away from the natural, inherent style we all have […] ?

I’ve mentioned before that I distinguish between “interview” and “conversation” in what I’m currently recording for podcast publication, (for Movers Mindset and other shows.) Today, I’m just going to gloss over that distinction and riff off this student’s excellent observation. Whether we label it “interview” or “conversation,” there’s a key milestone people go through when they realize that practicing something intentionally, is going to—at least partially—paper over their own innate style. This is a normal step in any journey involving mastery practice. After sufficient practice, you will find you still have an innate style; It’s simply different than the one you started with.

I believe that my role as a conversation partner, (being who my guest needs me to be for us to have a great conversation,) and my role in serving my listeners, (being who the listeners need me to be for them to enjoy and/or learn from a great conversation,) are antagonistic. The better I perform at one of those roles, the worse I perform at the other. That’s the balance I’m trying to work out each time I press record. Techniques which serve well for one role, can be detrimental to the other role.

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Make haste slowly →

Published April 24, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 24  ·  

Diligence is quick to carry out what intelligence has lingered over. Fools are fond of hurry: They take no heed of obstacles and act incautiously. The wise usually fail through hesitation. Fools stop at nothing, the wise at everything. Sometimes things are judged correctly but go wrong out of inefficiency and neglect. Readiness is the mother of luck. It is a great deed to leave nothing for the morrow. A lofty motto: Make haste slowly.

~ Baltasar Gracián

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Villians and a new word →

Published April 23, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 23

If you do not know the cinema-history relevance of the movie, Rashomon—no, not Rushmore—please check out the Wikipedia article. I’m not suggesting you watch the movie; You will not like it. (If you are the sort of person who would enjoy the movie, then you have already seen it!)

The villain in Rashomon is humanity’s craven need to present itself in a positive light, even if it must perjure itself shamelessly to achieve this.

~ Steven Pressfield from, Kurosawa on Villains

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That is the greatest one sentence summary of Rashomon I have ever seen.

Unrelated, that piece by Pressfield talks about how villains may have evolved in the past to become who they are, but that they certainly are no longer changing.

Question: Does that make me a villain if I am no longer changing?

Also, new word [to me], “helpmeet”— No, there is not a missing space there.

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Fear of missing out →

Published April 22, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 22  ·  

The constant interruptions and distractions of our society are, to me, the opposite of philosophy. Getting caught up in minutiae. Getting caught up in things that don’t matter. Getting caught up in things that are designed to exploit and antagonize us and our emotions.

~ Ryan Holiday from, Seriously, You—Ok, We—Need To Stop Watching The News This Year

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The way out from the chaos is to first convince yourself that you are in chaos, and to then decide you don’t like the current situation.

It will not work for you to try taking a hiatus from all the distractions. If you try, (just some “for examples” here,) to put your phone down during dinner, or to have a no-internet weekend with your partner, or no internet-surfing in the bedroom, etc., these small diversions from your normal existence will be uncomfortable. So of course you won’t want that small discomfort to grow larger! And there you go; that’s the exact opposite of how you would expand the tranquility in your life. If—somehow—you deeply wanted more tranquility, then you would automatically do all those things I mentioned and many, many more.

The other day I drove to my favorite gym only to discover they were closed that day. It happens that this was announced on Facebook. (I’m not on Facebook.) This experience was not the least bit annoying to me. I drove 20 minutes each way. The ride was pleasant; Just like every other time I drive in a car because I long ago resolved the issues with myself which caused driving and riding in cars to be annoying. I did not begrudge that 40 minutes as “wasted,” and I simply went on to the next thing I wanted to do.

I’m not railing against Facebook. I’m pointing out that if you fix your life, Facebook no longer has an attraction for you.

You are not obligated to be constantly reachable.

You are not obligated to have an opinion on every topic someone might raise in conversation.

You are not obligated to help every other person you physically or virtually encounter.

What obligations do you have?

What do you truly desire?

What is the meaning of life?

Actually… are those even the right questions to ask oneself?

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We create stuff →

Published April 21, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 21

I was going to put together a little post to geek out about the helicopter that flew successfully on Mars. (Just in case you hadn’t heard about that: I’ll pause here, while you re-read that sentence.)

Anyway, turns out that pretty much everyone else on the Internet has done a better job than I could have. For example, here’re four things you should see:

Nasa’s Ingenuity Helicopter succeeds in Historic First Flight. Yes, they attached a wee bit of the original Wright Flyer to that helicopter.

XKCD is… well… it’s XKCD: Aviation Firsts

And Universe Today, (which you should follow and read every word, forever) has, You Wouldn’t Believe What I Just Saw. I demand that you click through that link to see the selfie tweeted by the Perseverance rover. Selfie. Persey even has it’s own Twitter account.

We are the Creator Species. We create stuff. From learning how to make a fire to painting the Sistine Chapel to putting drones on Mars, that’s our jam.

~ Gaping Void from, «https://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/2021/04/19/human-potential-mars-style/»

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Hey look. I put together a little post to geek out about . . .

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The fruit of a man’s mind →

Published April 21, 2021  ·  All posts on Apr 21  ·  ,

No great thing comes into being all of a sudden; … Now if the fruit of a fig-tree is not brought to perfection suddenly and in a single hour, would you expext to gather the fruit of a man’s mind in so short a time, and so easily? I tell you, expect no such thing.

~ Epictetus

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