Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.
~ Fred Rogers
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Serious idleness
It seems I run from idleness. I’m fond of saying I should come with a warning—the kind one finds on the back of the driver’s-side sun-visor in a car: “Does not idle well.” It takes concerted effort for me to idle, and yet I cannot discern what it is that makes me run from idleness. But this guy? He seems to have gone all in…
‘Most of the time I don’t do anything. I am the idlest man in Paris … the only one who does less than I do is a whore without clients.’
Cioran may have been joking, but his idleness was serious business. It was an arduous lifetime project, into which he put his best efforts and which he served with complete dedication.
~ Costica Bradatan from, Learning to be a loser
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Honestly? My first thought was how does such a person support themselves? (They don’t. Others do.) After dialing down my snark, I was left noticing that there’s a sharp polarization to elevate idleness to a virtue, or to revile it as glorified laziness. Nonetheless, I must admit that to be idle requires me to first say ‘no’ to many ideas, things and opportunities. So maybe that’s the key: To be self-aware enough to thread my way between those two poles?
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December 03, 2023 — #61
Reading time: About 4 minutes, 800 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/61
I appreciate your time and attention
There are countless instances where I’m reminded that “tomorrow” is not a given. I pay attention to those, and do my best to do it now. To say— Thank you. I appreciate you. I appreciate what you did there. I appreciate you’re taking the time to… You get the gist.
For me, I’ve tried to take from this experience a relatively simple lesson: I tell people how I feel about them when I have the chance.
~ Ryan Holiday, from This Is Why You Can’t Wait Until Later
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Memento mori.
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Decline
Just as I have my own role to play, so does time. And time does its job much more faithfully, much more accurately, than I ever do. Ever since time began (when was that, I wonder?), it’s been moving ever forward without a moment’s rest. And one of the privileges given to those who’ve avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old. The honor of physical decline is waiting, and you have to get used to that reality.
~ Haruki Murakami
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Because I want to
I value writing because it forces me to winnow my thinking. (And I hear you snarking: If this is the winnowed thinking…) I appreciate that writing begs me to review and rethink. I appreciate that writing slows me down and that hand writing is glacial in pace.
Likewise, they say, handwriting is going the way of the dodo. I don’t think that’s precisely true—it sounds like one of those lazy assumptions about technology, that it exists to flatten, to eliminate anything that brings a tactile, objective permanence. It may be, rather, that the objective has changed. Now we handwrite because we want to, not because we have to.
~ Neil Serven from, What Emojis Can’t Express
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It feels odd to me that “handwriting” is mostly just a noun. Maybe I’m lost in pedantry here, but I’m intrigued by the interplay and overlap of the following simple sentences and fragments, and their multiple meanings. I write. My writing. My handwriting. My hand writing.
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Dogs
We give them the love we can spare, the time we can spare. In return, dogs have given us their absolute all. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.
~ Roger Caras
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Memento Morgan
This caught my eye in the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah Georgia.
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But can you actually see anything?
I love metaphors about hills and valleys. If it’s an uphill struggle, imagine the view. Hills and valleys is a great metaphor for the concept of a local maximum: It’s visually clear (standing atop a hill) and mathematically clear (at a local maximum) that it is “down” in every direction. But only a special sort of hilltop is actually interesting. A hilltop that is really large becomes a flat tabletop. And a hilltop socked in with fog is easily mistaken for not a hilltop. Only hilltops which are pointy enough, and from which we can see other things, are interesting.
[…] our economy—resource allocation based on employment […]—is a local maximum and we cannot expect to arrive at a good outcome without activism.
[…]
But, unless we automate a lot more, we the species will never have enough wealth to offer a decent basic income, and everyone will continue to waste half their lives at work.
~ Gavin Leech from, Automatic for the people
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Is it clear that every direction is “down”? Can we see anything else; if we can’t see anything else we can’t be sure this is a local maximum. How can we explore “down” in some of the directions… when we’re talking about global scale culture and human lives?
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Mindset with Rodrigo Pimentel
Mindset with Rodrigo Pimentel
What can individuals learn from the experience of recovering from a severe physical and mental challenge, such as a stroke, and how can they apply those lessons to their own lives?
Rodrigo Pimentel discusses his catastrophic stroke, and his journey back from the near-death experience.
This is what’s happening— there’s no point in being angry or being bitter. […] and the only thing I can do about it— or rather, in many ways, I can’t do anything about it right now. What I can do is not panic. And not get bitter. All of that will only make me stop… it will only make it worse. This came sort of naturally. I think this is the mindset that I had, this sense— this is what’s happening. This kept coming back to me over and over and over.
~Rodrigo Pimentel 19:59
Rodrigo Pimentel recounts his stroke experience, reflecting on the unexpectedness and uncertainty that characterized his recovery. He emphasizes the importance of acceptance, revealing how his introspective nature, cultivated through parkour, long-distance running, and meditation, aided his coping mechanism. His ability to embrace introspection, facilitated his acceptance of help and changed his perspective on independence. Throughout the conversation, Rodrigo shares insights on handling adversity, and appreciating the current moment.
All of man’s problems arise from not being able to sit quietly, alone in a room.
~Blaise Pascal
The discussion touches on the introspective nature of parkour and long-distance running, highlighting how these activities provide opportunities for profound self-reflection. Additionally, Rodrigo emphasizes the significance of facing pain with curiosity rather than avoidance, shedding light on his approach to overcoming challenges and embracing acceptance in the face of uncertainty.
So in the end, if you look at the big picture, it’s a big basket of the things I want to do, and it’s all in there together, and I’ll shake it somehow, and my week will come out. All this to say […] in the end, I’d describe my practice as ‘bit of everything’.
~Rodrigo Pimentel 34:16
Takeaways
Embracing Acceptance Amid Uncertainty — The necessity of accepting circumstances, particularly during stroke recovery, where uncertainty loomed large.
Introspection Through Athletic Pursuits — Engagement in activities like parkour, long-distance running, and meditation facilitated an introspective mindset.
Navigating Pain and Challenges — Approach to pain, advocating facing it with curiosity rather than attempting to distract from it.
Appreciating Independence and Accepting Help — Stroke alters perspective on independence, leading to a newfound acceptance of help.
Resources
Rodrigo Pimentel’s @hashtagfeet on Instagram.
Haruki Murakami’s, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)
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Cultivate
Give fools their gold and knaves their power, let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall, who sows a field or trains a flower or plants a tree, is more than all.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
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The core group
Some assembly required. It’s always written on the package as a sort of warning: This thing looks fun… see the photo on the box? …well it it’s not going to be like that… until you put some effort in. Is there an adjective-form of that phrase?
I am conservative about varying the membership of meetings or groups because each person gained or lost resets the entire group’s confidence that they are on the same page. Attendance matters a great deal for the same reason. Other attendees can come and go but there must be some core group that identifies as such and shows up consistently.
~ Andrew Bosworth from, Mutual Knowledge
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It turns out that everything is always some-assembly-required. Anything that isn’t some-assembly-required is of little value (and probably of no value.) Some-assembly-required implies the result is more than the simple sum of the parts.
Life gets interesting—deeply enjoyable and fulfilling—when I can find a some-assembly-required group of people. The question I continue to have, each time I imagine a potential group, is: Can people simply assemble into a group? …or must there be something around which they assemble?
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November 26, 2023 — #60
Reading time: About 4 minutes, 800 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/60
Bibliofervor
I recently cracked open Listening: Interviews, 1970-1989 by Jonathan Cott. The Introduction alone knocked one of my socks off; I leapt out of my reading chair to search the Internet hoping the Introduction might be published publicly so I could share it. Alas, instead I found this:
There ought to be a word in English that describes the nearly uncontrollable urge to leap out of a reading chair, race to find a friend, and press the book you are reading urgently into their hands. When they politely agree to take a look, you say no, no, you have to read this right now. Let me hold your coffee.
~ W. Scott Olsen from, Review
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Which—thank you W. Scott Olsen!—is an altogether different thing, which knocked my other sock off. I took a few moments to noodle it and didn’t have any good ideas. Then I asked Chat-GPT (v3.5 if you’re keeping score)…
Make up a new english word which describes the nearly uncontrollable urge to leap out of a reading chair, race to find a friend, and press the book you are reading urgently into their hands. When they politely agree to take a look, you say no, no, you have to read this right now while I hold your coffee.
How about “bibliofervor”? It combines “biblio,” relating to books or reading, with “fervor,” conveying intense passion or enthusiasm. This word captures the strong, almost irresistible impulse to share a captivating book with a friend, urging them to read it immediately, even going as far as offering to hold their coffee just so they can dive into the story right away. It’s that delightful moment when a book is so enthralling that you can’t help but share it with someone else in real-time.
Oi! That is a superlative answer. NEW WORD: Bibliofervor :)
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Courage
Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
~ Harper Lee
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Knowing when to stick and when to walk away
Among the vast options every day, how does one choose well? Should I observe guardrails and steer down the center of the easy path? If I can see guardrails which are clearly “that would be, or create, a true problem” and “that would be a quagmire of ongoing struggle”, why would I ever want to not steer down the middle of that path?
And finally, some problems get better if we’re willing to talk about them. Some situations, on the other hand, simply get worse when we focus our energy and community on them.
~ Seth Godin from, Working with problems
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Any time I choose to walk away, I can also choose to widen my perspective. From a wider perspective, any time I walk away is simply the next step in my path.
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Character
Competence is how good you are when there is something to gain. Character is how good you are when there is nothing to gain. People will reward you for competence. But people will only love you for your character.
~ Mark Manson
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Winter is coming
This caught my eye on a bright sunny day, as we approach the cold of winter (here in the Northern Hemisphere.) Sure, the blue of the sky and the orange of the leaf is a nice found-composition. But what I really like is the implication of the leaf being captured by the already-dead whatever-that-plant-was. As always: questions, connections, and open loops to ponder; no clear conclusions though.
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It can’t be done
Morale is when your hands and feet keep on working when your head says it can’t be done.
~ Ben Morcell
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The good, the bad, and the ugly
I’m deep into NO!vember and of course the biggest reduction in overload is the practice of not adding more things. But I’m finding some snowball effect too: As I see the pile evaporating… as I’m not adding more things… I’m feeling more inspired and motivated to pick off one or two problem things.
One thing I will say about these lists: they are written as a way of fortune and future-telling and anticipating what a technology might do. But you often don’t know the answers to a lot of the questions until you adopt the technology.
~ Austin Kleon from, Questions for technology
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Kleon’s post is a significant collection of things (people who’ve dug into technology, lists of questions as way to evaluate technology, and more) for evaluating technology. But this point he makes at the very end is critical: Sometimes, you just can’t tell until you try it.
I hate that about technology. In fact, I use it as a key test of my own. If I cant’ tell without trying it, then it’s not worth my time trying.
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