After a couple weeks without news, I got past the hump and wasn’t craving it so much anymore. At this point I began reflecting on the habit from a distance, and I made the following observations …
I substituted a syndication reader‡ and never looked back. I now read only the sources I want, when I want. Nothing beats my morning caffeine accompanied by a scroll through my feed reader. NOTHING I read is a “standard” news source. :)
It seems to me that in a country so fundamentally shaped by immigrants, a societal sentiment so suddenly unwelcoming to them can only be the product of an absurd narrowing of perspective — an unthinking self-expatriation from history, a willful blindness to the cultural legacy of the past, and an inability to take the telescopic perspective so vital to inhabiting the present with lucidity, integrity, and a deep sense of connection to the whole of humanity.
Well, regarding trying to understand “the other.” I initially agreed with her characterization and then I thought, “How much of it is spin?” and “How w/could I begin to unravel some of it?” Answer: By talking to people in the other camp.
Dyson adds a wonderfully generous and optimistic counterpoint: Not that I dislike the Americans on the whole; it is probably in the long run a good thing that they live so much in the present and the future and so little in the past. The fact that they are more alone in the world than average English people probably accounts for their great spontaneous friendliness. I had heard this friendliness attributed to the size of the country and to people’s loneliness in space, but I think the loneliness in time is more important.
This strikes me as amazing. (As in, “I am amazed,” not, “wow, this is awesome.”) “Friendly” is not a word I’d choose to describe Americans. Hell, I don’t think it would make my top 3 list of such words. If I was being kind when selecting my words, I’d say, “motivated,” “inspired,” and “principled.” If I was being unkind— well then I’d hew to the old, “If you’ve nothing nice to say, say nothing.”
There is a dial in front of you, and if your turn it, a stranger who is in mild pain from being shocked will experience a tiny increase in the amount of the shock, so slight that he doesn’t even notice it. You turn it and leave.
But I do continuously strive to be the change I want to see in the world. I share and repost only the best things I can find. I add my commentary here, there, and wherever (think, “Facebook comments”) only when I can imagine a way that others could find it useful. That’s very different—by the way—from only leaving positive comments. I try to create new things that inspire people or, even better, which make them think.
The vast majority of these resources are not directly related to the information on the page, and I’m including advertising. Many of the scripts that were loaded are purely for surveillance purposes: self-hosted analytics, of which there are several examples; various third-party analytics firms like Salesforce, Chartbeat, and Optimizely; and social network sharing widgets. They churn through CPU cycles and cause my six-year-old computer to cry out in pain and fury. I’m not asking much of it; I have opened a text-based document on the web.
This is a long, in-depth read. You will be an immensely more well-informed user of the Interwebs after you read it— about six times.
Meanwhile, have you heard of the magical analysis tool that is http://gtmetrix.com ? You have now! Start dropping your favorite web sites into its analysis magic, sit back and weep at what we’re using the Internet for.
These screenshots are just the tip of the iceberg. GTMetrix shows an insane amount of detail.
Single-task by putting your life in full-screen mode. Imagine that everything you do — a work task, answering an email or message, washing a dish, reading an article — goes into full-screen mode, so that you don’t do or look at anything else. You just inhabit that task fully, and are fully present as you do it.
Whenever I perform a save or equivalent preservation action, I stop and spend a second determining the context that needs to be associated with this artifact. Every single artifact has a bit of context.
Another idea: Long ago I cleared the home screens of my devices. I wake my phone and the screen is empty; Just the background image.
This requires a bit of work initially to drag all the applications off that first screen. There’s also a trick with IOS where you can dock your phone, and use iTunes to insert an empty page in the front. Either way, on IOS, once you clear the home screen, it’s smart enough to NOT drop any new apps on your pristinely blank screen.
At first, I opened my phone, a lot, and stared at the blank screen, “wait, why did I…” AND THEN I CLOSED IT. Now I think, “what’s the weather tomorrow?” Wake phone. Swipe down w-e- … touch, read weather, hit home (back to clear), close phone.
What lessons can be drawn from navigating challenges and fostering perseverance in life, community, and personal growth?
Travis Tetting joins Craig for a heartfelt discussion of his coaching journey, community, and building things from the ground up. Along the way he describes his love for his community and the rewards of coaching. Travis explains how his bond to his family and Christian faith have given him the strength to get to where he is today.
I think, at the heart, at the core of a ‘heart of thankfulness’, is that ability to see what’s shaping you and what’s improving you.
~ Travis Tetting (30:35)
The conversation explores themes of perseverance, adaptability, and community building, centered on Travis’s journey through personal and professional challenges. A detailed story of overcoming setbacks, such as an airport ordeal while en route to a pivotal certification, reveals insights into resilience and turning difficult circumstances into valuable lessons. Travis’s reflections on training and faith illustrate the balance between physical discipline and mental flexibility.
The dialogue goes into the creation and evolution of a parkour gym in a rural area, emphasizing frugality, modular design, and fostering innovation. The gym becomes a space for cultivating not just physical skills but also community bonds and personal growth. Travis shares stories of impactful teaching moments, where parkour acts as a medium for life lessons, underscoring the importance of gratitude, perseverance, and sharing in overcoming obstacles.
This raises the obvious question of whether there are any basic mental operations I still don’t have, how I would recognize them if there were, and how I would learn them once I recognized them.
I truly don’t understand how he does this. This is so bootstrap-meta, I’m just left staring at it like a chicken stares right before pecking idiotically at a pebble.
On the other hand, if you dump your trash in the forest to avoid paying the city’s garbage fees, or haggle endlessly with the manager at big-box store to get things for free, you’re not helping anyone but yourself. Canceling TV service and taking up the more productive hobby of reading library books is Frugal. Saving the same amount of money by voting down property tax funding for your local school system is Cheap.
