A global, self-organizing what now? →

Published August 30, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 30

Today’s indications seem to suggest that an even more major recession than the Great Recession may strike in the not too distant future. Why should this be the case? Am I imagining problems where none exist? The next ten sections provide an introduction to how the world’s self-organizing economy seems to operate.

~ Gail Tverberg from, The world’s weird self-organizing economy | Our Finite World

slip:4uoute4.

“Ten sections.” “Introduction.” Some thinking and integration of ideas will be required.

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I suck and I know it →

Published August 29, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 29  ·  

There. That was a mouthful, and it makes you sound like a loser. But all of a sudden, you’re no longer a victim. Suddenly, you’ve framed the problem entirely in terms of things you can control yourself, and thus you can finally make some progress towards solving your problem.

~ Peter Adeney from, To Achieve Greatness, You Must First Acknowledge that You Suck

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In terms of money and fitness— I suck. Yeah, you laugh… it is SO easy to brush this step off.

I brushed it off for about forty years.

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Boldness →

Published August 28, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 28  ·  

Our difficulties and our dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them.

~ Winston Churchill

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The global level of consciousness →

Published August 27, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 27  ·  

The only practical and lasting solution to global violence is that we must raise the global level of consciousness. Only when that occurs will violence cease to be part of the human experience. Until that happens violence will always be with us.

~ Steve Pavlina from, Ask Steve – How to Resolve Global Conflicts – Steve Pavlina

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This is a beautiful observation. Beautiful in the sense that it let’s me stop fretting over violence and wars, and frees me to think about things like: Can I help [this person / these people]?

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We have precisely the same number →

Published August 26, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 26

First and obviously, I have precisely the same number of minutes of the day that you have. Second, I am ruthless about spending my time appropriately. An individual practice above might only save me 10 seconds, but that’s 10 seconds multiplied by completing that action a thousand times in the next month. That’s around 160 minutes. That’s just under three hours of my life.

~ Rands from, Rands Information Practices – Rands in Repose

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Sometimes Usually Rands can really wax loquatiously which is a terrible habit for one to indulge in because it wastes one’s readers’ most scarce resource: Time.

Why do you tolerate the thousand paper-cuts that waste your time each day?

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Suffering is not what you think it is →

Published August 25, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 25  ·  

Suffering is nothing more than a lack of consciousness. The more conscious you become, the less you suffer. The act of raising your consciousness is really a process of letting go of every thought that causes you to suffer. This process can take considerable time, but it does work. Every step you take in this direction will yield an improvement.

~ Steve Pavlina from, Ask Steve – Staying Conscious While Under Attack – Steve Pavlina

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Self-improvement is an exercise in lifting oneself up by the bootstraps; Quite impossible and quite necessary.

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Honesty is such a lonely word →

Published August 24, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 24

But there’s another way to do it, which is to turn down all the short cuts and try honesty instead. The bizarre thing about honesty, is that it actually makes you much richer than sneakiness, even while making you feel better about your work!

~ Peter Adeney from, Get Rich With: Good Old-Fashioned Honesty

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All of my problems stem from over-simplifying things.

But, being honest with myself always cuts through my problems.

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Courage →

Published August 23, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 23  ·  

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absense of fear.

~ Mark Twain

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Lions and tigers and bears oh my →

Published August 22, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 22

Imagine if the NFL had to choose between receiving taxpayer funds or allowing its players to exercise their First Amendment rights. Imagine if Facebook had to choose between Section 230 immunity and incorporating the First Amendment into its terms and conditions. Imagine if the First Amendment got the shot in the arm that it desperately needs.

~ Marc J. Randazza from, «https://www.popehat.com/2018/06/19/randazza-trump-twitter-the-nfl-and-everything/»

This article is rabid. I mean, feces-flinging monkies rabid.

…and suggests a really intriguing idea: What if, in order to receive federal money, or other special consideration from the Federal Government, that entity had to incorporate the principles of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constituation?

This spun me off on a tangent I had once followed long ago: The Constitutional Law concept of “incorporation.”

Question: It is obvious that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restricts the U.S. Federal government. But does it also restrict each of the State governments?

What if your State constitution happens to NOT have free-speech protections built into it? Would that mean the State could limit your speech? What about all those other layers of government below the State government? What about all the other protections in the U.S. Constitution?

I mean– I bet you just ASSUMED the First Amendment protected you all the way down to your local government.

It turns out that the Judiciary, around the turn of the twentieth century, has been following a principle called “incorporation.” Thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution saying that States cannot deprive people of “liberty” without “due process of law” … BAM! The first Amendment is incorporated in “due process of law”!

…and then that made me nervous because it seems a little tenuous.

Try this: constitutional law concept of incorporation

…or Wikipedia’s, “Incorporation, in United States law, is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states. When the Bill of Rights was first ratified, courts held that its protections only extended to the actions of the federal government and that the Bill of Rights did not place limitations on the authority of state and local governments.”

Wait, “portions”?! Oh this is sounding sketchy…

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A preamble →

Published August 21, 2018  ·  All posts on Aug 21  ·  

This entry is part 11 of 11 in the series A Tracer's Manifesto

( In late 2016 I began a small discussion with a few friends about an idea. Eventually the project became a web site [now gone] and this series contains the posts from that site. The project continues in the Parkour Forum. )

Originally published Feb 14, 2017

I feel the Manifesto should contain a preamble. This would be an opportunity to set the tone of the thing, to lay some groundwork and to set out the Manifesto’s goals.

…meanwhile, we’re still trying to figure out how a “group discussion” works with web/email via the Google Group.

One thing I do not want to do, is to put ill-formed chunks of thinking here (on the blog on the web site). So this [this post itself] makes sense in the blog, but my draft-chicken-scratch musings do not. So here is this blog post, and I will next post into the group my musings.

– Craig Constantine

Preamble

The goal of this Manifesto is to lay out values and ideals in the context of Parkour. I am writing in the hope that this will cause others to think deeply about their own values, ideals, and personal philosophies. If you do not consciously choose these things, you are surrendering yourself to the power of ideas you do not know you have accepted.

Do you have a mind? Do you use it? How do you use it? What does your mind realize? What are your values and ideals? Where did you obtain them? Are they correct? How does any of that apply to your personal understanding of Parkour?

These are deep questions, all in the realm of Philosophy. But this Manifesto is not meant to be a rigorous treatise of Philosophy. By thinking about these questions, each of us can expand our personal Parkour, and increase the good that Parkour can accomplish generally. I also believe that by examining questions commonly encountered in the context of Parkour, we can each enlighten our broader, personal philosophies, values and ideals.

Is there value in movement? Do I have the right to move? When might that right be limited? What responsibilities do I have for my actions? Am I responsible for the ideas and conceptions formed by others who perceive my actions? What responsibilities do I have to my community of fellow tracers, or to my community at large?

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