When I was a child I wanted to be an architect, and now that I am an architect I would sometimes like to be a child again.
~ Federico Babina
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Childhood’s end →
Moments you weren’t expecting →
What I’m looking for, in both fiction and documentary, are moments that you weren’t expecting, and which the audience don’t feel prepared for, moments that are candid, like something that just happened in front of the camera, and it’s not going to happen again. Those are the moments you live for as a documentary maker.
~ Kevin Macdonald, from Kevin MacDonald – The Talks
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I’ve lately been on a bender reading many of these really interesting, really short, interviews with countless people. Most of them don’t particularly interest me. “But wait,” you’re thinking, “those two sentences seem contradictory.” I’m glad you asked about that!
You see, once I know that there’s some large body of work and it’s pretty uniform, then I wonder: Why should I think that the ones I like are the really good ones? Since the work is (pretty) uniform, maybe they’re all really good (or pretty good, at least) and the reason I don’t like most of them… is me. If I sift through the work am I identifying the good ones? …or am I reinforcing, via confirmation bias, my narrow view points? If I wanted to grow—growth often being uncomfortable, especially when it comes to shifting one’s own perspectives—maybe I should intentionally read the ones that I think aren’t that good. Maybe I should be seeking out things which I’m misjudging, and that would by definition be the things I think aren’t that good.
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Flexibility →
The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.
~ Brian Greene
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Labeled your issues must be →
My title is a play on something Yoda said.
Importantly, affect labelling is also more effective when it involves self-reflecting on and identifying authentic positive emotional experiences. This is different from when people try to trick themselves into feeling better by just stating that they feel good when maybe they don’t. The importance of using affective labelling in an authentic way is consistent with other research showing that people tend to enjoy higher wellbeing when they feel like they are being authentic to themselves and not faking parts of their life.
~ Christian Waugh, from Asking one simple question can entirely change how you feel
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This article picks apart neatly, the big nit I’ve always had with positive thinking: Reality is real. When something has pissed me off. Naming that—literally saying out loud, to myself when I’m alone, “I’m pissed off”—really does help. Positive thinking never works for me, “I’m happy!” when I’ actually mad, just makes me feel stupid for denying the reality of my lived experience.
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Improvement →
People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.
~ Leo Tolstoy
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Calm companies →
Calm companies provide meaningful work, healthy interactions, and flexibility for people’s lives. If your kid is home sick, you can set work aside and take care of them. If it’s a beautiful day, you can go for a run on the beach.
~ Justin Jackson, from We need more calm companies
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It was only a little over a year ago (as noted in my Calm Technology post) that first heard of calm tech.
Calm technology is designed to be unobtrusive and blend in with daily life. The opposite is technology that is distracting and disruptive, creating agitation and stress.
And of course, what would one—hopefully—build using calm tech?
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Integrity with self →
Over time, if you work on developing the power of your word, it will become something you don’t question. And then your word will be like a powerful magic spell you can cast anytime you need to make magic happen.
~ Leo Babauta, from Honoring Your Word to Yourself
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This reminds me of Stephen Covey’s comments about putting first things first.
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Back in my day →
I think I’m doing better work than ever, and it is getting noticed, it just doesn’t tip the needle anymore. I’m not suffering for traffic, but “new” traffic is definitely coming from unusual and unpredictable places that are nearly impossible to capitalize on.
~ Brett Terpstra, from Back in my day…
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The root of the problem is simply that the pendulum swings. Back in my day (me saying that, although the “day” is the same as Terpstra’s) it took a bit of technical chops to really be using the internet. Those with the chops, also tended to build things; not necessarily build from scratch, but at least use the tools others built from scratch to build things. The big thing we all built was the Web. Today, people don’t much use the Web, and precious few still build the Web.
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On depression and meditation →
David Lynch has a variety of notions about what it takes to make art, but suffering is not among them. “This is part of the myth, I think […] the more you suffer, the less you want to create. If you’re truly depressed, they say, you can’t even get out of bed, let alone create.”
~ Colin Marshall, from David Lynch Explains Why Depression Is the Enemy of Creativity–and Why Meditation Is the Solution
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The cure for depression? My experience is that the only thing that works to avoid depression, in the long run, is meditation.
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Distraction →
The defenders of our freedom have failed to take into account our infinite appetite for distraction.
~ Aldous Huxley
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