Organic

May 7, 2023

The project started with the intent to regenerate a forgotten piece of land in a dense Coburg pocket. Felicity and her husband, architect Marc Bernstein, purchased the awkwardly shaped 250 square metre block to make it happen, but council deemed the land ‘undevelopable’, and banks were unwilling to approve finances.

~ Amelia Barnes from, An Ultra-Sustainable Home On An ‘Undevelopable’ Melbourne Site

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To be clear: The property is 250 square-meters, or ~1,700 square-feet. Get to a large computer screen. Get your beverage of choice. Then, click through and get lost on that site.

Meanwhile, the thing that struck me was the undulating ground cover outside the master bedroom. It’s good (but not particularly original) to use something that doesn’t require a lot of water (as opposed to turf grasses)—but to shape the ground into something interesting struck me as whimsical. If I don’t have to mow it, then it doesn’t need to be flat. I wonder where else, in the design of my own environment, am I stuck in my thinking.

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Extraneous as passing fiction

May 5, 2023

After this era of great pilots is gone, as the era of great sea captains has gone — each nudged aside by the march of inventive genius, by steel cogs and copper discs and hair-thin wires on white faces that are dumb, but speak — it will be found, I think, that all the science of flying has been captured in the breadth of an instrument board, but not the religion of it. One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day this will be an airborne life. But by then men will have forgotten how to fly; they will be passengers on machines whose conductors are carefully promoted to familiarity with labelled buttons, and in whose minds the knowledge of the sky and the wind and the way of weather will be extraneous as passing fiction.

~ Beryl Markham from, A Different Solitude: Pioneering Aviator Beryl Markham on What She Learned About Life in the Bottomless Night

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As if there’s anything I could write which would add to that.

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Together

May 3, 2023

Humanity has begun to understand that we will all rise or fall together—that we are bound together, as we live together. People are listening more and more to the voice which speaks this inside of us.

~ Lucy Malory

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Do you get my meaning?

May 3, 2023

And one of my goals as the communicator is to make it as easy as possible for you to get the meaning I’m intending to convey.

~ Shane Parrish from, Language: Why We Hear More Than Words

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The article also has a tidy explanation of irony. Irony (humor, sarcasm and many other linguistic forms) work so well because they are very powerful. A few words said and heard in person can transfer large ideas. The article goes all the way to mentioning our “power to attribute mental states to others.” A subtle and, frankly, amazing power of projection. My mental state, plus your mental state, plus my saying some words, should have gotten you to this other mental state. Heady stuff.

If I wrote, “That was fun.” you’re pretty sure those three words were only part of what the speaker was trying to convey. By default, we have to go with the literal interpretation, but feel we’ve been gypped. We feel the urge to skip back a few lines looking for hints to reveal the rest of the meaning meant to be conveyed. We are accustomed to having to write much more to get the same job done. I have to write: Then, with a wry smile, “That was fun.”

Which is all very interesting. But today, the question I have is: Wait. How did I ever get good at this insanely complex process without ever having anyone explicitly tell me anything about it?

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Charles St.John | Quick Wins for Business Online Presence

May 2, 2023

On Castbox.fm — Charles St.John | Quick Wins for Business Online Presence

How can fitness businesses, particularly Parkour gyms, enhance their online presence effectively with limited resources?

The interplay of websites, search engines, and social media for fitness marketing is unpacked.

There are, what I believe to be, relatively quickly implemented things that are fairly simple for marketing that can have massive payoffs. And then lots and lots of other things that can give you like that extra 10 percent, to get a couple more students […] but might take hundreds of more man hours.

~ Charles St. John (3:31)

The conversation explores the challenges and strategies for enhancing the online presence of fitness businesses, particularly Parkour gyms. Topics include domain name selection, which can significantly affect search engine visibility and customer acquisition. Suggestions include prioritizing a memorable, high-level domain and avoiding similar names to competitors. Emphasis is placed on focusing efforts on impactful marketing practices rather than getting bogged down by less rewarding tasks.

The discussion highlights three critical spheres of online presence: direct communication through a website and email, visibility in search engines like Google, and engagement on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Tools like Google Business Profiles and link management services such as Linktree are recommended for simplifying user interaction and driving conversions. Broader marketing strategies such as targeted ads and presence across multiple digital spaces are suggested for maximizing impact.

Takeaways

Effective domain names — Ensuring distinct and memorable domains helps in establishing a unique identity.

Online presence — Establishing a synergy between websites, search engines, and social media is critical.

Google tools — Utilizing Google Business Profiles for easier discovery and accurate information representation.

Ad management — Using platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads to track and refine marketing strategies.

Consistency in branding — Maintaining uniform handles and descriptions across platforms simplifies user recognition.

Conversion optimization — Leveraging tools like Linktree to guide users toward desired actions such as signups or purchases.

Resources

@stjohn.charles — Charles on Instagram

Charles St. John — On LinkedIn.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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Real change

May 2, 2023

Change—real change—comes from the inside out. It doesn’t come from hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior with quickfix personality ethic techniques. It comes from striking at the root—the fabric of our thought, the fundamental, essential paradigms, which give definition to our character and create the lens through which we see the world.

~ Stephen Covey

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Virtue

May 1, 2023

The simplest, quickest and surest means to becoming known as a virtuous person is to work on yourself, to actually be virtuous. Examine each virtue, and you will see that they all were achieved with work and exercise.

~ Socrates

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Who we are

May 1, 2023

The Stoics believed that, in the end, it’s not about what we do, it’s about who we are when we do it. They believed that anything you do well is noble, no matter how humble or impressive, as long as it’s the right thing. That greatness is up to you—it’s what you bring to everything you do.

~ Ryan Holiday from, Discipline is Destiny: 25 Habits That Will Guarantee You Success

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Depending on where you are on your own journey, this could be the greatest 25-item list you’ve ever seen, or it could be 24 items of hogwash. How great is that? For me, it’s the one about being kind to oneself which I need most to let sink in farther. Every absolute rule, every simple guideline, and every pithy virtue becomes problematic when taken to the extreme. It’s almost as if *gasp* life is complicated, and I’m a complex person.

I feel like I’m living in the negative. My life isn’t a passing timeline of “this is nice” punctuated with some stuff that qualifies as work, chores, and maintency-things. Instead, I feel like any time I’m in a span of “this is nice”, I’m on borrowed time. It’s is always “this is nice, but…” followed by something I feel I should be doing just as soon as I’m done loafing. It’s as if my personal demon is relaxing, just out of sight at the bar as I loaf here on the veranda, but still dutifully keeping track of exactly how long I’ve been loafing. I continuously feel like things will go better for me (in the way mobsters would say that) if I choose to stop loafing rather than waiting to see how long I can get away with it. That’s not healthy and thus my awareness of the need for self-kindness.

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What does done look like?

April 30, 2023

And then they got home, and there were piles of tasks, emails and messages waiting for them. The urgency of those piles threw them off their best intentions.

The urgency of piles throws off all of our best laid plans.

~ Leo Babauta from, The Urgency of Piles

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If I could have one wish this holiday season (maybe I should start marking silly pop-culture references in a different typeface) it would be that you’d just go read everything he’s written. If I could have two wishes, it’d be for you to click on his name which takes you to a listing of all of my posts related to him, and then for you to continue onward to read each of his things I’ve linked. But, to dig specifically into his topic of piles, I’ll try to make a point about working all the way to done.

Some things are never going to be done in the sense of disappearing from your life; our household will always have a gentle snow of tax-related paperwork accumulating through the year. That’s technically a pile. But that pile has a home (out of sight) and related things always, immediately go on that pile, where they sit until tax season. That pile has no tension associated with it. Laundry is the same way; of course there’s always some dirty laundry in a “pile” (both a physical pile and in baskets which have homes.) But again, no tension. That’s where dirty laundry belongs.

What causes tension is when your expectations (I want things a certain way—like a tidy, uncluttered home) conflict with reality (the mail, taxes and laundry are strewn about.) The key is to realize that the second 90% of anything is the unglamorous part we’d prefer to skip. We want to jump ahead to the first 90% of the next thing.

What do I mean by the second 90%? Filling up the gas tank as you approach your destinationis part of the journey. What does done look like driving somewhere? The car’s normal state is to have some reasonable amount of gas in it. Drive it (the first 90%… the fun part involving getting somewhere) and get gas (the second 90%… the un-fun part including leaving early enough to have time to stop for gas.) What does done look like mowing the lawn? I need the time and energy to clean the mower at the end. What does done look like doing laundry? I have time and energy to do the ironing, folding and putting-away parts. And yes, big project that involve multiple sessions of working? Each session has it’s own done to reach.

Do this for everything. Every. Thing. Ask: What does done look like? Do I have enough time and energy to actually get to done? …or am I just excited by that first 90% and I’m going to quit there?

You’ll quickly realize you cannot get everything (literally everything) to a “done” that corresponds to your expectations. The hardest part starts once you realize that you’ve over-stuffed your life. The real problem is that you really don’t have the time and energy to do the second 90% of every thing. The real solution then is to make the hard choices to undo the mistakes that un-simplified one’s life.

And by “you” I mean “me.”

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Should have read the label

April 28, 2023

There is a part of you that will *become* your job/profession.

~ Toby Nagle from, 20 years in

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That’s number 7 from his 10-point listicle.

Also: I’ve taken to using the word “listicle” only when I mean it as a compliment. Versus, my perception that everyone else means it as derogatory. I think that being able to organize one’s writing into a coherent, ordered list of things all of which are on roughly equal footing, shows a significant level of comprehension and integration. Most short writings which have a numbered list of points are crappy click-bait, and people rightly derogate them. This is not that, so there. (English is a mess, but ain’t finger-painting fun?i)

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Antifragile

April 26, 2023

The aims of safety-ism were noble. They saw that young people were experiencing greater amounts of anxiety, stress, and depression than previous generations and sought to remedy their angst by protecting them from anything that could potentially harm or upset them.

~ Mark Manson from, Trigger Warning: Reality Hurts

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It always seemed obvious to me that wasn’t going to work. When I find something which triggers me, that’s a problem with me; That points me towards something I can improve upon. The problem is not the problem. The problem is my attitude towards the problem.

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