Reading time: About 5 minutes, 1000 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/58
November 12, 2023 — #58 →
Our experience of time →
Sometimes I sit in a chair on the patio in the afternoon sun. If I’m just the right combination of tired, relaxed, and comfortable, and if the wind, sun, temperature, and soundscape are just so, I can drift into a trance. Time passes. After which, I have no clear sense of whether it was a moment, or ten minutes. It doesn’t seem that time had stopped, rather it feels like time had ceased to affect me. Did I breath? Did I move? Did I even think in that time?
It’s not only that our experiences of space are different. Our experiences of time are likely different, too. We think about the passage of time through our terrestrial experience of unidirectional motion through space – our metaphors of time are almost all grounded in the way our bodies move forward through the environment. Given this fact, how would an octopus, who can easily see and move in all directions, conceptualise time?
~ David Borkenhagen from, Octopus time
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Sometimes I find things on the Internet and there’s a clear takeaway for me, or a clear new-to-me idea or connection. This isn’t one of those times. Instead, I dipped into this article one day, came out the other end aware that it had to be included in a post.
And, perhaps I just fell asleep?
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Happiness →
You are genuinely happy if you don’t know why.
~ Joseph Mayer
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Wrong →
Until we know we are wrong, being wrong feels exactly like being right.
~ David McRaney
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The illusion of control →
What is the opposite of play? …the opposite of playing an infinite game? I can’t think of a better candidate than the desire for control. My desire for control—when it rears its ugly head—stems from insecurity. (But let’s leave my insecurity for another day.) When I grasp for control I start trying to prepare for every contingency. When I grasp for control I start trying to control the contexts around everything I’m doing, everything I’m experiencing, and how others see me. And when I don’t grasp for control, I’m able to play.
The site you’re reading, Raptitude, is essentially an attempt to convey certain kinds of embodied knowing, having to do with the subtleties of being human, rather than driving a car or doing long division. I’m trying to get people to have some of the same perspective shifts I’ve had.
~ David Cain from, Knowing is Doing, Not Remembering
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Experiencing that embodied knowing is what I enjoy about conversation. It’s not vacuous, and it’s not an attempt by me to control. It’s play, and it’s learning.
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Experience →
Experience is not what happens to you; It is what you do with what happens to you.
~ Aldous Huxley
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Moving →
So much to lose or so it seems
~ Max Collins
These idle games and children’s dreams
How they confound and split the seams
Inside my mind, I just keep moving on
Into the unknown
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We close our eyes →
My journey of growth has been ascending levels of perspective shifts. Some of us don’t get to go on that journey because of external and evil forces or because of the random, initial conditions they drew at the beginning of their lives. While I don’t understand what my self even is, I do understand that hiding—ignoring reality—is not going to move me further along on my journey of self-discovery.
“Daytime” is us closing our eyes and pretending it makes infinity go away.
~ Randall Munroe from, xkcd: Under the Stars
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Munroe has gone on quite a journey. I think everyone far enough along on their needs-satisfaction curve (anyone who’s ever watched entertainment or played a video game is far enough along) would be moved, inspired, made to laugh and cry, by reading all of Munroe’s cartoons.
This cartoon is number 2,849. He publishes a cartoon Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So, he’s published cartoons for about 950 weeks. About 18 years.
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Plans →
Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.
~ Allen Saunders
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Interesting →
Anything is interesting if you dig deep enough, observe it from the correct angle, or talk to the right enthusiast.
~ Jason Kottke
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