7 for Sunday

7 for Sunday is a weekly serving of 7 things for you to savor. — It’s an email containing my reflections on interesting things I find laying about, seasoned with some quotes from my collection. See https://7forsunday.com/.

The cake is a lie →

Published April 10, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 10  ·  

I’ve tried everything. Lists, timers, project management systems, Pomodoro, time blocking, dashes, scheduling, time tracking… everything. It turns out: There are things I enjoy doing; they get done. There are things I don’t enjoy doing; they are a struggle. This is the way.

This lie is often called “work/life balance.” And it’s a deviously demotivating false dichotomy. A narrative designed to stigmatize work and trivialize what work is really all about. It reduces transformation to a mere transaction.

~ Cierra Martin from, «https://www.gapingvoid.com/must-we-hate-our-jobs/»

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There’s no need to struggle against my nature. It’s futile and that way lies madness. What remains is to reign in my Idea Monster. I also do not need to attempt everything I can possibly imagine that might be fun or productive. Essentialism is the middle road I steer towards more and more. This is the way.

ɕ

Priority →

Published April 9, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 9  ·  ,

The root of the word ‘priority’ is singular… It was a singular word—the one thing. In modern times, we’ve turned it into ‘priorities,’ but then all of a sudden it turns into eight, ten, 15 things and that defeats the purpose.

~ Shaka Smart

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Open + Curious →

Published April 8, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 8  ·  ,

I’m excited to share that Jesse Danger and I have begun a new podcast show, Open + Curious. I’ve been writing up my thoughts around conversation, and this podcast is a new part of the Open + Curious project. Please consider subscribing to support our efforts.

Are you looking for ways to bring conversation alive? Then you are in the right place.

In each 15-minute episode we begin with a question, and work our way to a challenge. Some questions we explore have clear answers, and some lead to more questions and further unknowns. The challenge we seek to find, at the end of each episode, is meant to help you explore each question on your own.

https://openandcurious.org/bringing-conversation-alive/

April 07, 2024 — #79 →

Published April 7, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 7  ·  

Reading time: About 5 minutes, 900 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/79

The beginning

I accept →

Published April 7, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 7  ·  

I have had the privilege of standing—not in the exact cedars and mountains you’ll discover below—but nonetheless in cedars, in mountains, in northern Japan. It wasn’t a pilgrimage. But it sort of was. It was a long train ride. A very long walk. A very nearly exhausting long ascent. No guide. Just a curiosity. Just two of us. At the top… I realized that the journey—if we had wanted to continue—had only just begun. Choices about time and commitments to others were made.

As a faint mist settles in among the towering cedar trees (some more than 1,000 years old), our funeral procession slowly ascends Mt Haguro’s stone stairway. It’s summer, but the air here is still cool. When the poet Matsuo Bashō made a similar journey through these holy mountains in 1689, he wrote a haiku describing the summer wind being ‘scented’ with the clearly visible snow of Mt Gassan in the distance. Today, it smells of pine needles and earth.

~ Tim Bunting from, More radical and practical than Stoicism – discover Shugendō

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Is mine a story I’ve shared, or a suggestion?

ɕ

Reading →

Published April 6, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 6  ·  ,

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

~ William Godwin

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Not me, I’m certain →

Published April 5, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 5  ·  

Three words matter much: Not me, I’m certain I am uncertain. I’m not simply uncertain. Not simply indecisive, beset by unknowns, nor stymied by possibilities.

The virtue of intellectual humility is getting a lot of attention. It’s heralded as a part of wisdom, an aid to self-improvement and a catalyst for more productive political dialogue. While researchers define intellectual humility in various ways, the core of the idea is “recognizing that one’s beliefs and opinions might be incorrect.”

But achieving intellectual humility is hard. Overconfidence is a persistent problem, faced by many, and does not appear to be improved by education or expertise. Even scientific pioneers can sometimes lack this valuable trait.

~ Michael Dickson from, Intellectual humility is a key ingredient for scientific progress

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The compass for me is, “so what?” When I’m certain of something, I ask myself: So, what? Connecting that which I’m certain of, out into the world via, “so, what?” challenges me to look at the underpinnings of my beliefs, and the integration with my knowledge in total.

ɕ

Enlightened →

Published April 4, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 4  ·  ,

If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.

~ Ram Dass

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Always be starting →

Published April 3, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 3  ·  , ,

Am I too often seeking the sense of safety or control? (And it is indeed only a sense-of. It is only an illusion.) What happened to the simple feeling of joy in being?

What this means, as I understand it, is that when we let go of all attachment to the outcome of our novel publication/album release/opening of our Thai Fusion restaurant … we shift the locus of our enterprise from the ego to the Self (or the soul if you prefer.)

The Muse likes this. Heaven likes this.

We are now operating on the plane of the soul, not the plane of the ego.

~ Steven Pressfield from, “Start the next one today”

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Sometimes an outcome is important; the measurements, the color, the specific dimensions. When the idea began with the intention of trading the outcome with another. But not every waking moment. Too much of that is obviously an imbalance.

ɕ

Path →

Published April 2, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 2  ·  ,

I always tell young people to find a path in life that you can embrace and enjoy rather than something that you’re expected to do. That’s what makes life interesting. And once you achieve a certain level of success, no matter where you are, what you’re doing, don’t be content with that level. Push yourself to another level. People that are successful are always pushing.

~ Ed Viesturs

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