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/.

You had me at trees

August 4, 2023

Trees often have my attention. I find myself thinking about the spot where a tree is standing. Whether its seed fell there, or someone planted it, that spot is it. The tree is simply going to stand there as the sun whips across the sky thousands of times. I imagine the tree turning its leaves quickly (in tree time) to catch what light it can during each flash overhead.

Intrigued by this unheard of species, Wang set out to see it for himself and to collect specimens, which he shared with colleagues. One of them was Hsen Hsu Hu. A diligent paleobotanist, he had read of Miki’s fossil discovery five years earlier. As soon as he saw the peculiar needle pattern, Hu recognized the “water fir” as a Metasequoia.

~ Maria Popova from, The Remarkable Story of the Dawn Redwood: How a Living Fossil Brought Humanity Together in the Middle of a World War – The Marginalian

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There’s a lot of interesting leaps in the story Popova shares. Across a war, across two cultures, but the vast time this tree has crossed is insane. We have fossils of this tree… and we still have the live tree. My mind boggles.

But mostly, Popova had my attention at trees.

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Make the time

August 2, 2023

Nine years ago (journaling for the win!) I went from zero to rock-climbing in just a few weeks in preparation for a spontaneous, multi-week trip to Colorado. I was staring at my calendar leading up to the trip, and trying to imagine how I’d empty the weeks; how would I stop doing all these things that I do every day to make room for being away.

So I started chopping. This was the turning point where I started getting clear about what I was allowing into my life. First I figured out how to work ahead, or push off work—that’s the usual thing to do in preparation for going away. But then I unsubscribed from countless emails to avoid them piling up, then I unsubscribed from notifications from various services, then I entirely dropped services, and then I started getting intentional about what I was gathering to engage with.

How can I get more cultured / interested in things? I constantly feel I am missing out on conversations as I just don’t have any drive towards joining in. Everything looks meh.

~ Gavin Leech from, get hype

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All of my efforts to “make time” over the last nine years have made me realize that I clearly do not have the problem Leech is discussing. I have the other problem. I seem to already be naturally doing all the things he suggests. And I’ve no idea how to stop doing any of that stuff.

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Why ever stop?

July 31, 2023

Every day, the Little Box of Quotes podcast publishes a super-short recording of a quotation. For over 3 years—1,247 times and counting—I’ve said, “Hello, Craig here! Today from my little box of quotes…”

Why do all this work? It’s fun! I love sharing quotes (and in podcast form is just one way.) The total listens is north of 60,000 and some have been heard many hundreds of times. I like to imagine all the people who smiled, or went “hunh“. Each episode is only downloaded a dozen–or–so times when published. But then each episode slowly gets heard, as people randomly stumble upon them (I know not how.)

Which episodes are popular? Here are the top 10…

  1. Habit ~ Jim Rohn
  2. Ignorance ~ Vincent Thibault
  3. Fear ~ Cus D’Amato
  4. Motivation ~ (unknown)
  5. Freedom ~ Michael Diamond
  6. Struggle ~ James Terry White
  7. Revenge ~ Marcus Aurelius
  8. Positive ~ (unknown)
  9. Stand ~ Marcus Aurelius
  10. Torment ~ Seneca

What do I think of that top-10 list? Listening to them—especially the number-1 “Habit” quote—makes me squirm. I can hear so much about them that I’d do differently now. Maybe that’s a good thing? And they all seem so silly… it’s just… Craig reading quotes. But there’s definitely something to this, about the resistance and making art.

How do I record them? They’re pretty raw. I say the entirety of what you hear in one pass. If I make a horrible mistake, I just do it over. There’s no editing—I simply have some basic export settings to set the overall level. The point of the entire thing (when I started) was to practice doing the thing. Talk to the mic. Don’t clean it up in post-production… rather, figure out how to not make mouth-noises, how to breath more quietly, how to sound comfortable, etc.

Where do I still struggle? Saying people’s names! (Pronunciation is difficult too, but that’s not what I mean.) The specifics of how I say the name carries a tremendous amount of information. The tiniest change has a huge affect. Do I sound incredulous that that person ever said something that clever? Do I sound overly reverential? Dismissive? And how long do I pause before saying their name? Faced with endless options, I just do my best and then ship it.

What’s my favorite part? (I have a rapid process: record, replay, save/export, schedule podcast episode. I can do one episode in a few minutes.) Sometimes, maybe 1 in 10, when I play it I get chills. Sometimes, the quote itself, combined with countless other details, makes something I just love.

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Physical literacy

July 30, 2023

I’ve been creating and capturing conversations for the Movers Mindset podcast for over 5 years. In the beginning the people and the content were directly related to Parkour. But it soon became apparent that there was something more. (Actually, it became apparently that there are two somethings. My general love for the art of conversation is one something. But here, I’m just talking about the other something.) Over the years, the podcast name and descriptions shifted to center on the word “movement” as I tried to point at the something more that I couldn’t identify.

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Physical literacy is often described as the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding that provides human beings with the movement foundation for lifelong participation in physical activity. Importantly, it incorporates elements that are beyond mere physical development, such as motivation and confidence to move, and ranks them just as highly as attributes like strength and speed. Anyone who trains in parkour for even a single session soon understands just how fundamental these non-physical elements are to our natural movement capabilities, and our potential.

~ Dan Edwardes from, The Power Of Physical Literacy – Dan Edwardes

I’ve been saying for years that in the Movers Mindset podcast, “I talk with movement enthusiasts to learn who they are, what they do, and why they do it.” People often ask me, “what’s the podcast about?” and I’ve always felt that my description doesn’t quite explain it.

But now I know what it’s about.

This article has given me a new phrase: Physical literacy. Thanks, Dan. This isn’t the first thing you’ve given me. (Dan joined me on the podcast back in 2019 for a wonderful in-person conversation titled, Dan Edwardes: Motivation, efficacy, and storytelling.)

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Souvenirs

July 28, 2023

I don’t collect many souvenirs. Sometimes I buy postcards when I visit places… and then I tape those into my journals. But in a very real sense a lot of what I write in my journals is meant to be a souvenir. Either way, the physical or the notational souvenir, is meant to trigger some memory.

Even institutions built for the express purpose of information preservation have succumbed to the ravages of time, natural disaster or human conquest. The famous library of Alexandria, one of the most important repositories of knowledge in the ancient world, eventually faded into obscurity. Built in the fourth century B.C., the library flourished for some six centuries, an unparalleled center of intellectual pursuit. Alexandria’s archive was said to contain half a million papyrus scrolls — the largest collection of manuscripts in the ancient world — including works by Plato, Aristotle, Homer and Herodotus. By the fifth century A.D., however, the majority of its collections had been stolen or destroyed, and the library fell into disrepair.

~ Adrienne Bernhard, from Shining a Light on the Digital Dark Age

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Always I’m thinking: Do I really want to add this thing to my pile? There’s a timeframe of only a few decades where any thing, or notation, has the chance to jog my memory. Sometimes I think of taking a photo… and then I think, why? Why this image right here? Maybe it would be better (I continue thinking) to just relax and enjoy the moment. Even the Library at Alexandria’s enormous collection was surely only a minuscule fraction of what humanity had created to that point. Why take a photo? Why make a notation? Why build a web site? :)

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Fragmentation

July 26, 2023

What if I don’t know how to take something apart? One option is to apply excessive force and break the thing open. That works, but obviously sacrifices the thing; this is particularly useless if I wanted to take something apart because I need to fix it, or understand it. Generally, the smash method always works, but is almost never useful.

Yet thought also goes wrong somehow, and produces destruction. This arises from a certain way of thinking, i.e., fragmentation. This is to break things up into bits, as if they were independent. It’s not merely making divisions, but it is breaking things up which are not really spearate. It’s like taking a watch and smashing it into fragments, rather than taking it apart and finding its parts. The parts are parts of a whole, but the fragments are just arbitrarily broken off from each other. Things which really fit, and belong together, are treated as if they do not. That’s one of the features of thought that’s going wrong.

~ David Bohm from, On Dialogue p56

I’m perpetually on a journey of self-awareness. I’m quite often applying my mind to understand things. This idea from Bohm about fragmentation, and in particular fragmentation being bad because it misses out on the relationships and inherent properties of the natural parts (in the sense of disassembled-watch parts versus smashed-watch bits). This idea of fragmentation is a warning against my running with the first way I manage to understand something; just because I’ve found one way to understand (smash) something into understandable pieces, doesn’t mean that’s the best way.

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Self study

July 26, 2023

Useless to possess an obedient mind unless one profits to the furthest possible degree by its obedience. A prolonged primary course of study is indicated. Now as to what this course of study should be there cannot be any question; there never has been any question. All the sensible people of all ages are agreed upon it. And it is not literature, nor is it any other art, nor is it history, nor is it any science. It is the study of one’s self. man, know thyself.

~ Arnold Bennett

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Powerful questions

July 25, 2023

[P]owerful questions are the ones that cause you to become an actor as soon as you answer them or even reflect on them. You no longer have the luxury of being a spectator of whatever it is you are concerned about. Regardless of how you answer these questions, you are guilty Guilty of being an actor and participant in this world. Not a pleasant thought, but the moment we accept the idea that we have created the world, we have the power to change it.

~ Peter Block

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Can I flip this?

July 24, 2023

I expend a lot of time and energy thinking about technology. I’m often trying to share some idea with others, or trying to make a change in the world. But year by year I’m shifting to spending more of that time and energy simply deciding what technology I want to adopt. Mastodon and the corresponding ActivityPub technology which creates the Fediverse is a great example. Should I join in on that new technology and create a presence there?

Grasping the value of new technology requires imagination. But unless you have skin in the game that doesn’t seem worth the effort because technology is supposed to make things easier and simpler, not wrack your brain.

~ Morgan Housel, from Why New Technology Is A Hard Sell

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Housel’s covers that, and three other intriguing points about why new technology is a hard sell. I’m left wondering could I use the points raised in the article to help me make decisions about technology? If I flip the article’s thinking over (from an others-directed “why doesn’t technology get adopted” direction to a self-directed “why I might not adopt technology” direction) then I can ask myself corresponding questions. For example, for the quoted point above, I can ask: Am I engaging my imagination at all when considering some piece of technology? (Aside: I decided, yes, and you can search for @craig@constantine.name wherever you are in the Fediverse.)

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Acoustic ecology

July 23, 2023

I love a scenic overlook, but give me a few minutes and I’ll be sitting with my eyes closed listening to the scenic overlook. I once dove in the ocean at the edge of the continental shelf—it’s a long story—but the sense of lack of place when you gaze into the abyss is unsettling. Sitting and listening to a vast landscape is the closest I’ve ever come to that. (And without feeling like complete panic is right behind the veneer of my thoughts.)

The World Soundscape Project worked from the basis that any given soundscape (or sonic environment) is a representation of how that environment is perceived by listeners within it. Soundscapes are themselves influenced by human behaviours. As a combination of all sound within a particular location, soundscapes may therefore comprise natural sounds as well as those from social and technological sources. As these sounds change, so does the ecology of the soundscape.

~ Neil Clarke from, Acoustic ecology and the World Soundscape Project – earth.fm

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Soundscapes are amazing. I’ve always been fascinated by sound, and how our aural sense is a very old sense; it is connected to a much older part of our brain. Sound is very important to our sense of being. We hear in the womb, and at twilight our hearing recedes last to gracefully ring down the final curtain.

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Common sense

July 22, 2023

But I am still optimist enough to credit life with invincibility, I am still ready to bet that the non-human otherness at the root of man’s being will ultimately triumph over the all too human selves who frame the ideologies and engineer the collective suicides. For our survival, if we do survive, we shall be less beholden to our common sense […] that to our caterpillar- and cicadea-sense, to intelligence, in other words, as it operates on the organic level.

~ Aldous Huxley

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Mind your attention

July 21, 2023

I’m sold on the idea that mindfulness is the key which unlocks everything else. I get chuffed when something grabs my attention. I’m fine with noticing; It’s good that I notice emergency vehicles. But realizing I’ve blown the last 5 minutes doom-scrolling in Instagram? Not cool.

There’s a reason for this. Our experiences in the digital realm are usually very novel—and this novelty leads to the release of dopamine in our brain. Dopamine doesn’t lead us to feel happy and satisfied in and of itself—it leads us to feel as though pleasure is right around the corner, so it keeps us wanting more. The more novel an app, the more we get hooked—we feel a constant rush and keep using the app until we remember to stop. (Here’s looking at you, TikTok.)

~ Chris Bailey from, 5 lessons I learned switching to a flip phone for a month – Chris Bailey

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This is a longer than usual article from Bailey and it’s stuffed full of insight. One item of note is he frequently gets very intentional about testing things to their logical conclusion. This article comes from him trying to live his life without a smart phone. His conclusion (and I agree) is that smart phones are awesome. Unfortunately, there’s some bad opportunities mixed in too. (Ocean and surfing, yay! Sharks, not so much.) Want to see how addicted you are to your phone? Try this.

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