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/.

Please be kind: Rewind

December 2, 2022

[We] didn’t discover his work in the theater, much less at Cannes. Rather, we found it at the video store, ideally one that devoted a section specifically to his work—or at least to his signature genre of “body horror,” which his films would in any case have dominated.

~ Colin Marshall from, https://www.openculture.com/2022/05/david-cronenberg-visits-a-video-store-talks-about-his-favorite-movies.html

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Do you remember video stores? …I mean the individual stores, from before Blockbuster came along? Sections. You had to walk to the section in the store. New releases. Maybe there was a staple employee who knew every movie. Maybe you—like me—wondered if working there meant watching each movie before putting it out… what a job that would be!! Maybe there was a hand-written sign whose perennial message stands atop this missive. Maybe family movie nights? The lottery that was the occassional “doesn’t play” tape. “Tracking”—and then the magic of “Auto Tracking”. And all of that from two words: video store.

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You’re doing it wrong

November 30, 2022

That morning, my mind spun as I tried in vain to re-create the various perceptions and emotions that had been written into Google’s servers and were now abandoned to the ether. I felt a sudden sense of mourning that I still have not gotten over. And yet, to my surprise, I felt something else alongside it: a conflicting sense of relief and even levity. I would never have voluntarily deleted all of those emails, but I also can’t deny, not entirely, that there is something cathartic about sloughing off those thousands of accumulated disappointments and rebukes, those passionate and pathetic fights and dramas, even those insights and stirrings—all of those complicated yet ephemeral layers of former selves that no longer contain me. I began to accept that I would need to imagine my way back into those previous mental states if they were truly worth revisiting—and that if I could not, then the loss was necessarily manageable. I closed my laptop, wandered outside into the specific corner of France that my former selves’ cumulative choices had led me to inhabit, and was overtaken by a sense of hope.

~ Thomas Chatterton Williams from, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/deleted-emails-gmail-inbox-capacity/672244/

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Disclosure: I quoted the entire last paragraph. Yes, that takes the zing out of the article—but I fear few of you, dear readers, will click through for something… this again, Craig?! …related to my opinions about email.

If you have folders (and sub-folders, and sub-sub-folders) of email, or especially if your Inbox is not empty: You are doing it wrong. Don’t save the email. Instead figure out why you feel the urge to save the email. Then fix that urge.

The real underlying problem is that systems thinking is not something everyone is accustomed to. And lest you fear that Wikipedia article, it’s really very helpful. Does this sound like something worth understanding?

Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective action in complex contexts.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking

You’re saving that email because it has a photo attached. Saving this other email because it has the order confirmation for that thing you just ordered—should be fine, but every once in a while you need that email when the thing doesn’t show up, or you need to return it, or you can’t log into their online system. Saving this other email because it has the details for that thing we’re going to. And this email has a link to something your friend said to read. That email is a newsletter you really want to maybe read later some day maybe. And so on. I’m not saying it’s easy to imagine systems for all of that stuff— but it is possible. Pick one of those emails, and have an honest think about why you’re saving it.

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The balance

November 28, 2022

Ultimately, there was a part of me that wanted to express my physicality and I wasn’t ever going to be able to do that through the robotic, linear approach to fitness. I realized that only through circularity can one truly express themselves through movement.

~ Galo Narajo from, https://motusmade.substack.com/p/issue-48-circularity-and-interconnectivity

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This is taken from Narajo’s Motus Made publication over on Substack. If you’re interested generally in movement, I recommend subscribing, and there’s also an episode of Movers Mindset, Philosophy – with Galo Alfredo Naranjo. This issue of Motus Made reminded me of a conversation I heard recently (a podcast episode, The Process with Dan Gaucher from Life’s Tee Time) where two golfers discussed the balance between mechanistic and holistic approaches to coaching and learning advanced golf. In the earliest days, sure, mechanistic is necessary, but beyond beginner levels, the holistic approach has to be addressed. The balance question (they were discussing) is whether you can go all-in on the holistic? …can you ever be advanced to a point where a mechanistic approach—as a learner, or as a coach—is definitely no longer useful. I’m not sure they reached a conclusion.

And so that discussion, and question, came to mind as I was reading Naranjo’s comments.

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Looking at new things

November 27, 2022

The third reason is that looking at new things, even if they’re just new streetcorners or deer trails, helps me recover a certain uncomplicated way of looking at things that used to be automatic when I was a kid.

~ David Cain from, https://www.raptitude.com/2022/05/how-to-get-the-magic-back/

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Just as I read this, it occurred to me that a big part of the “magic” of my experience with Art du Déplacement (aka parkour) came from the effect that Cain is describing. I’ve always felt that when I decide to “just go out” and try to train, there was always some component of magic missing. By myself, it always felt simply as if I was slogging away at “exercise.” When I’m invited by others to join them, quite often somewhere I’ve not previously been, there’s a lot of “looking at new things” that happens automatically. Randonautica (click through to Cain’s article) is clearly one way to force that novelty upon oneself.

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Quitting

November 26, 2022

Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; Changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting—whether a job or a habit—means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.

~ Pico Iyer

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125,248

November 25, 2022

With a core group of 12 researchers and 100 volunteers undertaking thousands of hours of work, the Ireichō was born: it is a massive book listing the names of the 125,284 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II. The book is currently on display at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo.

~ Line Sidonie Talla Mafotsing from, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ireicho-japanese-american-internment-names

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It happened, regardless where you stand on the United States’ treatment of persons of Japanese heritage. I honestly cannot recall if it was presented as part of my U.S. history in primary education. If it was, then I forgot. I would prefer that—as a nation—we understand our history and, as much as possible, learn from it.

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Sedimentation and erosion

November 23, 2022

I have this image of our home as a bunch of related-rates problems: There’s inflow and outflow. Energy: In through my electric meter, out through lighting, waste heat and heating/cooling, water heater, etc.. Climate control: Heat flow in from heating/cooling system, the wood stove, the sun, versus losses through the attic, windows, doors, etc.. Mass: The balance of the rates of the flow of all the stuff.

Ever stop to think of that? Think of your home as a sealed balloon which has two, (or more of course,) doors, (garage doors count,) through which everything passes. Everything—no exceptions—passes in first, and then out second. Everything–every single thing, including the people–is only inside temporarily. The people come and go most frequently, (some pets might exceed some people I suppose,) and some things might remain inside for decades. But still, inside only temporarily.

You know that at some point you, (and everyone else if you share your home,) will go out for the last time. You might carry some things with you on your last exit, or you might arrange for someone else to come in, (and go out and in and out and in and out one last time,) to remove things after you go out for the last time. And of course eventually the entire structure will be removed and certainly at that point, everything you brought in—everything that was temporarily still inside—will go out at that point.

Where does everything you carry in from the market and grocery store go? Where does the furniture go? The books? The nick-naks? The packages and packing material from purchases? The clothes? The postal mail? The firewood you carry in is vastly more massive than the ashes you carry out; where does all that mass go?

Based on how the things around me make me feel, I know I have too much stuff. When I think of our stuff this way—as just a mass of stuff that’s temporarily inside our home—it’s much easier to keep my life under control. Too much stuff? …all I need to do is make sure more goes out than comes in, on average, and the problem will subside.

…and I can have fun with it. If something breaks, is worn out, or I’m done with it, that’s the outbound mass for today! Can I recycle this random thing? Can I FreeCycle this random thing? I no longer feel bad about sending things out, (wether that means landfill, recycle, giveaway, whatever… as appropriate.) Instead, I now find I feel bad about bringing things in. Each time I consider buying something, I think: Do I want to bring that into my life?

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Lifelong learning

November 22, 2022

Now that we’ve built an industrial solution to teaching in bulk, we’ve seduced ourselves into believing that the only thing that can be taught are easily measured “hard” skills. We shouldn’t be buying this. We can teach people to make commitments, to overcome fear, to deal transparently to initiate, and to plan a course of action. We can teach people to desire lifelong learning, to express themselves, and to innovate.

~ Seth Godin

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Exploring

November 21, 2022

It’s been six years since I started recording conversations for Movers Mindset. I’ve finally (after talking about it for years) gotten around to creating a Movers Mindset daily email of bite-sized things from all the 150+ podcast episodes. I have an enormous pile of episode summaries, quotes from the guests, their answers to the 3-word-questions, a few articles, choice bits from transcripts…

There’s a signup form over on Movers Mindset‘s web site.

Fun, inspiring, and educational, the daily email makes it easy to explore Movers Mindset. It also includes a notification about new episodes, which is handy if you don’t want to subscribe, but still want to know who’s on the show so you can grab just the episodes that interest you.

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I try to ask myself, “why?”

November 20, 2022

Contribute your suggestion without having built a body of work, without evidence of significant expertise and without being willing to take responsibility for what happens next.

It’s a form of yelling from the bleachers.

~ Seth Godin from, https://seths.blog/2022/05/the-grandstanders/

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I was totally this person. Once I saw what was going on and I could work on owning and eliminating this aspect of my behavior. Awareness (after discovery), ownership (after reflection), and efficacy. The red-flag is when I’m queueing the words, “You know what you should…” for speaking. Stop. Stop stop stop. It’s like the humorous but often–true aphorism that nothing you say before the word, “but” matters. I never (okay, fine, I’m still working on it) say whatever was about to come after, “You know what you should do…” Because why ever say that?

I like to give a hat-tip to Angie Flynn-McIver any time I start talking about intention, as I’m about to. I realized that my intention behind that thing I no longer say was to demonstrate how much I knew. It doesn’t matter to the other person how much I know. What might matter to them is whether or not I can help them. It’s potentially better if I engage with the intention of being helpful. How would saying, “you should change your menu…” ever be helpful to the wait-staff, to the manager, to the chef or owner? The menu is beyond their control, or they have already thought about it way more than I have and have vastly deeper domain knowledge. If my intention is (as it now is) to be helpful, I should be paying attention for signs subtle or direct that someone would like help. Only then might I have something useful to add, but probably not.

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Basic values

November 18, 2022

There are some consistencies in what we all value. For example, most of us tend to prioritize caring for others more highly than dominating and controlling others—the latter two “are among the least important values to most people in most societies.”

~ Chris Bailey from, https://alifeofproductivity.com/there-are-just-10-basic-values/

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I really enjoy sipping a cup of tea and taking a stroll through the gardens of others’ minds. Seeing the topiaries they’ve created never ceases to amaze me. Integration of knowledge is a hard problem (the hardest of all as a mere mortal?) Being able to see how someone has organized their thinking helps me examine how I’ve organized my thinking. Certainly, there are gardens I don’t bother visiting. But generally, being open and curious has led me to countless conversations of both the actual kind and the kind to which Niccolò Machiavelli refers.

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Sometimes it’s just reading

November 16, 2022

How she used to smoke in his office, back when the University allowed that in campus buildings. He didn’t smoke, but allowed her to as she sat on the sofa across from his desk. Or rather, he didn’t object, and even set out a little dessert plate as an ashtray. Maybe because it gave them both a pretense for talking longer, for the extra duration of a cigarette, then two, then three. So that by the time she graduated, she was a chain-smoker.

~ Ling Ma from, https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/05/ling-ma-office-hours-short-story/629852/

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Usually I have some observation to make about the things I share herein. I’ll find myself reading something, an interesting idea flits into my belfry, and I’m momentarily enthralled. It’s at that point that I kick that item into my process for coming out, here.

This was different. I stubbornly reread that first sentence arguing internally about grammar— Decided it didn’t matter because I liked the cut of the paragraph overall— And then realized I was half-way through the entire thing—

Sometimes I just share interesting things I find lying about.

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Emotional turmoil

November 15, 2022

Interactions with people are the major source of emotional turmoil, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The problem is that we are continually judging people, wishing they were something that they are not. We want to change them. We want them to think and act a certain way, most often the way we think and act. And because this is not possible, because everyone is different, we are continually frustrated and upset.

~ Robert Greene

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