Apogee

My collection of the best-of, must-read posts.

Inspiration is for suckers →

Published April 6, 2019  ·  All posts on Apr 6  ·  , ,

The thing I care the most about: what do you do when no one is looking, what do you make when it’s not an immediate part of your job… how many push ups do you do, just because you can?

~ Seth Godin from, Self directed effort is the best kind

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Stumbled over this 8-year-old post from Seth. It’s suprisingly apropos—confirmation bias in action I suppose—of a conversation I just had.

There are two ways I can go with my thoughts on this: It turns out that I do a lot push-ups, (and other things, “Hello, Art du Déplacement,”) just because I can. But I think there’s a more interesting thread I can pull from this serendipity.

I don’t trust inspiration. I don’t trust it to show up, let alone motivate me. If something inspires me, I channel that energy to envision the path which could make the inspiring idea into some reality. I use moments of inspiration to propel me into doing the hard work of figuring out the next possible step. …and the step after that. …and after that.

The rest of the time—most of the time in fact—all I’m doing is working my systems. A bit of this, a bit of that, some of this, and some of that.

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What’s wrong with the world →

Published February 20, 2019  ·  All posts on Feb 20  ·  ,

Ok, here’s what’s wrong with the world (Pt. 2)

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I’m not sure that’s worth linking to. But it is the article that sparked the thought that became this post. So, hat-tip where hat-tip is due.

You’re probably familiar with the common definition of the word “doldrums”: A period of stagnation or slump, or a period of depression or unhappy listlessness. But the common definition comes from the actual doldrums, which is a place in the Atlantic Ocean, more generally referred to as the “Horse Latitudes.”

Here’s the thought I had: I’m in the doldrums.

I’m not in the internally-generated, mental state, that the common definition implies. I’m in a place in my life which is the doldrums.

Old-timey sailors discovered a huge area of the Atlantic Ocean where the winds and sea are unreliable. Once a few explorers got stuck there, “in the doldrums,” on sailing ships, they shared the knowledge with others. Everyone quickly learned to avoid the Horse Latitudes because that place made things difficult.

Long ago I developed the twin skills of self-awareness and self-assessment and set about a long—and ongoing!—journey of self-improvement. But these days, I seem to be stuck in my journey. Why? I’m in the doldrums. I’ve navigated myself to a place which makes things difficult.

Bonus: How did sailors of old get out of the doldrums? When faced with mass dehydration, (it doesn’t rain much in the doldrums,) they’d tie their huge sailing ships to their tiny row-boats, and take shifts towing the ship.

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Why storytelling is a big deal →

Published February 17, 2019  ·  All posts on Feb 17  ·  ,

But forget business for a minute. Stores are much bigger than that, they’re central to our human existence. The way we shape reality is through storytelling. If we can tell a story about it, that means it exists. And this explains our species’ unique capacity for metaphor…for that is how we turn abstract ideas into stories.

~ “Gaping Void” from, «https://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/2019/01/15/the-real-reason-why-storytelling-is-a-big-deal/»

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As I mentioned in the meta-interview of me for the Movers Mindset podcast, I love stories and story-telling. But helping others tell their stories is what I enjoy most about the interviews. Everyone is so incredibly different—yes, I too thought that was obvious before I started interviewing people. ;) Some people, I have nothing more to do then press the ‘record’ button. Some people, have something they need to say but it takes hours of conversation to figure that out before I can press ‘record’.

I’ll be candid: The podcast is incredibly painful to create. Until you’ve tried it—I urge you to never try it, by the way—you cannot understand how much time, effort, and money it takes to do it well … did I mention the time? Worse, the more I work on the craft of story-telling, interviewing, and the countless nuances of producing a show. Bottomless, hopeless, endless, thankless, merciless.

But then I randomly listen to an episode from the catalog, one from a while ago that I’ve sort of half-forgotten and I remember why it would be inconceivable to stop this early in the journey.

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Our lives are not what we think →

Published February 13, 2019  ·  All posts on Feb 13  ·  ,

Everything there is, everything we know, hinges on this one bizarre, transient condition — existence — which just happens to be your current reality. We regard the miracle of existence as a goldfish regards water, which means we don’t regard it at all. But if you think about it, it’s an exceedingly peculiar fact — that we exist.

~ David Cain from, Our Lives Are Not What We Think

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My energy and drive to write waxes and wanes. But my desire for perspective is constant. Here’s a big ol’ chunk of a different perspective from David Cain.

My favorite sort of perspective—this has happened to me several times—is when I am completely exhausted. Not sleepy, but physically exhausted. Sometimes this has been when I have a slight fever, when a bout with the flu is beginning. But sometimes it’s just after a long day of physical labor. I lay down, and every muscle in my body is completely relaxed. There’s no urge to fidget, and no urge to move. When I’m completely relaxed like this, exhaling is such a delightfully emptying feeling.

…and sometimes my brain gets quiet enough to think, “oh! This is quite nice.”

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Thought experiment →

Published January 16, 2019  ·  All posts on Jan 16  ·  ,

We should apply the same ruthlessness to our own habits. In fact, we are studying philosophy precisely to break ourselves of rote behavior. Find what you do out of rote memory or routine. Ask yourself: Is this really the best way to do it? Know why you do what you do—do it for the right reasons.

~ Ryan Holiday, p24 The Daily Stoic

I sometimes imagine that the things I can choose to do can be placed on an aspirational spectrum. It’s not a linear, ordered list, but rather a thought experiment to do the pair-ordering; for any two things I could do right now, which is higher on the aspirational spectrum?

I could go even farther than just the pair-wise comparing and imagine all the things in my life might be orderable as…

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Fortunately—not a typo—the incessant work of ordering things to pick what to do next is exhausting. It forces me to notice that when I zoom out, I could imagine I’m doing things in the “j” through “q” range…

a b c d e f g h i ( j k l m n o p q ) r s t u v w x y z

I can make things better simply by making some space in my life. If I just drop that “j”-thing entirely I can be comfortable in knowing I’m improving, without having to actively micro-worry about everything all day. Dropping that “j”-thing leaves me with…

a b c d e f g h i j ( k l m n o p q ) r s t u v w x y z

Whereas before my average was between “m” and “n”, just by eliminating something from the lower side, my average moves up. Clearly I can improve my life appreciably by occassionally thinking about all the things I’m doing, and identifying a lower-end thing to drop.

Yes, of course things aren’t really this simple. But it took me a long time to learn the lesson that removing something can produce marked improvement. Some would say that removing is the very definition of how to approach perfection.

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2019 →

Published January 6, 2019  ·  All posts on Jan 6  ·  

Early each month, I take time to review my journal entries. I sit down and read the new month’s entries from 6 years ago, 3 years ago, and 1 year ago. When I started journaling, I never imagined I would have enough entries to do that.

It has felt like I am reading monthly installments from three completely different novels which arrive just often enough that I can remember what was happening. Every month, each of these three people’s stories gets advanced. I’ve been doing this for over a year. I’m not sure what is going to happen [to my brain] when, in my reading of the 3-years-ago novel, I get to the part where the 1-year-ago novel is today. But, since it will have been a while since I read that part, I suspect it will feel like a fresh installment. For that matter, if reading the 1-year-ago novel today already melts my brain, what will happen [again, to my brain] when the 6-years-ago novel gets to where the 3-years-ago novel is?

So, the first thing I’ve noticed is that these novels are wild. I feel as if I’m getting installments from some insane author who doesn’t take his job very seriously. Sometimes I get big entries for every day of the month droning on and on with all the gory details of the character’s life; it’s like work from some drunk author who needs to learn to edit sober. Sometimes I get these notebook-bulging multimedia scrapbook things. Sometimes the author just phones-it-in with a terse, “there’s not much to say,” and sends one journal entry that reads, “didn’t write much,” and I wonder why I’m paying him to write the novels. Sometimes—and this is the worst—the action stops mid-scene at the end of the installment.

The next thing I’ve noticed is that the relationships between these three characters is wacked. I am, after all, just reading the same huge novel with three bookmarks at different places in time. Even though it is literally the same character, their relationships seem tenuous at best. The 6-years-ago character is hopeless: What are you doing, and are you actually blind?! Meanwhile the 1-year-ago character strikes me as simply naive: Do you seriously think 2018 is going to go well now that you’ve “had a chance to look back” on 2017; how quaint, and you are clearly, completely unrelated to this 6-years-ago character. And don’t get me started about the 3-years-ago clown: You seem to have read the 6-years-ago novel by skipping over the lessons and reading only the racy bits.

But, I keep paying the author and he keeps sending me installments for the three novels. Every month, as I sit down to read, I think that maybe—as in, “maybe drawing for an inside straight will work”—the today-me can manage to extract something useful.

I—the today-me writing this—note that in this process there’s nothing special about a January. I read the new installment for all three novels every month. Every month I think: If 6-years-ago me is hopeless, and 3-years-ago me is a clown only reading the racy bits, and 1-year-ago me is simply naive— …that’s TERRIFIC!! Now that I know, I can do a better job of choosing my actions. But wait, how long have I been reading these novels? It’s been more than a year. Uh-oh, that means 1-year-ago me has already tried to change. Uh-oh, what does it mean if the 3-years-ago-me doesn’t change in two more years? Actually, clearly he won’t change, because I’m reading the 1-year-ago novel right now, and he hasn’t solved it! Ok wait hold on— …should I write, the 3-years-ago me “doesn’t” change, or “didn’t” change— …err— …wait— Will the 3-years-ago me have [or is it “have had”?!] this exact same thought, about 24 months ago— …no, 24 months from now, when he reads that part in the other novel— …now I’m actually confused.

Screw it. I’m having a drink and phoning-it-in.

There’s not much to say; Didn’t write much.

But just to mess with all three future-me-s reading the novels, this author is plagiarizing this post and copying it directly into the journal entry for today.

Happy new year!

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No phones allowed →

Published December 27, 2018  ·  All posts on Dec 27  ·  ,

The no-phones policy illuminated something about smartphone use that’s hard to see when it’s so ubiquitous: our phones drain the life out of a room. They give everyone a push-button way to completely disengage their mind from their surroundings, while their body remains in the room, only minimally aware of itself. Essentially, we all have a risk-free ripcord we can pull at the first pang of boredom or desire for novelty, and of course those pangs occur constantly.

~ David Cain from, The Simple Joy of “No Phones Allowed”

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It has always seemed obvious to me that being focused on a screen, at the expense of the other person, was obviously bad. This used to bother me.

Now, when it happens I check my premises: Am I, right this instant, actually more interesting than the entire world in their hands?

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Pidgeon holes and simplifications →

Published April 24, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 24  ·  ,

Something beautiful happens when you develop and build a close relationship and friendship with someone. The closer you become with someone, the more you can zoom in past their story to the person they really are, and see them as someone just as complex, vulnerable, and rich as yourself.

~ Chris Bailey from, When a person becomes an idea

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This is a great way to sneak up on a mistake I make all the time.

In order to keep track of so many people, I have to distill them down to some sort of narrative; where are they? what do they do? in what context do I normally interact with them? …and so on. This leads to me summarizing people, and that’s good because it enables me to push my monkey sphere to a much larger number. The problem comes when I then expect (or worse, require) that the person also fit into that summary that I’ve created.

I’d like to say I learned to not make this mistake through years of thought and self-reflection. But that’s not how it happened.

I learned about this when I slowly, finally managed to make some HUGE changes in myself — and people kept jamming me into the same story. This was— well, “annoying,” would be a polite way to put it— “pushing down on my head while I feel I’m already drowning”, would be another way.

…and then, as with pretty much everything, I looked into my self-perception and realized, “oh crap! I too am doing this to everyone else.”

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The great teacher →

Published April 19, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 19  ·  , ,

How can you improve your conception of rationality? Not by saying to yourself, “It is my duty to be rational.” By this you only enshrine your mistaken conception. Perhaps your conception of rationality is that it is rational to believe the words of the Great Teacher, and the Great Teacher says, “The sky is green,” and you look up at the sky and see blue. If you think: “It may look like the sky is blue, but rationality is to believe the words of the Great Teacher,” you lose a chance to discover your mistake. Do not ask whether it is “the Way” to do this or that. Ask whether the sky is blue or green. If you speak overmuch of the Way you will not attain it.

~ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky from, Twelve Virtues of Rationality

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If you don’t think intentionally… If your ideas and beliefs don’t produce a working model of reality… well…

When an honest person discovers they are wrong, they stop being wrong or they stop being honest. It’s your choice.

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So obscure it confused _ME_ →

Published April 17, 2018  ·  All posts on Apr 17  ·  ,

I think the problem is more subtle. It’s an example of two systems without a security vulnerability coming together to create a security vulnerability. As we connect more systems directly to each other, we’re going to see a lot more of these. And like this Google/Netflix interaction, it’s going to be hard to figure out who to blame and who — if anyone — has the responsibility of fixing it.

~ Bruce Schneier from, Obscure E-Mail Vulnerability

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I had to read the entire thing twice.

I’m on a “security” tirade here for a few days, so here’s my strategy for security: Get off the peak of the bell curve.

If someone wants your stuff, they will take it. Actors can always, if sufficiently motivated, apply more resources than you have available for defense. Therefore, one should not bother defending (worry, spending crazy amounts of resources,) against a “motivated” attacker. Instead, deploy defense in depth and then make incremental improvements everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_in_depth

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