You laugh, and then you probably think to yourself (like I did), “oh crap…that’s me…many, many times.” Whether it’s a delayed flight, or slow service at a restaurant (where we’ll overeat and then complain about being full) it’s amazing what we can complain about just so we have something to complain about!
~ Steve Kamb from, http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2014/10/16/does-it-really-matter/
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Certainly, our march from one level of gratification to the next has imposed huge costs—most recently in a credit binge that nearly sank the global economy. But the issue here isn’t only one of overindulgence or a wayward consumer culture. Even as the economy slowly recovers, many people still feel out of balance and unsteady.
~ Paul Roberts from, https://theamericanscholar.org/instant-gratification
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Dunbar’s Number is a favorite blunt diagnosis for the pains that affect rapidly growing teams. The number, which is somewhere between 100 and 250 describes a point at which a group of people can no longer effectively maintain social connections in their respective heads. What was simple from a communication perspective becomes costly. What was a familiar family that you saw wandering the hallway becomes Stranger Town.
~ Rands from, http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-old-guard/
slip:4uraai4.
Also, Dunbar’s Number on Wikipedia.
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The bulk of the advice can be summed up with “don’t be a dick.” Don’t be late, don’t be rude, don’t place your immediate convenience over the feelings and efforts of the person you’re interacting with.
~ Peter Welch from, http://stilldrinking.org/etiquette-lost
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It seems to me, though, that a third outcome is not only possible, but is what is actually happening.
3. Diminishing returns from oil limits are already beginning to hit, but the impacts and the expected shape of the down slope are quite different from those forecast by most Peak Oilers.
~ Gail Tverberg from, http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/10/06/wsj-gets-it-wrong-on-why-peak-oil-predictions-havent-come-true/
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In other words, you actually belong to a wider group: you are one of the increasingly commonplace factions of society that takes pride in not bothering to make yourself understood. You feel entitled to let others worry about what you really mean, and even revel in the tribalism of `being in the know’ rather than letting others into your secret world, as if playing the role of an ignorant tourist in a foreign country.
~ Mark Burgess from, http://markburgess.org/blog_pedagogy.html
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In a pathological act of self-destruction, I bought Skyrim the same week that several hard deadlines were set on the sooner portion of my otherwise sparse schedule. Maybe life didn’t seem hard enough. Or I just have no ability to fight impulse buying. Or impulses in general.
~ Peter Welch from, http://stilldrinking.org/acceptable-losses
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It happens in homes, in our relationships and our jobs, in learning, and even in innovation (as ‘technical debt’): the sense of being trapped by circumstances.
Many have felt themselves in a situation of hopelessness, of not having time to claw their way out of survival mode, and get their head above water. Often conflicting interests stack up to trap you in indecision, and it’s when you are at your most vulnerable that others tend to attack rather than help.
~ Mark Burgess from, http://markburgess.org/blog_poverty.html
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Unfortunately, true community in our modern world is hard to find for soldiers and civilians alike. Instead, we increasingly live out our lives as members of networks. This transition from community to network life is truly at the heart of the increasing feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and anomie that many people experience in the modern age. We’ve never been so “connected” — and yet so isolated at the same time.
~ Brett McKay from, http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/07/01/communities-vs-networks-to-which-do-you-belong/
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Yes, let’s honor those who died in the nation’s many wars.
But if we do not want to keep adding to the soldiers’ graves, let’s also ask why they died.
~ Howard Zinn from, http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/05/187709/memorial-day-words-late-howard-zinn
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If you know a little history, you might see some of this, and think that today’s culture battles are part of a tradition that goes back to FDR …
If you know a bit more history, you might see that this culture war stems from North Eastern progressive tradition dating back to the US Civil War.
The truth is that our culture war does date to the Civil War. Just not the US Civil War in 1861. It’s the English Civil War in 1640s I’m talking about.
~ Clark from, http://www.popehat.com/2014/10/10/strange-seeds-on-distant-shores/
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To make this work, conservative Christians need to divert attention from the people they are mistreating by portraying themselves as the victims. And that requires cultivating a hyper-sensitivity to any form of involvement in activities they disapprove of. So rather than sympathize with the lesbian couple who gets the bakery door slammed in their faces, the public should instead sympathize with the poor wedding-cake baker whose moral purity is besmirched when the labor of his hands is used in a celebration of immorality and perversion.
~ Doug Muder from, http://weeklysift.com/2013/07/08/religious-freedom-means-christian-passive-aggressive-domination/
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If you are one of the newly-visible others, this all sounds whiny compared to the problems you face every day. It’s tempting to blast through such privileged resistance with anger and insult.
Tempting, but also, I think, a mistake. The privileged are still privileged enough to foment a counter-revolution, if their frustrated sense of entitlement hardens.
So I think it’s worthwhile to spend a minute or two looking at the world from George Parker’s point of view: He’s a good 1950s TV father. He never set out to be the bad guy. He never meant to stifle his wife’s humanity or enforce a dull conformity on his kids. Nobody ever asked him whether the world should be black-and-white; it just was.
~ Doug Muder from, http://weeklysift.com/2012/09/10/the-distress-of-the-privileged/
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I agree that America faces a major discipline problem, but I see the lack of discipline at the top: the bankers, the billionaires, the CEOs. Like Mike Rice, they’re out of control and need to face the consequences of their actions.
The Rice video was seen by Rutgers officials months ago, and their response was a wrist-slap: Rice was suspended for three games and told not to do it again. Isn’t that typical of how things go in America?
~ Doug Muder from, http://weeklysift.com/2013/04/08/mike-rice-sean-hannity-and-the-real-american-discipline-problem/
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The practice of politeness is a collection of habits of mind and expression you do on a daily basis. You learn to say “thank you” because you are honestly grateful and “I’m sorry” because you honestly don’t want to contribute to the pain of the world. You learn to say “it’s ok” because you’re honestly forgiving and letting go of small things other people do wrong. This practice makes the rate of unproductive and acrimonious conversations go down, and the enemies you make are usually only the unavoidably unpleasant.
~ Quinn Norton from, https://medium.com/message/how-to-be-polite-for-geeks-86cb784983b1
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In my view, one basic principle is: No one should be forced to participate in a religious ritual. That’s why I don’t want teachers leading prayers in public school classrooms, especially when the children are too young to make a meaningful choice about opting out. For the same reason, it would be wrong to sue a priest who refused to perform a Catholic marriage ritual for a marriage his church did not sanction.
~ Doug Muder from, http://weeklysift.com/2014/03/03/religious-liberty-and-marriage-equality/
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In addition to disparaging routine labor, these films discount the hard work that enables individuals to reach the top of their professions. Turbo and Dusty don’t need to hone their craft for years in minor-league circuits like their racing peers presumably did. It’s enough for them simply to show up with no experience at the world’s most competitive races, dig deep within themselves, and out-believe their opponents. They are, in many ways, the perfect role models for a generation weaned on instant gratification.
~ Luke Epplin from, http://m.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/you-can-do-em-anything-em-must-every-kids-movie-reinforce-the-cult-of-self-esteem/278596/
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If there’s no tipping, then how will the servers be motivated to do a good job?
When you step back and think about this for a second, it’s actually kind of hilarious. The person asking this question would have a full-time job as a software developer, or lawyer, or journalist, or doctor, always working to a pay rate that was negotiated ahead of time. We would never suggest that a code jockey or surgeon would be motivated to do better work by the thought that their clients, if pleased with the service, might toss in a few extra dollars.
~ Jay Porter from, http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-restaurant-part-3/
Hear! Hear! You should go read that whole series by Porter.
Then you should start talking about how we should include the cost of providing service in the price of the menu items, or include a line-item percentage service charge on the bill. Pay EVERYONE who works in the restaurant a fair, living wage.
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The New Zealand Herald reports, Kiwi principal sends teen message viral… 53 years on
According to a 2010 post on the Pierce County Tribune website, the words come from a letter by Judge Phillip B. Gilliam of Denver, Colorado, published on December 17, 1959, which explains why the advice sounds somewhat dated.
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Almost 15,000 people shared the link on their own Facebook profiles, attracting the attention of American news website the Huffington Post and fuelling the internet sensation.
Words for teenagers everyone…
Always we hear the cry from teenagers, ‘What can we do, where can we go?’
My answer is this: Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons, and after you’ve finished, read a book.
Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your parents do not owe you fun.
The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something.
You owe it your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at war, in poverty or sick and lonely again.
In other words, grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone.
Start behaving like a responsible person.
You are important and you are needed.
It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday.
Someday is now and that somebody is you.
~ Judge Phillip B. Gilliam of Denver, Colorado, published on December 17, 1959
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Throughout history, irony has served useful purposes, like providing a rhetorical outlet for unspoken societal tensions. But our contemporary ironic mode is somehow deeper; it has leaked from the realm of rhetoric into life itself. This ironic ethos can lead to a vacuity and vapidity of the individual and collective psyche.
~ Christy Wampole from, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/how-to-live-without-irony/
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I’m not concerned with — or perhaps, “I’m not interested in spending time on” — the stylistic ironies which are common today. I see no point in assaulting things like “hipster” fashion, when every generation criticizes the fashion of the next. I seriously say: Sure, fine, whatever.
However, it does seem that there is a lot of “shallow” out there; Shallow thinking in particular. That scares the crap out of me.
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