On this day

June 27th

Twenty-four hours

June 27, 2023

You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. Its right use, its most effective use, is a matter of the highest urgency and of the most thrilling actuality. All depends on that. Your happiness—the elusive prize that you are all clutching for, my friends!—depends on that.

~ Arnold Bennett

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Oblivion

June 27, 2022

So begins her obsession with dominating the mind by dominating the body, which would follow her throughout her life in various guises — running, karate, yoga, cycling, skiing — always ambivalent and self-conscious, until it finally resolves into a glimpse of the larger truth beneath the mechanics of illusory perfectibility: that we exert ourselves so violently on keeping the package of the body intact in order to keep it from spilling its immaterial contents — the soul, the self — into oblivion.

~ Maria Popova from, The Secret to Superhuman Strength: Alison Bechdel’s Illustrated Meditation on the Life of the Body, the Death of the Self, and Our Search for Meaning – The Marginalian

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Ah yes, “oblivion.” Good stuff. Popova is referring to a graphic artist, and midway through the article is an exquisite cartoon example; the author drawing, figuratively and literally, a metaphor for life involving a hill and a bicycle. Reading that cartoon brought to mind my beloved practice of meditating on death. (Try this explanation.) Closely related I often call to mind the impermanence of things. Sometimes I mix the two, thinking…

This is my last sip from this [my favorite, morning coffee] mug. (Knowing it will one day be broken.)

This [regularly scheduled weekly] conversation with this person is our last one. (Imagining when priorities change and we’re no longer working together.)

This conversation I’m recording for a podcast is my last one. (Because I will die.)

This dinner with this person [my mom, my spouse, etc] is my last one. (Because one of us will die first.)

The goal is not to be morbid and depressed; The goal is to maintain a realistic perspective to enable wringing the absolute maximum enjoyment and appreciation from every single waking moment.

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Something different

June 27, 2021

The Wolfram Physics Project: A One-Year Update—Stephen Wolfram Writings

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I think you should click through on that, just to see the really really long amount of text. You’re back? …good.

I have no idea what he’s talking about. I mean there are large sections of it—to be clear, I did not read all of it—that I understand what it’s saying, but I cannot follow the discussion. But he’s quite literally talking about how their research project (it’s computing software they’re running simulations within) is apparently making steady progress towards solving all of Physics. My undergrad degree is in Physics, I was a Physics grad student (but didn’t finish my Masters, to be fair about it.) This stuff from Wolfram—his writing, the software, physics research—is my wheel house. Or it used to be. I haven’t been in the wheelhouse for a while as I’ve been working on much other stuff for decades.

My reaction to this sort of research, (from Wolfram and other soruces,) is always to get sucked into it; Drawn in to try and understand how and where mankind was pushing back the curtains of the unknown. It’s exactly the sort of thing I always lived to deep-dive into. “Understands, and is into, Physics,” was a big part of my identity…

Why is this post titled, “Something different?”

It was a big part of my identity, until—so it seems—one day it was no longer. My reaction is now different.

I’ve got all these other cool projects that light me up, but physics? meh.

And that made me think: That’s something different.

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The real challenge

June 27, 2019

The challenge with on-boarding as with most investments in the humans at your company is proving a compelling and measurable return on that investment. Everyone agrees that on-boarding feels like a thing we should invest in, but isn’t the first priority building and selling a product?

~ Rands from, Everything Breaks – Rands in Repose

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The answer to that question, by the way, is, “No.”

Winning sports teams, and successful companies, focus on getting the small things right. Do this right. Do that right. Focus on doing the right thing now. The team’s season, and the company’s product, will take care of themselves.

Except for a leader. The team and the company need a leader with vision. It’s true that to build the best wall, you focus on laying this brick as best you can, and the result is the best wall. Except, someone had to determine where the wall was located. Someone had to determine what materials we’re building with. So we need the focus on doing things right, and we need a leader with vision.

The real challenge is to integrate the leadership vision with the team that’s doing things right.

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This kid

June 27, 2016

This guy still remembers how to play! I’ve been in this bus terminal countless times and I’ve never thought to play with this rail gap. He’s got the foot-hook sorted already! #notadulting

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I work like a gardener

June 27, 2016

(Part 55 of 72 in series, My Journey)

I work like a gardener… Things come slowly… Things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. I must graft. I must water… Ripening goes on in my mind. So I’m always working at a great many things at the same time.

~ Joan Miro from, I Work Like a Gardener: Joan Miró on Art, Motionless Movement, and the Proper Pace of Creative Labor – The Marginalian

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In the beginning, my Parkour practice was simply “push. push! PUSH!” with the only moderating factor being to avoid serious injury.

Fortunately, I soon found my own way to the concept of auto-regulation (although I didn’t know the word at the time). Now, at each practice session, I simply start moving and practicing. Then depending on how I am actually performing (physically, mentally) I dial up or down the intensity, and level of challenge, to correspond to the moment/hour/day. The critical point being that I assess how I am actually performing. It’s not, “I roll out of bed, decide I feel sore (or lazy) and then skip the workout/class.”

Lately, I’m noticing there’s a seasonal component. (It’s one thing to say that. It’s another thing to really experience it over a few years.) In the Spring I charge ahead on new plans and goals, and by Summer I find I’m making progress by leaps and bounds. (See what I did there? .) Then Fall rolls around and I’m starting to chillax and really enjoy things; Meals with friends, vistas, the moments between gonzo training sessions, etc. By the time winter descends, I’m ready to burrow into reading and cooking up new schemes for the coming year.

Obviously, part of that is just the natural rhythm of life in an area that has four clear seasons.

…but part of it is exactly what Joan said about working like a gardener.

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HIT improves… your body’s sugar handling?

June 27, 2015

(Part 3 of 14 in series, John Briffa's "A Good Look at Good Health")

In this particular study, individuals engaging in the ‘high intensity interval training’ (HIT) sprinted on a exercise bike with maximum effort for 30 seconds at a time with 4 mins of rest in between. 6 sessions were performed over a two-week period, with 4-6 ‘sprints’ in each session. I was interested to read a recently published study which used an identical exercise schedule. The focus here was not on fitness benefits, but on the impact HIT might have on individuals’ ability to handle sugar.

~ John Briffa from, «http://www.drbriffa.com/2009/01/30/short-bursts-of-high-intensity-activity-found-to-improve-bodys-ability-to-handle-sugar/»

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Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore is simple compared to this

June 27, 2013

The Chaos

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
    I will teach you in my verse
    Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
    Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
    Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
    Just compare heart, hear and heard,
    Dies and diet, lord and word.

~ Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946) from, The Chaos – Wikipedia

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