Optionality lets you do things no one would give you permission to do. It lets you write excellent software and give it away for free if you choose. It lets you do things that don’t make sense in the current climate, but will long-term. It lets you be early while eventually catches up.
~ Jason Fried, from Achieving optionality
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I’ve never heard that word used that way, and I’ve never heard that business happy-place described so succinctly.
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Reading time: About 4 minutes, 800 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/66
I like Carl Sagan’s point about humans being able to work magic. (I’ll pause here while you read the quote.) Writing enables us to transmit ideas across time and space directly into others’ minds; It’s a natural and obvious development once we had language and storytelling. I am so far, endlessly fascinated by that.
My soul is three generations old
~ Jesse Danger, from My Soul is Three Generations Old
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Does what someone says, or writes, need to make sense? It would be insane to expect it to always, or necessarily, make sense. What about poetry? And what about mental imagery incited by reading or listening? And what about literal imagery? I find there’s a vast range of media, and mediums, that interest me once given a chance. Sometimes I want to read logical and reasoned text. Sometimes I want to relax by the window of the train as the scenery slides past.
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For it’s always that way with the sacred value of life. We forget it as long as it belongs to us, and give it as little attention during the unconcerned hours of our life as we do the stars in the light of day. Darkness must fall before we are aware of the majesty of the stars above our heads.
~ Stefan Zweig
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I have often regretted acting impulsively when I am feeling angry or frustrated. Now, when I feel that familiar urge to respond defensively or say things I don’t really mean or bang out a wounded response via email or text, I wait. I force myself to breath, take a step back, and wait to respond. Just an hour or two or an overnight retreat makes a world of difference. And if all else fails, I try to obey this message I got in a fortune cookie: Avoid compulsively making things worse.
~ Debbie Millman
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I had a nice dinner conversation the other day wherein someone asked me to send them more information about Stoicism. I went looking for the perfect blog post to share, and couldn’t find one. So this is now it. ;)
There’s like a thousand things I could share. Don’t get snowed under by this stuff; Don’t try to read/do all of this…
The book I suggest starting with is The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. This is a good book to just pick up each morning, spend 2 minutes reading, and move on.
If you want to read something which specifically explains Stoicism, I recommend A Guide to the Good Life: The ancient art of Stoic joy by W Irvine. This is an easy read that covers what the ancient Stoics wrote, and how their philosophy can be adapted to modern times.
There’s a good podcast interview with Irvine on a podcast called Philosophy Bites. It’s short episodes (~half hour) where the host and a guest talk about one topic in Philosophy. (There are ~500 episodes.) Irvine’s episode is a great introduction to what is Stoicism.
William B. Irvine on Living Stoically
If you want to read blog posts, my site has a tag for Stoicism. The posts are going to be widely varied, and have lots of links to other things, (as well as all my posts being tagged to lead to other things within my blog.)
You can also dive into some people who sometimes write explicitly about Stoicism but whose work is just generally good to read. Here are links to the corresponding tags on my web site. You can skim/scroll/page through my blog posts to find an interesting place to jump into these other spaces…
David Cain writes a web site, Raptitude.
Leo Babauta writes a web site, Zen Habits.
Enjoy!
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TEMPERANCE — “Eat not to dullness; Drink not to elevation.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
Perhaps you’ve already begun to look forward to your two minutes of reflection?
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Arrived in the middle? Visit the first post, Where to begin?
(The entire series is available to download as a PDF ebook.)
Like the impresario ringing down the curtain on an actor: “But I’ve only gotten through three acts… !” Yes. This will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine. So make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Now just as we pick out and exaggerate the pleasure of eating to produce gluttony, so we pick out this natural pleasantness of change and twist it into a demand for absolute novelty. This demand is entirely our workmanship. If we neglect our duty, men will be not only contented but transported by the mixed novelty and familiarity of snowdrops this January, sunrise this morning, plum pudding this Christmas. Children, until we have taught them better, will be perfectly happy with a seasonal round of games in which conkers succeed hopscotch as regularly as autumn follows summer. Only by our incessant efforts is the demand for infinite, or unrhythmical, change kept up.”
~ Screwtape, from Getting Over the Horror of the Same Old Thing
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C.S. Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters from the point of view of a senior-level demon named Screwtape providing instructions to his direct-reports (ie, demons doing actual work) on how to be great demons. The quote above is a wonderful glimpse into just how visionary Screwtape really is.
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Like the rats, who gradually lose all values except sheer competition, so companies in an economic environment of sufficiently intense competition are forced to abandon all values except optimizing-for-profit or else be outcompeted by companies that optimized for profit better and so can sell the same service at a lower price.
From a god’s-eye-view, we can contrive a friendly industry where every company pays its workers a living wage. From within the system, there’s no way to enact it.
~ Scott Alexander, from Meditations on Moloch
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I confess to having had only the slightest awareness of Moloch in the biblical or general senses. So just skimming the WikiPedia article and then taking the time to read this piece from Slate Star Codex was like discovering a new window on the world from my mind-palace.
Moloch.
This is the problem. (With everything.) Individually, everyone acts according to their interests and beliefs. The result? …look at the world around you.
How could one go about changing the world? (That’s a rhetorical question.)
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Turns out, if you follow me, we get free coffee as the fest ends! @redbudroasters
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uh, except this ‘river’ at the ‘river walk’. :P Time to do stuff!!
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Ok! After some reluctance, the SUN rose and I can feel my feet again…
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A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called ‘leaves’) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.
~ Carl Sagan
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22 ‘and falling’
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Tower of americas in San Antonio, icicles. ICICLES. 1500 miles and im still – apparently in Pennsylvania. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr
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In dry dock! …awesome.
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Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
~ A. A. Milne
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Twas the night ‘for Quebec, and all through the house… soaking up our last few minutes by the warm wood stove! If we pre-toast our gear, will it stay warm for 5 days?
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This is not your grandma’s “functional programming will change the world!” blog post: this list is much more esoteric. I’d wager most readers haven’t heard of the majority of the languages and paradigms below, so I hope you have as much fun learning about these new concepts as I did.
~ Yevgeniy Brikman, from Six programming paradigms that will change how you think about coding
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