There were several days with rain during a recent visit to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Lots of rain makes for gorge-ous greens and roaring streams. Here, in Root Glen.
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On this day
June 11th
Books
Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life.’
~ Helen Exley
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June 11, 2023 — #36
Reading time: About 5 minutes, 1100 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/36
Chatter and peace
Of late there’s been a marked reduction in the ‘ol mental chatter. I don’t know from where the chatter originates. Sometimes I notice there is chatter; sometimes I notice there is not. When there is chatter, I find it’s usually impossible to stop it in the moment, or even with hours of concerted effort.
If you’re ever able to step back from your own mental chatter, and listen to it with some critical distance, perhaps after a long meditation, or in one of those tired but insightful moments near the end of the day, you might find it indeed exhibits many of the characteristics of an extremely boring and self-absorbed person. It’s not that you yourself are this way — surely you don’t say everything that comes to mind. But the mind does.
~ David Cain from, How to Stop Thinking Too Much
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The only thing that works for me, to keep the chatter at bay, is to bite off far less than I think I can chew. Then spit half of it out the moment I realize I didn’t actually want it in the first place. My chatter is [I think?] always about something (or some things) specific. The only way to stop the chatter is to realize the thing is not worth doing, or to just do it. With finite time and energy there’s a limit to the “just do it” solution. In recent months I’ve been spending huge amounts of time talking myself into realizing many things are not worth doing. This too is a Sisyphean task, but I think it’s been working— at least if I judge by my perception of recent chatter.
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Purpose of myths
The purpose of myths is not to have us feel separate from the gods in stories but to have us understand that we are capable of the great feats that they perform.
~ Seth Godin
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Everything has two handles
Everything has two handles, by one of which it may be carried, and by the other not. If your brother wrongs you, do not take it by this handle, that he is wronging you (for this is the handle that it cannot be carried by), but by the other, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you, and then you will be taking it by the handle by which it ought to be carried.
~ Epictetus
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People make the difference
The world economy doesn’t behave the way most people would expect. Standard modeling approaches miss the point that economies require adequate supplies of energy products of the right kinds, provided at the right times of day and year, if they are to keep from collapsing.
~ Gail Tverberg from, Is it possible that the world is approaching end times? | Our Finite World
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Since we finished remodeling our home, this is the time of year when I pay a local company to dump two cords of split firewood in my lawn, (a pile about the size of a small car.) On my patio this morning, as the sun climbs above the old, worn-down mountain behind our neighborhood, the world smells like fresh, black coffee and green firewood.
I remain very optimistic about our world, and our economy—local, national and global. Because: People. Heating primarily with wood only works well for us for a few reasons: The housing density is low enough that multiple wood stoves is sane in a neighborhood. But the housing density is also just high enough that the stores are very close by. These trees grew relatively close, were sawn and split by a local company, and traveled not too far to get to my yard. Troy—the firewood guy—and I will both work very hard though, in the entire process of my heating with wood. Meanwhile, street gas (which isn’t even available on my block), propane (which I use to cook with), and electricity (which is my secondary heat source via heat pump and baseboards) are rising steeply in price.
Lumber prices are also crazy-high. (What was once a $2 2×4 is now nearly $10.) And Troy has resumed sawing lumber, something his father used to do with their equipment decades ago. And he’s taken on another person part-time. Yes, he asked me for more money to cover the fuel-cost of delivery, but the firewood is still less than the other fuel (gas, electric) options available to me for next heating season. My point here is that if everyone keeps making manageable decisions sooner rather than later, things will work out. The difficulty that I see for most people is being honest about what things they have to eliminate, in order to be able to keep their personal universes going.
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Peace
What is called peace by many is merely the absence of disturbance. True peace cannot be distrubed; It resides beyond the reach of disturbance.
~ Wu Hsin
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Stretched out before me
I was aching for what came next. I felt my whole life stretched out before me like an invisible buffet. I turned toward my future, mouth watering.
~ Amy Poehler from, Take Your Licks | The New Yorker
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Partly I simply wanted an excuse to quote some well-crafted prose.
But mostly I like the image she conveyed. The visceral potential of it all. The feeling that at any moment—but I’m not quite hurrying—I will intentionally turn a corner and I’ll be able to see down the next street. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this street of course.
But do you recall what it was like to long to look around that corner?
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That royal road to the physical and mental derangement of mankind
And here I would like to add a word of warning to those I am trying to help, for a study of the letters in which the writers tell of experiencing difficulty in understanding, show signs of having been written after a quick reading rather than a close and careful study of the subject matter. I read recently an article suggesting that people should practise reading quickly, although the habit of too quick reading in which understanding becomes dominated by speed — that royal road to the physical and mental derangement of mankind — is an only too common failing today. This is only one example of the habit of too quick reaction to stimuli in general, and to its prevalence may be traced most of the misunderstandings, misconception and misdirecrion of effort manifested by the great majority of people today in conducting matters relating to the body politic.
~ F Matthias Alexander, in the 1941 preface to new edition of “The Use of the Self”, The Use of the Self by F.M. Alexander
There is nothing new under the sun.
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In the history of bad ideas…
(Part 34 of 36 in series, 10,000 Reps Project)
Today I passed 6,000.
So it turns out it is just barely possible to pull this 10k thing out of the hole.
Friday, instead of 50 reps of things, I kept plugging away and got to 120. (140 bar precisions as I had 20 to catch up from a wet bars rain-out on Wednesday.)
So today (after doing my usual short run and QM workout in the AM) I did two separate 80 reps workouts to get me 160 reps for the day. 160 reps is doable. I’m totally standing on a 1″ resistance band for the pull-ups though.
Screw it… I’m going to make a run for the finish! I’ll even add more resistance bands for the pull-ups if I have to. (Whatever it takes to avoid injury and keep good form.) I want to be done with this before my trips coming up in August!
So with that in mind, I set about juggling numbers in my workbook. There’s a hole coming up when I’ll be in Boston for 5 days at an event; No way I’m going to get any of my structured workouts in. So I marked that in the book. Then, back-figuring… There’s no way I can train every day; I must have rest days. The math leads me to the surreal goal of doing literally 200 reps every Monday, Wednesday, Friday AND Saturday from now to the 365th day on July 20th.
I have a rest day tomorrow (Sunday) and then Monday I tackle a 200-reps day. I’ll [attempt to] do two, 100 rep workouts. I’ll do one in the morning and one in the evening. Counting Monday, there are exactly 20, 200-rep-workout days remaining. (The very last workout is actually less that 200.)
In the history of bad ideas, this has to be up there…
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Useless to worry
When one is inexperienced as a teacher, one gets quite worried about the pupil’s situation; His anxieties rub off on the teacher as it were. But an older teacher realizes it is useless to worry or even think about it. The thinking has been done already, and a proper programme has been carefully worked out to suit this pupil. Either he will follow it, or he will not.
~ Trevor Leggett
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England
I think this is going to be a “road trip of the English countryside” after RDVX and a few days in London. Parkour friends, I’m seeking floor space around Aug RDV weekend!
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Friends
We’re friends. You laugh I laugh. You cry I cry. You jump off a bridge, I get on my boat and save your retarded ass.
~ unknown
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