On this day

July 28th

Souvenirs

July 28, 2023

I don’t collect many souvenirs. Sometimes I buy postcards when I visit places… and then I tape those into my journals. But in a very real sense a lot of what I write in my journals is meant to be a souvenir. Either way, the physical or the notational souvenir, is meant to trigger some memory.

Even institutions built for the express purpose of information preservation have succumbed to the ravages of time, natural disaster or human conquest. The famous library of Alexandria, one of the most important repositories of knowledge in the ancient world, eventually faded into obscurity. Built in the fourth century B.C., the library flourished for some six centuries, an unparalleled center of intellectual pursuit. Alexandria’s archive was said to contain half a million papyrus scrolls — the largest collection of manuscripts in the ancient world — including works by Plato, Aristotle, Homer and Herodotus. By the fifth century A.D., however, the majority of its collections had been stolen or destroyed, and the library fell into disrepair.

~ Adrienne Bernhard, from Shining a Light on the Digital Dark Age

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Always I’m thinking: Do I really want to add this thing to my pile? There’s a timeframe of only a few decades where any thing, or notation, has the chance to jog my memory. Sometimes I think of taking a photo… and then I think, why? Why this image right here? Maybe it would be better (I continue thinking) to just relax and enjoy the moment. Even the Library at Alexandria’s enormous collection was surely only a minuscule fraction of what humanity had created to that point. Why take a photo? Why make a notation? Why build a web site? :)

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Challenge with Seth Ruji

July 28, 2022

Challenge with Seth Ruji

What drives personal growth and the mindset necessary to embrace challenges in physical and mental practices?

A journey of self-improvement unfolds through insights on goal-setting, risk assessment, and personal evolution.

Through parkour, I’ve been able to open up my perspective on life a ton and it’s created so many different opportunities.

~ Seth Ruji (20:04)

The conversation centers on personal growth, emphasizing mental and physical discipline. Topics include the importance of structured training plans, the mindset needed to assess and embrace risks, and the influence of high-stakes challenges on personal development. Seth highlights how parkour fosters self-awareness, teaching individuals to recognize his limits and set realistic, achievable goals.

The discussion also explores broader life themes, such as balancing professional ambitions with personal well-being, maintaining discipline amidst challenges, and the joy of continuous improvement. Insights are drawn from parkour and professional experiences, underscoring the interplay between mental resilience and physical achievement.

Takeaways

Luck and preparation — Success often arises from seizing opportunities through meticulous preparation.

Self-identified risk — Parkour teaches recognizing and respecting personal limits to improve safely.

Goal flexibility — Goals should be ambitious but adjustable to maintain growth and motivation.

Balancing roles — Managing competing priorities like professional work and personal interests is essential for sustainable success.

Mindset evolution — Personal and professional experiences contribute to a broader perspective on life and goals.

Continuous learning — Breaking down challenges into smaller, manageable steps aids consistent progress.

Resources

Swift Movement Studio — A parkour and movement training facility in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Now Habit — A book on overcoming procrastination through practical strategies for effective goal setting.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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Together

July 28, 2022

It’s an endless list of little things that you think you’ve forgotten, but you haven’t. You are quite literally built to sense an infinite amount of subtle bits of signal from your fellow humans. We were not built to live alone in caves; we were built to live together in them.

~ Rands from, What We Lost – Rands in Repose

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As the “online interaction” soared in recent years, I’ve gradually moved away from feeling grumpy about the quality of (for example), video calls online. Through that time I continued to enjoy in-person interaction as much as I ever did, and I had already spent years massively reducing the frequency of those. My feeling is that all the online interaction has expanded—not replaced, nor “attempted to replace” nor anything negative like that—my human interaction. I’ve had multiple conversations with people from other continents I’d never had been able to meet in person.

I’m not suggesting “Rands” has it wrong. No, he has it quite right. I’m simply pointing out that these sense-limited interactions can be an enormous positive addition when we don’t think of them as replacing normal human interactions.

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Whimsy

July 28, 2021

This is Cathy Forest coming to you live from a big pile of primevial ooze for the running of the classic, Human Race. It’s the top of the Precambrian Era and …

~ The Frantics from, The Human Race – YouTube

It’s 2 minutes and 18 seconds of audio, and is completely G-rated. If it doesn’t make you laugh, there’s something wrong with you. I first heard this in 1986—which, alarmingly, I figured out because someone has put the Doctor Demento Show’s play-lists online. So as I was hunting for this, I first discovered when I’d heard it, which just made me want to hear it that much more. Share the heck out of it, make it go viral and make the world a better place through laughter.

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Context matters

July 28, 2020

Not only are others blind to the larger context but we are often blind to their context. Only by zooming out and looking at the situations through the eyes of multiple people, can you begin to acquire perspective. And perspective is the key to removing blind-spots.

From Situations Matter — Sam Sommers

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For example: Knowing who wrote something provides useful context. In this case, the piece has no attribution—which is silly since it’s a useful, concise summary.

One way in which everyone—I can think of exactly one person, whom I’ve personally spoken with, who is the exception to that “everyone”—leaves out important context is by not being clear where ideas have come from. Everyone speaks as if each idea is patently obvious; “the sky is blue,” doesn’t need context when humans on Earth are speaking. But when you start to pay attention, almost everything else does need context. Where in fact did I hear this idea? Why am I repeating it here, in this conversation? Does my personal experience and opinion, agree or disagree with this idea?

A few years ago, I started demarcating ideas with, “I think…,” when it’s an original composition of thought, and “it seems obvious that…,” when that is the case. (And I only spout the third sort of idea—the ones I got from others—when I can recall or track down where I got it.) This forces me to sort my ideas by their contexts. Certain, uncertain, likely, unlikely, etc.. The first thing that happened was I started spouting off random crap far less often. The second thing that happened was that I found, (and have subsequently made a habit of looking into,) a lot of ideas in my head that were of dubious veracity.

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§18 – Start where you are

July 28, 2019

(Part 30 of 37 in series, Study inspired by Pakour & Art du Déplacement by V. Thibault)

The magic of confirmation bias is that everything I encounter seems to apply to the current situation. I incessantly, and to a fault, seek meaning. Not “what is the meaning of life” meaning, but explanations and reasons and plans and systems… all as a means to manipulating the universe around me.

Chapter 18 is the heaviest so far in the book. (I’ve read it many times now of course.) Whereas the previous chapters select a single idea that one readily finds within parkour/ADD, and unpacks it, this chapter points out that there is a large body of work and a vast shared human experience outside of parkour/ADD. Taking some hints from that outside space and bringing them back into one’s parkour/ADD practice, and into one’s life in general, can only benefit those of us on the path.

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Faith nevertheless

July 28, 2018

…when you look at everything that goes wrong historically, you can see a deep chain of continuous mistakes that lead up to it. And in a way, that’s really discouraging because it makes you think about each step leading to greater consequences. But on the other hand, it’s really encouraging because if you think about it and you think about, “Oh, wait. What if you do something right? And you do something right right now, you’re starting a whole other chain of events that can lead to a really positive outcome.” And so, his point when he was making the statement which was more or less that is even if things seem like they’re going in the wrong direction or things seem really wrong, you can stop, and you can do something small that’s right.

~ Nick Thompson, Editor-In-Chief of WIRED, from, Nick Thompson — Editor In Chief of WIRED (#311) – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

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Not only the studying and writing of history but also the honoring of it both represent affirmations of a certain defiant faith — a desperate, unreasoning faith, if you will — but faith nevertheless in the endurance of this threatened world — faith in the total essentiality of historical continuity.

~ George Kennan, The New York Times (27 May 1984), from, George F. Kennan – Wikiquote

This was a great interview where they spent a lot time talking about how writing really works, how good stories get written, and how good editors make or break publications. A long listen, but for me, it was a delightful glimpse into a new world.

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