Beautiful day. Nothing to fear.
Finding inner peace through simplicity, technology, perspective, and other means.
Seth Godin on the marketing of conspiracy theories:
People don’t embrace them because they’re true, they embrace them because they are more satisfying, they show agency and intent, and they provide a level of solace by implying external causes to significant events.
Justin Freeman’s very detailed advice on what you should do if someone puts a gun to your head, including robbery, hostage, and kidnapping scenarios:
No two gunpoint situations are alike, and they will all be very dynamic situations. My advice is to remain calm, be as compliant as you can, be aware of your surroundings, and do what you need to in order to survive. But the obvious best case scenario is keeping yourself out of the situation that put you on the business end of a firearm.
Greg Joswiak, speaking at Silicon Valley Comes to Cambridge last week about the four keys to Apple’s success:
Make complex things simple. A lot of people think it means take something simple and leave it at its core essence. But it isn’t that. When you start to build something, it quickly becomes really complex. But that is when a lot of people stop. If you really know your product and the problems, then you can take something that is complex and then make it simple.
Iain Broome wants you to stop speed reading:
I want you to stop speed reading. I want you to not worry about how many books you’ve read and focus on the one that you’re reading right now. Speed reading is for panicking students and literary agents. It’s not for you and I.
I admit to buying a speed reading book a while ago, but I never really got into it. Now that I’m out of school, reading as fast as possible no longer has any appeal. I’d rather take the time to enjoy a book and really absorb what the author has to say than blow through it just so I can check it off my reading list.
Adam Lisagor on human-computer-human interaction:
As we learn to speak to Siri, we’ll learn more about how we formulate ideas into words, how to express those so that they may be understood with less margin of error, ultimately shortening the gap between intention and comprehension.
Perhaps our obsession with the weather, pop culture, and today’s tech toy bespeaks our obsession with something that we hope exists beyond it all. Or perhaps we’re too lazy, too insecure, too unwilling to risk the vulnerability to talk about those others things.
A useful post from Tim Ferriss on learning, service, and karma:
Service isn’t limited to saving lives or the environment. It can also improve life. If you are a musician and put a smile on the faces of thousands or millions, I view that as service. If you are a mentor and change the life of one child for the better, the world has been improved. Improving the quality of life in the world is in no fashion inferior to adding more lives.
Service is an attitude.
Chris Guillebeau wants to teach you how to put off making decisions about your life:
Always remember: there’s plenty of time. No one ever dies young or unprepared. Ignore the 1,440 minutes available to you today, the changing of the seasons, the nagging sense that you could have done something more if you had made the effort. Don’t worry about the days flying by that you’ll never see again.
I totally thought I came up with the term “gateway bite”, but Mark Sisson has a great article on gateway foods:
True gateway foods can wreak havoc with more than just your intended portion size, however. Suddenly, other things start looking good that you’ve had no taste for in a long time. This particular surrender to temptation can become a catalyst for a broader descent like a gateway drug leading you to something bigger and badder. You’re one brownie away from inhaling half the dessert buffet.
I’ve written about this issue before. The trick is not letting one bite ruin your entire day.
What is deceptive, especially in the West, is our assumption that repetitive and mindless jobs are dehumanizing. On the other hand, the jobs that require us to use the abilities that are uniquely human, we assume to be humanizing. This is not necessarily true. The determining factor is not so much the nature of our jobs, but for whom they serve. ‘Burnout’ is a result of consuming yourself for something other than yourself. You could be burnt out for an abstract concept, ideal, or even nothing (predicament). You end up burning yourself as fuel for something or someone else. This is what feels dehumanizing. In repetitive physical jobs, you could burn out your body for something other than yourself. In creative jobs, you could burn out your soul. Either way, it would be dehumanizing. Completely mindless jobs and incessantly mindful jobs could both be harmful to us.
I’ve always struggled with the concept of burnout, having held both completely mindless and incessantly mindful jobs. In both cases, I’ve run out of patience and the will to continue.
When I was a Medical Records Coordinator (read: file clerk) at a hospital, I spent hours doing nothing but finding charts for people, organizing them, and putting them away afterward. All while listening to the same six songs on Lite 100.5 WRCH. That job, with its innumerable annoyances and excruciating monotony, was the most soul-crushing position I’ve ever held. I did it for two summers before I vowed never to return.
I’ve been a karate instructor for almost half my life, and in many ways it’s very rewarding. It keeps me in shape, enhances my own art, and I get to help children develop strong characters. But there are also times when I feel like if I have to tell one more kid to “BEND. YOUR. KNEES.” I’ll literally set the building on fire.
I often fear that there is no job I won’t eventually get burned out on. At the hospital, I suffered under the meaningless demands of others. In the dojo, while it’s exponentially more rewarding, I nevertheless always have to be at 100%. Whether you’re ecstatic, depressed, happy, or sad, you always have to be fired up for the students. Even if you broke up with your girlfriend moments before (and I have), you still have to smile and act like you’re enjoying reminding them to go lower in their stances for the hundredth time.
Suematsu says burnout is “the result of consuming yourself for something other than yourself.” That was certainly true at the hospital, and it’s true in the dojo, even though the something else is a bunch of little kids. I don’t think I can consider any job I’ve held to be sustainable to the point where I could do it for the rest of my life.
Perhaps that’s why I love writing this website. It affords me solitude and a space for personal exploration and growth. Other people may benefit from reading about my experience, but really it’s a vehicle for myself. I’ve said before that I don’t claim to know everything or even anything. I’m just trying to figure things out. I know plenty of other people are too, and it’s nice to have some company. Advice I give to my readers is really advice I’m giving to myself.
Maybe I’ll get burned out one day and have nothing left to say, but right now it seems like this site fulfills my desire to write, learn, and help people without consuming myself to the point of exhaustion. It remains a fulfilling challenge.
Leo Babauta talks about the many reasons we rely upon our clutter:
A book isn’t just an object with words on it. A jewelry box isn’t just a container. Clothes aren’t just protection from the elements.
Each of these inanimate objects means so much more to us.
We put our emotions into them. We rely upon these objects to fulfill needs in us.
They are our crutches.
Minimalism/Buddhism/attachment/fear 101.
Dave Caolo has a new sacred time rule:
It sure is a different time. When I was a kid, my father came home from work at 5:30 and that was that. No more work until the next morning. Today, the opportunity to “log on” and “check just one more thing” is ever present, and we must make a concerted effort to punch out and stop. Even if it’s just for four hours. Stop.
Speaking of busy:
Courtney Carver, writing for Zen Habits, on the silliness of busyness:
If you are anything like me, you are busy because you want to be or because you don’t know how to be un-busy. You are busy out of misdirected guilt because you think if you do enough, you will be enough. When you decide that it is ok to live life your way, you can stop being busy and start doing things that matter. You can talk about your meaningful day instead of ranting about your busy schedule. Decide today that you are enough, even if you never do anything, accomplish anything or produce anything ever again. You are enough.
This analysis leads to an important conclusion. Whether you’re a student or well along in your career, if your goal is to build a remarkable life, then busyness and exhaustion should be your enemy. If you’re chronically stressed and up late working, you’re doing something wrong. You’re the average players from the Universität der Künste — not the elite. You’ve built a life around hard to do work, not hard work.
Fascinating study.
In a world where everything is a click away, and in a world where everyone can have their own YouTube channel, ten blogs and a thousand email accounts… the only thing that’s scarce is attention.
Bob Marley:
Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more.
You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are.
The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do.
Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon.
You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.
Leo Babauta on minimalist protest:
The minimalist might protest simply by not buying corporate products. Don’t eat at corporate restaurants, or buy corporate coffee, or buy corporate clothes. Don’t have logos on everything you own. Don’t watch corporate entertainment — make your own! Find non-corporate ways to spend time with people. Find non-corporate ways to celebrate Christmas. Find non-corporate music to listen to, or create your own.
It’s possible. We still have our humanity. We can still breathe, but first we must create some breathing room.
Frank Chimero in his post, Elegance, Lightness, and Nothing:
There’s an old story that people like telling, untrue as it may be, about writing implements in space. The American space program discovered that normal ink pens didn’t work on missions (no gravity in orbit to pull down the ink), so they spent millions to research and develop a pen that could write upside down. The Russians, the story goes, brought a pack of pencils.
Love that story.
Devir Kahan offers some tips on consolidating your calendars.
I switched from Google Calendar to iCloud recently, and I’d been meaning to switch to one calendar for all events. While having a different colored calendar for Fun Events, Family Events, School Events, Due Dates, Appointments, etc. is nice to look at, it just adds an extra step to event creation. For me, it also undermined the efficiency of apps like Calvetica and Agenda, which are designed to create events with as few taps as possible.
Devir’s method works flawlessly, only takes a minute, and removes considerable friction in any calendar app.
Hello. I’m Andrew Marvin. This is my website.
The Flowdown is a thrice-semesterly podcast featuring conversations with Three Rivers students, faculty, and staff.
Listen to and follow the show for free in your favorite podcast app: