My life is always better when I treat myself as if I were someone I care about.

~ Hugh Hollowell from, https://www.soverybeautiful.org/how-we-treat-ourselves/

I’m really good at digging in and schlepping through the hard work. I’m really good at figuring out how to make three strange pieces fit together so these four people can make some progress on those five incompatible goals. Lift heavy things. Break a sweat. Get shit done. Go above and beyond. Get this letter to Garcia. Abuse English.

Know what I suck at? Treating myself as if I were someone I care about. Can I say, “no, thank you,” to some opportunity because I’m already overwhelmed? Can I take a nap in my hammock, without first spending significant time weighing the merits of giving in to passing out from exhaustion, versus just. work. a little. more. Can I choose to go do that fun thing with my friends, when my weekly plan says I should get some peak heart-rate workout time today? I’m often heard preaching about self-care, taking time to look back and think, “if this isn’t nice…” but, can I actually do those things?

True bravery

The bravery founded on hope of recompense, fear of punishment, experience of success, on rage, or on ignorance of danger, is but common bravery, and does not deserve the name. True bravery proposes a just end; measures the dangers, and meets the result with calmness and unyielding decision.

~ Francois de la Noue

We almost certainly can’t help

It’s not like, “oh, well this thing came up and I was easily able to bring it up with the first person I came across. Luckily, after revealing this deeply troubling issue of mine this person understood me correctly, didn’t interject themselves into the situation, cared about it as deeply as me, didn’t run away, didn’t deflect with “just be positive”, knew exactly the right things to say to me and left me with actionable advice. I will never have to face this issue again”. But I think that’s exactly how some people think it goes.

~ “Casey” from, https://www.allthingsare1.com/2019/05/30/help/

There’s much in that article worth reading slowly. The phrase, “cared about it as deeply as me,” is probably the most important phrase in the entire piece. When one has a serious problem (presuming you have a problem of which you are aware,) there is literally no one that cares as much as one does. That’s how it has to be since each of us is the main character only in our own narrative. That problem is always right there in the foreground, unescapable. For everyone else (…the therapist who sees me once a week for an hour? …the physician who did one operation?) To everyone else, the problem is simply another thing in the narrative they observe outside of themselves. The lesson I take from this is that quite often there is absolutely nothing we can do to help. But every once in a great while, there is something small we can do to help. Do that.

Go forward

I’m not trying to sound like Mr. Smiley Positive Guy. That guy ignores the hard truth. That guy thinks a positive attitude will solve problems. It won’t. But neither will dwelling on the problem. No. Accept reality, but focus on the solution. Take that issue, take that setback, take that problem, and turn it into something good. Go forward. And, if you’re part of a team, that attitude will spread throughout.

~ Jocko Willink

Heroism

Heroism is more fun but less reliable than good planning.

~ Seth Godin from, https://seths.blog/2023/03/simple-techniques-for-complex-projects/

It’s a good point.

And it took me a long time to realize that heroism isn’t even fun. Long ago I used to rush in, sometimes literally, and save the day. I’ve played the theme song from Mission: Impossible while rushing to fix computers in the middle of the night. One time, although I wasn’t rushing but was en route to fix things, I was nearly killed in a car crash, in the middle of the night, on a highway that was deserted, until I was hit from behind, at extreme speed, by two people who were racing side-by-side. I think I just channeled Proust. I digress. Where was I?

It took me a long time to realize that heroism isn’t even fun. Years later, I was reading M. B. Stanier‘s The Coaching Habit (which I recommend, but I more highly recommend his, The Advice Trap) where I found his mention of the “Karpman Drama Triangle”. I’m not even sure if that’s a real thing; It should be a real thing and I’m not going to spoil it by actually looking. Karpman, apparently, identifies the “Rescuer” as one of the three types of people in his dramatic triangle. (When I first read that I thought, “Oh my gawd, I used to always be that person. I’m so glad I’ve totally outgrown that,” while chuckling nervously.) The Rescuer’s core belief is, “Don’t fight, don’t worry, let me jump in and take it on and fix it.” Crap. I’m pretty sure I still have this problem.

Failure

Failure is not necessarily durable. Remember that the things that they fire you for when you are young are the same things that they give lifetime achievement awards for when you’re old.

~ Francis Ford Coppola

Curating your sources

Some people are highly motivated. They will curate their information sources and follow whoever provides the most value. That will likely include some independent writers (maybe “good” ones or maybe “bad” ones).

But most people aren’t all that motivated. They just want to get information quickly and go live their lives. So they get their information in three ways:

~ “Dynomight” from, https://dynomight.net/copypasta/

Whenever “the Internet” comes up (including discussion of anything that runs _via_the Internet, without the Internet itself getting a specific mention) I trot out this handy aphorism: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing us that anything related to the Internet was easy to understand. In this article, the anon-/epon-ymous “Dynomight” goes deep into why the mainstream (read: online media platforms that gets all the traffic) winds up being this solidly middling quality of content. To get there, there’s a deep dive involving tourists finding restaurants and a you-must-not-miss mention of Gell-Mann amnesia.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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