Contribute your suggestion without having built a body of work, without evidence of significant expertise and without being willing to take responsibility for what happens next.

It’s a form of yelling from the bleachers.

~ Seth Godin from, https://seths.blog/2022/05/the-grandstanders/

I was totally this person. Once I saw what was going on and I could work on owning and eliminating this aspect of my behavior. Awareness (after discovery), ownership (after reflection), and efficacy. The red-flag is when I’m queueing the words, “You know what you should…” for speaking. Stop. Stop stop stop. It’s like the humorous but often–true aphorism that nothing you say before the word, “but” matters. I never (okay, fine, I’m still working on it) say whatever was about to come after, “You know what you should do…” Because why ever say that?

I like to give a hat-tip to Angie Flynn-McIver any time I start talking about intention, as I’m about to. I realized that my intention behind that thing I no longer say was to demonstrate how much I knew. It doesn’t matter to the other person how much I know. What might matter to them is whether or not I can help them. It’s potentially better if I engage with the intention of being helpful. How would saying, “you should change your menu…” ever be helpful to the wait-staff, to the manager, to the chef or owner? The menu is beyond their control, or they have already thought about it way more than I have and have vastly deeper domain knowledge. If my intention is (as it now is) to be helpful, I should be paying attention for signs subtle or direct that someone would like help. Only then might I have something useful to add, but probably not.

Environment matters

In the wrong environment, your creativity is compromised. At 30, I assumed my strengths would always be with me regardless of where I applied them. I was wrong. Truth is, your environment matters.

~ Scott Belsky

Basic values

There are some consistencies in what we all value. For example, most of us tend to prioritize caring for others more highly than dominating and controlling others—the latter two “are among the least important values to most people in most societies.”

~ Chris Bailey from, https://alifeofproductivity.com/there-are-just-10-basic-values/

I really enjoy sipping a cup of tea and taking a stroll through the gardens of others’ minds. Seeing the topiaries they’ve created never ceases to amaze me. Integration of knowledge is a hard problem (the hardest of all as a mere mortal?) Being able to see how someone has organized their thinking helps me examine how I’ve organized my thinking. Certainly, there are gardens I don’t bother visiting. But generally, being open and curious has led me to countless conversations of both the actual kind and the kind to which Niccolò Machiavelli refers.

It’s not important

It is difficult to imagine what wonderful changes would occur to human lives if people would stop poisoning themselves with brandy, wine, tobacco and drugs. […] Some people say, “It is not important if you drink or smoke.” If it is of no importance, then why not just stop, if you know that you harm yourself and, with your example, others?

~ Leo Tolstoy

Sometimes it’s just reading

How she used to smoke in his office, back when the University allowed that in campus buildings. He didn’t smoke, but allowed her to as she sat on the sofa across from his desk. Or rather, he didn’t object, and even set out a little dessert plate as an ashtray. Maybe because it gave them both a pretense for talking longer, for the extra duration of a cigarette, then two, then three. So that by the time she graduated, she was a chain-smoker.

~ Ling Ma from, https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/05/ling-ma-office-hours-short-story/629852/

Usually I have some observation to make about the things I share herein. I’ll find myself reading something, an interesting idea flits into my belfry, and I’m momentarily enthralled. It’s at that point that I kick that item into my process for coming out, here.

This was different. I stubbornly reread that first sentence arguing internally about grammar— Decided it didn’t matter because I liked the cut of the paragraph overall— And then realized I was half-way through the entire thing—

Sometimes I just share interesting things I find lying about.

Emotional turmoil

Interactions with people are the major source of emotional turmoil, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The problem is that we are continually judging people, wishing they were something that they are not. We want to change them. We want them to think and act a certain way, most often the way we think and act. And because this is not possible, because everyone is different, we are continually frustrated and upset.

~ Robert Greene

It’s been a while

But it’s also just fun. For me, at least. I enjoy seeing how humans from thousands of years ago tried to get their bearings in the world compared to humans living today. When you read, study, and talk about philosophy, you’re taking part in a conversation that’s been going on for millennia. And conversation is fun. I love a good conversation.

~ Brett McKay from, https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/reading/the-great-conversation-philosophy-textbook/

It’s been a minute since I’ve purchased a textbook. It’s nice to see that they’re no longer stupidly over-priced— oh wait, no sorry. They’re insanely priced. Fortunately, I was able to bop on over to abebooks.com and find a copy of The Great Conversation for about $5 depending on what condition you want; There’s like a hundred copies of that book available.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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