7 for Sunday

I’ve been struggling of late. The Police quote below is very apropos. I think I’ve optimized too much of the frivolity out of life. The cure, obviously is to systematize my reading! …no, just kidding. For the first 30+ years I was a voracious reader of fiction; mostly science-fiction, but also straight up classics, literature…

An extremely fast way to get to mindfulness—this is the fastest way I’ve found so far—is to think: This may well be the last time I do this. The last walk. The last boulder I scramble upon. The last conversation with this person. The last conversation ever. The last word I type. The last sentence…

I sometimes talk about “moving forward” as a default mindset I have. For example, all other things being equal, go to the airport and wait in the terminal, not a home. But in the end, it all boils down to my having deeply apprehended the lesson that the first 90% of everything is vastly easier…

Calm technology. Slow thought. Peace. We need a philosophy of Slow Thought to ease thinking into a more playful and porous dialogue about what it means to live. ~ Vincenzo Di Nicola from, https://aeon.co/essays/take-your-time-the-seven-pillars-of-a-slow-thought-manifesto We can each do some things, and not everything. Choose wisely. Journaling I find that whatever hindrances occur I write just about…

I’ve recently started reading a book about the importance of having exactly one thing upon which to focus. As with priority, becoming priorities, focusing on exactly one thing soon becomes two, and then three. Suddenly, it’s 23 things. And since the first 90% of any thing is vastly easier than the second 90%, in short order I’m busy, overwhelmed, sprinting…

Without over-explaining how the soup gets made, I’ll just mention that this, and the third, things for you to savor this week are exceptionally nerdy this week. I’m not sure whether I’m more excited by the contents of this essay (which to be fair, I only skimmed) or the fact that it’s from like 1992.…

Work ethic. The value in labor is not that it’s hard. The combination of our minds and our might, our values and our ideals, is what raises labor from simply effort expended, to purposes transcendent. What people don’t realize is that if you’re buried in your email inbox instead of doing your most important work, you…

Opinions are strongly divided about Pressfield’s concept of Resistance. And yes, some days I do find myself over in the Resistance-is-bullshit encampment thinking: No, Resistance is not real. It is important and meaningful for me to be spending my time rearranging these deck chairs, polishing this silverware, sorting these shelved books, getting the edge of…

I’m a brooder. Ruminating on one’s problems can be good, if one is actually trying to understand the situation and is seeking solutions. But brooding, that’s just ruminating without the potential for change. Brooding is simply going around and around on the same old thoughts. Nobody else needs to endure my negative thoughts. ~ Nate…

Finish this sentence: I am the sort of person who… Here’s a different way to look at it, one that we can broaden into an insight about adult decisions about where to work, where to live, who to hang out with. There are two parts: Are the people this place attracts the sort of people…