A guru-level reminder..........

.....................................................from Bill Murray:

Step seven: Remember that you are you and no one else is.
The night’s final question was “What’s it like being you?” Murray responded with a guru-level reminder about the importance of being present, which we’ll reprint in full and embed in audio form below.

I think if I’m gonna answer that question, because it is a hard question, I’d like to suggest that we all answer that question right now, while I’m talking. I’ll continue. Believe me, I won’t shut up. I have a microphone. But let’s all ask ourselves that question right now. What does it feel like to be you? What does it feel like to be you? Yeah. It feels good to be you, doesn’t it? It feels good, because there’s one thing that you are—you’re the only one that’s you, right? So you’re the only one that’s you, and we get confused sometimes—or I do, I think everyone does—you try to compete. You think, Dammit, someone else is trying to be me. Someone else is trying to be me. But I don’t have to armor myself against those people; I don’t have to armor myself against that idea if I can really just relax and feel content in this way and this regard. If I can just feel, just think now: How much do you weigh? This is a thing I like to do with myself when I get lost and I get feeling funny. How much do you weigh? Think about how much each person here weighs and try to feel that weight in your seat right now, in your bottom right now. Parts in your feet and parts in your bum. Just try to feel your own weight, in your own seat, in your own feet. OK? So if you can feel that weight in your body, if you can come back into the most personal identification, a very personal identification, which is: I am. This is me now. Here I am, right now. This is me now. Then you don’t feel like you have to leave, and be over there, or look over there. You don’t feel like you have to rush off and be somewhere. There’s just a wonderful sense of well-being that begins to circulate up and down, from your top to your bottom. Up and down from your top to your spine. And you feel something that makes you almost want to smile, that makes you want to feel good, that makes you want to feel like you could embrace yourself.

So what’s it like to be me? You can ask yourself, What’s it like to be me? You know, the only way we’ll ever know what it’s like to be you is if you work your best at being you as often as you can, and keep reminding yourself: That’s where home is.

Thanks Chris

About all this connectivity.......

Solitude Deprivation:

         A state in which you spend close to zero time alone with
         your own thoughts and free from input from other minds.  

. . . this prioritization of communication over reflection becomes a source of serious concern.  For one thing, when you avoid solitude, you miss out on the positive things it brings you:  the ability to clarify hard problems, to regulate your emotions, to build moral courage, and to strengthen relationships.  If you suffer from chronic solitude deprivation, therefore, the quality of your life degrades.

-Cal Newport,  Digital Minimalism:  Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Fifty years ago................................

The Beatles.................................................All You Need Is Love

Fifty years ago..........................

The Beatles......................................................Yellow Submarine

Opening paragraphs.................

      The world had changes.  Paradise had changed.  Most significantly for Jesse Stone, his life had been turned upside down.  He was a man wise enough to know that live comes with only one guarantee—that it would someday end.  As a Robbery-Homicide detective for the LAPD and as the longtime chief of the Paradise PD he had seen ample proof of that solitary guarantee written in blood, in wrecked bodies, and in grief.  It wasn't that long ago that his fiancee's murder had given Jesse all the proof he could ever need.  He remembered an old Hebrew proverb about how people's planning for their futures was God's favorite joke.  Still, at an age when most men were steeped in haunting regrets of what could have been and what they might have done, Jesse had been given the most unexpected gift a loner like him could receive.  Cole Slayton, Jesse's son, had arrived in town just as Paradise was shedding its old skin and transforming itself into the place Jesse was currently seeing through the night-darkened windows of his latest Ford Explorer.

Reed Farrel Coleman, Robert B. Parker's The Bitterest Pill

Count me among those who like it when the estate of a dead author hires a living author to continue the lives of the dead author's characters.  Coleman writes nothing like Parker, as evidenced by the opening paragraph, but he writes well.  Hope his sixth effort with Jesse Store is as enjoyable as his first five.

On sugar highs and meaningful glows.....

The sugar high of convenience is fleeting and the sting of missing out dulls rapidly, but the meaningful glow that comes from taking charge of what claims your time and attention is something that persists.

-Cal Newport,  Digital Minimalism:  Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Fifty years ago....................

The Beatles.......................................................All Together Now

Fifty years ago..............................

The Beatles........................................................It's All Too Much

the fleeting illusion of permanence.......

................................that is the origin of all our suffering.

-Carlo Rovelli,  The Order of Time

Thanks Tony

Fetters.................................

     Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
     These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
     And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
     And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

-Kahlil Gibran,  On Freedom, The Prophet

Wonderful! We can only hope.................

........................................................that this is true.

Fifty years ago...........................

The Beatles.............................................................Hey Bulldog

Fifty years ago............................

The Beatles...............................................March Of The Meanies

Freedom 101......................

1.  Stop worrying about what others think: that’s an instant path to freedom.

-Nicholas Bate

Still learning........................

via

Many truths................................

There are a few things that are so obviously true, and true for everyone, that no one argues about them. But most stuff isn’t black or white. Most of the stuff we argue about usually have many truths – several “right” answers depending on the person and situation – and we’re actually arguing over the other person not having the same goals, needs, risks, and wants as you do. It’s a mess. And the only thing worse than thinking everyone who disagrees with you is wrong is the opposite: being persuaded by the advice of those who need or want something you don’t.

This is common in finance. You can count the number of things that are certain on one hand, so the “right” answer to most finance questions is just however much uncertainty you want to accept, which is not only different for everyone but constantly changing for everyone. People don’t agree on a lot of big investing points because they shouldn’t.

-Morgan Housel, as he starts this blog post

To quote a well-known blogger..........

"The 21st century isn't turning out the way I'd hoped":

“Within a very few years, every vulnerable public building, sports stadium or city center will have to install some kind of drone defense,” James Adams writes at Spectator USA.

Fifty years ago......................

The Beatles.................................................................Sea of Time