Saturday, February 19, 2022
Downtown Newark, Ohio
Last night, My Sweetie and I ventured out to 1922 On The Square for a delightful meal and conversation. We then ambled over to the 31 West venue to share the rest of the evening with bluesy Bettye LaVette and her very talented band. A grand time was had............................
Friday, February 18, 2022
On progress........................
You could say higher spending is the goal. But all new luxuries become necessities in due time as expectations reset. I suspect part of the reason people don’t feel better off is because financial progress is better measured by wealth, not income. And wealth is just the accumulation of income you haven’t spent. So a lot of people are the financial equivalent of the exerciser who burns 500 calories then immediately offsets it with dessert and is frustrated by the lack of progress despite working so hard.
Wisdom...............................
So this is all I ask: Don’t be broken. Like what you like. Dislike what you dislike. BUT keep an eye on reality at all times and watch carefully for signs that you have overreacted. Adjust and move along. We’ll get through this.
Even more wisdom.......................
82. People who favor a "philosopher-king" assume that person would share their philosophy.
99. Do not feel compelled to finish a mistake merely because you have started it.
148. You could base an entire philosophy of life on what to ignore.
175. Never assume that people dislike a crisis.
388. If you do not have a stack of unread books at home then there is no hope for you.
Unfolds..............................
Each year we learn more about the incredible complexity of our universe. The mind staggers at the intimation of billions of galaxies, each made up of billions of stars, slowly revolving in every direction for unimaginable distances. And inside each grain of matter supercolliders reveal ever-receding constellations of strange particles streaking along mysterious orbits. In the midst of this kind of stupendous forces a human life unfolds in what is less than a split second on the cosmic scale. Yet, as far as we are concerned, it is this, our own short life, filled with its few precious moments, that counts for more than all the galaxies, black holes, and exploding stars put together.
-Mihaly Csikszentmihali, The Evolving Self: A Psychology For The Third Millennium
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Happy Anniversary Sweetie......................
to stay the course....................
Yesterday, in the middle of an internal tempest—a raging internal debate about my own capacities—I walked to the coffee shop down the road for a treat. On the way, I noticed that the cool air and warm sun seemed perfectly untroubled by the momentous issues and feelings that were swirling through my body.
Nearing the coffee shop, I looked across the street to the mini-mall that has a head store, a Curves franchise, a beauty salon, and some other shop I can't recall. There, in the window of the salon, was a hand-written sign saying: "Thank you for your devotion."
Now I know there is some logical explanation of why they put that sign in their window that has nothing to do with me. But, in that moment, I knew it was just for me. The universe had decided I needed some direct encouragement to stay the course—to have faith through the turbulence.
I laughed out loud, made a small bow, and got a warm cup of foggy-morning coffee with room for cream.
-David Rynick, This Truth Never Fails: A Zen Memoir in Four Seasons
Fifty years ago...................................
re-contextualized..................
A key to making Love unconditional is the willingness to forgive. With forgiveness, events and people are re-contextualized as simply "limited"—not "bad" or "unlovable." With humility we are willing to relinquish our perception of a past event.
-David Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway Of Surrender
no rift or cranny...........................
29. For a life that is sound and secure, cultivate a thorough insight into things and discover their essence, matter, and cause; put your whole heart into doing what is just, and speaking what is true; and for the rest, know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Twelve
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
strangely enough.......................
Practically speaking, if timesaving devices really saved time, there would be more time available to us now than ever before in history. But, strangely enough, we seem to have less time that even a few years ago.
-Benjamin Hoff, The Tao Of Pooh
this great obsession.............
It's really great fun to go someplace where there are no timesaving devices because, when you do, you find that you have lots of time. Elsewhere, you're too busy working to pay for machines to save you time so you won't have to work so hard.
The main problem with this great obsession for Saving Time is very simple: you can't save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.
-Benjamin Hoff, The Tao Of Pooh
Uh-oh................................
In any case, Posidonius would later recall with disapproval that the abundance of Syria in those days made its people "free from the bother of the necessities of life, and so were forever meeting for a continual life of feasting and their gymnasia turned into baths." He wrote of the "drunken ambition" of the local tyrants. Things were good, but good times rarely makes for great people, or great governments.
-Ryan Holiday/Stephen Hanselman, Lives Of The Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius
Monday, February 14, 2022
Stuff like this.........................
.........is what makes Chris Lynch so special:
Still would love to see a sitcom about Flo from Progressive dating the Mayhem guy from the All-State commercials. Think that would be fun and also think Flo's crazy girlfriend persona would eventually grind Mayhem to dust.
Fifty years ago.....................................
most universal cause....................
This disposition to admire, and almost worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are only due wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.
-Adam Smith, The Theory Of Moral Sentiments
never bend..............................
On 1 April 1851 Oscar (Claude) Monet entered Le Havre secondary school. "I was born unruly", he admitted later. "I could never bend to any rule, even as a very small child . . . the school always seemed to me like a prison, and I could never resign myself to live there even for the space of four hours a day." In the school records he appears as "a very good-natured boy, who gets on well with his fellow pupils".
the kindness of strangers...............
She winked and walked away. Trashed the cups and moved over to her workstation. She sat down. All I could see was the back of her head. I moved into my corner and leaned up against the hard bars. I'd been a lonely wanderer for six months. I'd learned something. Like Blanch in that old movie, a wanderer depends on the kindness of strangers. Not for anything specific or material. For morale. I gazed at the back of Roscoe's head and smiled. I liked her.
-Lee Child, from the first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor
beyond technique.........................
The gesture is the incarnation of the verb; that is, an action is a thought made manifest.
A small gesture betrays us, so we must polish everything, think about details, learn the technique in such a way that it becomes intuition. Intuition has nothing to do with routine, but with a state of mind that is beyond technique.
So, after much practicing, we no longer think about the necessary movements; they become part of our own existence. But for this to happen, you must practice and practice.
And if that isn't enough, you must repeat and practice.
-Paulo Coelho, The Archer
Opening paragraphs....................
For forty years my act consisted of one joke. And then she died.
Her real name was Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen. Gracie Allen. But for those forty years audiences in small-time and big-time vaudeville houses and movie theaters and at home listening to their radios or watching television knew her, and loved her, simply as Gracie. Just Gracie. She was on first name basis with America. Lovable, confused Gracie, whose Uncle Barnum Allen had the water drained from his swimming pool before diving one hundred feet into it because he knew how to dive but didn't know how to swim, and who once claimed to have grown grapefruits that were so big it only took eight to make a dozen. Gracie, who confessed to cheating on her driver's test by copying from the car in front of her, who decided horses must be deaf because she saw so few of them at concerts, who admitted making ice cubes with hot water so she would be prepared in case the water heater broke, and who realized it was much better for a quiz show contestant to know the questions beforehand rather than the answers after because, "The people who know the answers come and go, but the man who asks the questions comes back every week." Just Gracie, who stated with absolute certainty, "I've got so many brains I haven't used some of them yet."
-George Burns, Gracie: A Love Story
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