lip sync forever
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
21............................
.....................................tiny lessons:
7. What you refuse to do matters more than what you do.
8. The best ideas don’t come from headquarters. They come from people close to the problem.
9. Leverage comes from being willing to walk away.
Cal Newport............
............on the disingenuousness of "vibe reporting":
The goal of this type of article is to create a pre-ordained vibe, not to get to the bottom of what’s really happening.
My parents.....................
.......................and Rob's parents could have been neighbors. The one big thing missing from his list is the command, "Go play outside."
Cultural Offering.................
..............introduces us to John Dabell and his 200 reasons:
121. I’m not here to rush healing, I’m here to honour it.
122. I’m not here to be untouched, I’m here to be unbroken.
123. I’m not here to wait for hope, I’m here to practice it daily.
Think I have mastered #37
Monday, February 2, 2026
inclind...........................
Love to faults is always blind
Always is to joy inclind
Lawless wingd & unconfind
And breaks all chains from every mind
Always is to joy inclind
Lawless wingd & unconfind
And breaks all chains from every mind
Deceit to secresy confind
Lawful cautious & refind
To every thing but interest blind
And forges fetters for the mind
Lawful cautious & refind
To every thing but interest blind
And forges fetters for the mind
Teachers.....................
Everyone loves to teach, but rarely do any of us take unsought advice well, and even more rarely are we truly teachable. Being teachable means being open to learn. In order to learn, one must listen, and we learn to listen only if we know the most important thing—that we do not know everything, that we do not have "all the answers." . . .
In the long history of spirituality, those recognized as somehow spiritually "great" have consistently been called "Teacher"—they help others to learn, to become teachable. Spiritual teachers (who are never "experts") do three things: First and foremost, they listen. Second, they ask questions. Third, they tell stories. Each practice reflects the acceptance of not having all the answers, and each teaches the essential truth of spirituality's open-endedness.
-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
Nostalgia.....................
You wouldn’t have seen social engineering in the Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons, but you would have been far better entertained.
The Master said...............
To a disciple who was forever complaining about others the Master said, "If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth."
-Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
Sunday, February 1, 2026
even more red rocks.............
What us Ohioans appreciate most about taking pictures of the red rocks in Sedona is the startling blue sky. Hard to come by in Ohio in January and February.
On rationality...............
Rationality is thus an a priori assumption rather than a description of the world.
the pilgrimage...................
These spiritual masters understood that a spirituality that begins in the acceptance that one is not "in control" necessarily involves a flexible attitude, which requires a mistrust of the rigidities of certainty. If life is "unmanageable"—and, of course, at time it is—there will necessarily be sudden surprises, unexpected twists and turns, unforeseen detours. In recognizing spirituality's—life's—open-endedness, we learn to be flexible and adaptable, thus protecting ourselves from the tendency to want to fix things "once and for all." Hold fast to the "now" means "hang on and enjoy the ride," for we never know (and we can't control) where the vicissitudes of the pilgrimage that is spirituality will take us.
The modern mind—so enthralled by technique, so oriented to efficient production and "bottom-line" results, so obsessed with comfort and predictability—approaches the concept of pilgrimage with wariness and puzzlement. Why backtrack and sidestep when you can march straight ahead? The word vicissitudes, with its promise of ups and downs, its suggestion of successes and failures, its reminder that we cannot "march straight ahead," is unsettling and disorienting for those who equate progress with perfection.
-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
one rep........................
Some days I nail it, and others I fall short, but the difference now is grace. Growth takes time, and strength—real strength—is built one rep and one meal at a time. This is so frustrating when we are all promised that we can be shredded in twenty-one days.
-Shannon McDonald, from here
one more step.....................
So much of life seems to come back to courage, doesn't it. Being willing to go one more step before you quit. One step deeper into your relationships, one step further in being faithful to yourself, to your God. What if everybody took one more step to salvage their marriage, to secure their own character, to not sell themselves short? One more step by enough of us can change the world.
-Matthew McConaughey, Poems & Prayers
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Good form........................
Good artists are people who can stick things together so that they stay stuck. They know how to gather things into formal arrangements that are intelligible, memorable, and lasting. Good forms confer health upon the things that they gather together. Farms, families and communities are forms of art just as are poems, paintings and symphonies. None of these things would exist if we did not make them. We can make them either well, or poorly; this choice is another thing that we make.
-Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle
pursuit.........................
Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom; and where better to discover the truth than at a symposion, where wine does away with inhibitions to expose truths, both pleasant and unpleasant? "Wine reveals what is hidden," declared Eratosthenes, a Greek philosopher who lived in the third century BCE. . . . The most famous example is Plato's Symposium, in which the participants, including Plato's depiction of his mentor, Socrates, discuss the subject of love. After an entire night's drinking, everyone has fallen asleep except Socrates, who remains apparently unaffected by the wine he has drunk, and sets off on his day's business. Plato depicts him as the ideal drinker: He uses wine in the pursuit of truth but remains in total control of himself and suffers no ill effects.
Tom Standage: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Us history majors................
.......think this is good news, but what do we know?
Yesterday's release of the December M2 money supply figures showed a continuation of the sub-6% growth trend that has been in place since inflation peaked in mid-2022. Despite over three years of very sluggish money growth, economic growth has exceeded most expectations. Why? Because money that was stockpiled during the Covid winter has been steadily released to fuel increased economic activity, while at the same time inflation has remained relatively low and federal deficits are shrinking.
The monetary and inflation fundamentals are pretty darn good these days, with the possible exception of the dollar, which has weakened on the margin in recent months. I am not worried about that, however, because the dollar remains substantially stronger than its long-term average in trade-weighted and inflation-adjusted terms. I'm not worried either about the surge in gold prices, which have recently surpassed $5,300/oz and appear to exist in an alternate universe. Abstracting from gold, commodity prices are well-behaved and show no sign whatsoever of inflationary behavior.
-as cut-and-pasted from the Calafia Beach Pundit
differentiated...............
History repeats itself in the large because human nature changes with geological leisureliness, and man is equipped to respond in stereotyped ways to frequently occurring situations and stimuli like hunger, danger, and sex. But in a developed and complex civilization individuals are more differentiated and unique than in a primitive society, and many situations contain novel circumstances requiring modifications of instinctive response; custom recedes, reasoning spreads; the results are less predictable. There is no certainty that the future will repeat the past. Every year is an adventure.
-Will & Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History
again and again................
As the fourth-century monk Macarius emphasized, all improvement in spirituality is "a matter of falling and getting up again, building something up and then being knocked down again."
-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
Friday, January 30, 2026
younger....................
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
though with difficulty.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
though with difficulty.
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another)
And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.
And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.
-Mary Oliver, To Begin With, The Sweet Grass
meaning...................
. . . there are three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love. . . .
The most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.
-Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
willingness........................
A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged. The only way we can be certain that our map of reality is valid is to expose it to the criticism and challenge of other map-makers. . . .
The tendency to avoid challenge is so omnipresent in human beings that it can properly be considered a characteristic of human nature. But calling it natural does not mean it is essential or beneficial or unchangeable behavior. . . . Another characteristic of human nature—perhaps the one that makes us most human—is our capacity to do the unnatural, to transcend and hence transform our own nature.
-M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
one thing......................
To a visitor who described himself as a seeker after Truth the Master said, "If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else."
"I know. An overwhelming passion for it."
"No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong."
-Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
Thursday, January 29, 2026
Us humans..................
Traditional software is predictable, reliable, and follows a strict set of rules. When properly build and debugged, software yields the same outcomes every time. AI, on the other hand, is anything but predictable and reliable. It can surprise us with novel solutions, forget its own abilities, and hallucinate incorrect answers. This unpredictability and unreliability can result in a fascinating array of interactions. I have been startled by the creative solutions AI develops in response to thorny problems, only to be stymied as the AI completely refuses to address the same issue when I ask it again. . . .
AI doesn't act like software, but it does act like a human being. I am not suggesting that AI systems are sentient like humans, or that they will ever be. Instead, I'm proposing a pragmatic approach: treat AI as if it were human, because, in many ways, it behaves like one. This mindset, which echoes my "treat it like a person" principle of AI, can significantly improve your understanding of how and when to use AI in a practical, if not technical, sense.
-Ethan Mollick, Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI
connection and support............
We've been saying that human beings are social creatures; in essence this simply means that each of us as individuals cannot provide everything we need for ourselves. We can't confide in ourselves, romance ourselves, mentor ourselves, or help ourselves move a sofa. We need others to interact with and to help us, and we flourish when we provide that same connection and support to others. This process of giving and receiving is the foundation of a meaningful life. How we feel about our social universe is directly related to the kinds of things we are receiving from and giving to other people.
-Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
seek..................
Spirituality is one of those realities that you have only so long as you seek it; as soon as you think you have it, you've lost it. In rediscovering this basic spiritual insight, the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous tapped the essence of open-endedness that characterizes a spirituality of imperfection. Spirituality is boundless, unable to be fenced in: We do not capture it; it captures us. As much as we might like to "wrap things up," to lock spirituality in and hold it fast, it will forever escape our grasp.
-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
Are these numbers correct.......?
Compare this with a closed system, such as healthcare and hospitals. That industry takes a very different approach to dealing with errors; not surprisingly, it produces vastly inferior results.
How different? Syed notes the remarkable contrast between air travel and preventable medical errors: After heart disease and cancer, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in America. As many as a half-million fatalities in the US, at a cost estimated at $17 billion a year, are due to errors. Peter Pronovost, a clinician at Johns Hopkins Medical School, wondered how we would respond if two 747 jumbo jets fell out of the sky each day, killing roughly 900 people. That's how many people die daily from medical mistakes.
Why is health care so different from aviation? First, there is little publicly available data and no standardized review process when errors occur. Whatever self-evaluation takes place is private, sealed, and not readily available for public scrutiny. Some people believe doctors are infallible saviors, creating a reluctance to admit error. Insurance costs, litigation, and protecting reputations reduce the industry's desire for public accounting. In short, healthcare is everything that aviation is not.
-Barry Ritholtz, How Not To Invest: The Ideas, Numbers, and Behaviors That Destroy Wealth—And How To Avoid Them
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
