raising the ceiling.......................

 

Self-care creates impact.

Your body and mind are the most valuable tools you have to produce anything. Neglecting them puts a ceiling on everything else.

-Shane Parrish, from this edition

If you need a reason to have Kindle...........

 

.............this is probably reason enough.

two ways.......................

 

     Let me reiterate the two ways to use money: One is as a tool to live a better life.  The other is as a yardstick of success to measure yourself against other people.  The first is quiet and personal, the second is loud and performative.  It's so obvious which leads to a happier life.

-Morgan Housel, The Art of Spending Money

Tools..............................

 

.................................of versatility and adaptability.

creeping concealment.................

      The disappearance of tools from our common education is the first step toward a wider ignorance of the world of artifacts we inhabit.  And, in fact, an engineering culture has developed in recent years in which the object is to "hide the works," rendering many of the devices we depend on every day unintelligible to direct inspection.  Lift the hood on some cars now (especially German ones) and the engine appears a bit like the shimmering, featureless obelisk that so enthralled the proto-humans in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Essentially, there is another hood under the hood.  This creeping concealment takes various forms.  The fasteners holding small appliances together now often require esoteric screwdrivers not commonly available, apparently to prevent the curious or the angry from interrogating the innards.  By way of contrast, older readers will recall that until recent decades, Sears catalogues included blown-up parts diagrams and conceptual schematics for all appliances and many other mechanical goods.  It was simply taken for granted that such information would be demanded by the consumer.

-Matthew B. Crawford,  Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

Ed. Note:  As a college junior, my parents, concerned about my apparent aimlessness, had me take one of those personality tests designed to uncover what profession one might be good at.  All I remember about the results was a warning that I should avoid anything to do with "spatial relations."  That made abundant sense, as I was totally lost viewing a "conceptual schematic."  Would have been easier to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Here's a mental framework..............

 In a world where the economy becomes a key tool that great powers use to prosecute their conflicts, it’s completely impossible to just “stick to the economics”.

-Noah Smith, from here  

From the always interesting................

 .....................................Kevin Kelly:

Our humanity is something we invented over the course of a million years. It’s our first and most important “tool”. In fact, we ourselves — humans — are the first wild creations we domesticated, before wheat, corn, dogs, cows and chickens. We’ve been modifying ourselves, and our genes, since day 1. It’s true that most of our behavior is primitive, unchanged, ancient, and no different than our animal cousins. But not all. And it is these different bits that make us human.

Action too...................................

 "Long-range vision and strategic planning are great tools, but we need to get some things done before lunch!"

-culled from John G. Miller's QBQ!: The Question Behind The Question

Just think................................

       Most of us take pride in our knowledge and expertise, and in staying true to our beliefs and opinions.  That makes great sense in a stable world, where we get rewarded for having the conviction of our ideas.  The problem is that we live in a rapidly changing world, where we need to spend as much time rethinking as we do thinking.

      Rethinking is a skill set, but it's also a mindset.  We already have many of the mental tools we need.  We just have to remember to get them out of the shed and remove the rust.

-Adam Grant:  Think Again:  The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Instead.............................

Far too often we are guilty of wishing for a tool instead of wishing for a solution.  We think that innovation must come only with new tools.  Instead, first consider the innovative ways to use the tools we already have.  We may find that not only is this enough but in many ways it may be better.

-Patrick Rhone

A strong stomach....................

     In planning for a successful future, the past can show you how to get there.  Too often we avert our gaze when the past is unpleasant.  We don't want to go there again, even though it contains the road map to a bright future.  How good are you at looking through the evidence from the past - especially the recent past?  There's a certain knack to it, but basically it requires a keen eye for analysis, a commonsense mind for parsing evidence that offers clues to why things went as they did - both good and bad.  And, of course, it often requires a strong stomach, because what you're rummaging through may include not only achievements but the remains of a very painful professional fiasco.

-Bill Walsh with Steve Jamison,  The Score Takes Care Of Itself:  My Philosophy of Leadership

Rebelling..........................

People who are recognizably human have walked the earth for roughly two hundred thousand years.  During those millennia, we survived by continuously adapting to our fickle environment.  We braved harsh winters and punishing landscapes, and feared animals much fiercer than we were, bowing to nature, whose spell overwhelmed us, whose magnificence humbled us, and around which we anxiously rigged our lives.  After a passage of time too long to fully imagine, and too many impression-mad lives to tally, we began rebelling against the forces of nature.  We grew handy, resourceful, flexible, clever, cooperative.  We captured fire, chipped tools, hewed spears and needles, coined language and spent it everywhere we roamed.  And then we began multiplying at breathtaking speed.
-Diane Ackerman,  The Human Age:  The World Shaped By Us

Choices..........................................

"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

gif via

Not so sure about this one...........................

Anvils seem pretty solid, steady, and stable; unaffected by all the drama going on around them.  I suspect that is why most anvils last a lot longer than most hammers.

For climbing...................................

"The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher."
-Thomas Henry  Huxley

Paradox............................

"Technology is both a tool for helping humans and for destroying them. This is the paradox of our times which we're compelled to face."

-Frank Herbert

Rotozip........................................

Carving pumpkins......................................Part 3

The Epicurean Dealmaker..........

On the vicissitudes of Twitter.   “Twitter is a mirror disguised as a window.”

via

A broken down power mower.................

............and grass to cut before Maggie's graduation party (y'all are invited by the way) at 2:00 on Saturday.  I'm thinking this should do the trick:

thanks

The layman's tool kit............

thanks Todd