Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Easy does it.....................
Conventional wisdom holds that motivation is the key to habit change. Maybe if you really wanted it, you'd actually do it. But the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and do what is convenient. And despite what the latest productivity best seller will tell you, this is a smart strategy, not a dumb one.
Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it whenever possible. It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort, which states that when deciding two similar options, people will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work. . .
The central idea is to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
-James Clear, Atomic Habits
Monday, February 18, 2019
this rolling massacre of the corporations..........
In Race Against the Machine, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee conjectured that this frenzy of innovation has been a major reason for the stagnant economic growth since 2008. "The root of our problems is not that we're in a Great Recession or a Great Stagnation, but rather that we are in the early throes of a Great Restructuring," they argued. "Our technologies are racing ahead but many of our skills and organizations are lagging behind." . . . Half the firms listed on the Fortune 500 in 1999 had dropped out by 2009. According to Richard Foster, the average lifespan of a company on the S & P 500 has declined from 67 years in the 1920s to 15 years today. . . . The public has been perfectly indifferent to this rolling massacre of the corporations. And it should be: out of the carnage, it gets what it wants. Some companies deliver the goods. That others tried and failed—and died—is of little consequence.
-Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public
The antifragility of capitalism..............
We come here to the great paradox and tentative explanation about why the networked public, so destructive of the status quo, has tolerated and to some extent embraced the standing economic system. . . . In the current environment, as I understand it, businesses have proved no wiser, more far-seeing, or successful than other institutional actors. But capitalism, as a whole, has made more productive use of the failure of its parts than most institutions under assault by the public. To borrow Taleb's terminology, capitalism appears to be "antifragile": it "regenerates itself continuously by using, rather than suffering from, random events, unpredictable shocks, stressors, and volatility." This has allowed the system to prosper despite the horrors of 2008, while, not unrelatedly, bestowing on the consumer a multitude of new technologies and products.
-Martin Gurri, Revolt of the Public
Words matter............................
In the US, in the early nineteenth century, to be called a democrat was considered an insult (democracy being seen as the equivalent of mobocracy). The term was at that time an equivalent to the denomination of “populists” in contemporary Europe. The federalists thus called Jefferson’s supporters “democrats” in order to demean them. This insult would then be inverted and positively embraced, as a valorizing attribute, resulting in the founding of the “Democratic Party” in 1828. The Democrat was the “common man” who accused the federalist elites of being “Brahmins” or aristocrats. The opposing side valued what was known as the “nose-count democracy” or “coonskin democracy” (i.e., democracy of those who wore a trapper’s hat, with a raccoon’s tail), celebrating the authentic America of these nose-counts and coonskins. The Federalists, however, who founded the “Whig” party, which later become the “Republican” party, soon came, by the same token, to emphasize their “popular touch” in electoral competitions. And they ultimately said that they were as “democratic” as Jackson’s supporters, whose candidate was elected president in 1830. Thus it was also a sociological variable that explains the shift to the positive use of the term “democracy” in the United States – yet in the blurriest of ways, even more than in France. The American cult of democracy would ultimately be associated with a form of messianism, referring to a divine project. It was this will to appropriate “democracy” as a synonym for American exceptionalism that completed its acclimatization and placed the term at the heart of the American political vocabulary. Its consecration would come when it transformed America into a country that conceived itself as promoting a new universalism (an idea whose naïve arrogance produced, over the course of the twentieth century, effects with which we are all familiar). A famous writer from this period stated: “For us, democracy is now merely Christianity put into practice.” This meant that democracy had become a religion and that it was no longer simply a political regime.
-Pierre Rosanvallon, as culled from this essay
Fifty years ago.......................
Beach Boys.....................................................I Can Hear Music
The Same, many years later with the amazing Kathy Troccoli
Get to...................
Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings, and we can use this insight to our advantage rather than to our detriment.
You can make habits more attractive if you can learn to associate them with a positive experience. Sometimes, all you need is a slight mind-set shift. For instance, we often talk about everything we have to do in a given day. You have to wake up early for work. You have to make another sales call for your business. You have to cook dinner for your family.
Now, imagine changing just one word: You don't "have" to. You "get" to.
You get to wake up early for work. You get to make another sales call for your business. You get to cook dinner for your family. By simply changing one word, you shift the way you view each event. You transition from seeing these behaviors as burdens and you turn them into opportunities.
-James Clear, Atomic Habits
Yep...................................
"Do not all these things interest you? Isn't it a fine thing to be alive when so many great things are happening?"
-Theodore Roosevelt
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Cathedral.................................
 |
| "A Place of Worship" Roosevelt at Glacier Point, Yosemite May 1903 |
Two evenings later, Roosevelt lay high in Yosemite, on a bet of fragrant pine needles, looking up at the sky. On all sides soared the cinnamon-colored shafts of sequoia trees. He had the feeling that he was "lying in a great solemn cathedral, far vaster and more beautiful than any built by the hands of man." . . . Speaking in Sacramento, he begged Californians to preserve their "marvelous natural resources" unimpaired. "We are not building this country of ours for a day. It is to last through the ages."
-Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex
Claims......................................
His speech there on 7 September was so utopian that Jules Jusserand accused him of parroting Sir Thomas More. Actually Roosevelt was identifying with Euripides—like himself, an upper-class celebrant of middle-class virtues— as he mused at length on the vulnerability of republics that failed to preserve their social equipoise. Whichever class arose to dominate others—whether high, low, or bourgeois—always made disproportionate claims on the government:
Again and again in the republics of ancient Greece, in
those of medieval Italy, and medieval Flanders, this
tendency was shown, and wherever the tendency became
habit it invariably and inevitably proved fatal to the
state. . . . There resulted violent alternations between
tyranny and disorder, and a final complete loss of liberty
to all citizens—destruction in the end overtaking the
class which had for the moment been victorious as
well as that which had momentarily been defeated.
The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as
active power became lodged in the hands of those
who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and
poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for
its interests as opposed to the interests of others.
Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex
Leadership......................
“'Why do you suppose they made you king in the first place?' I ask him. 'Not for your benefit, but for theirs. They meant you to devote your energies to making their lives more comfortable, and protecting them from injustice. So your job is to see that they're all right, not that you are - just as a shepherd's job, strictly speaking, is to feed his sheep, not himself.'”
-Sir Thomas More, Utopia
Woe...................................
“When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”
-attributed to Euripides
Temperamentally..................................
In Washington, the President lunched with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes—"one of the most interesting men I have ever met"—and Sir Frederick Pollock, Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University. Roosevelt enjoyed their company, yet remained temperamentally unable to understand the workings of minds more concerned with reason than power.
-Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex
Checking in.............................
.....................................with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.:
“We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.”
“The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.”
“Every calling is great when greatly pursued.”
“The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.”
“We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them.”
“I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.”
“Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.”
“Greatness is not in where we stand but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it—but sail we must and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”
“Young man, the secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered that I was not God.”
A rudder.................................
“Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Verse................................
5 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
The Holy Bible, Matthew 5:1-16
Fifty years ago............................
The Hollies.................................He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Friday, February 15, 2019
Here's an idea........................
Indeed, I like to cite racism as a universal thing; something that binds all men together.
We need a National Bigotry Day, in which for twenty-four hours we can all find relief from the Political Correctors. And laugh at each other, scoff taunt and mock, because (have you noticed?) all of us deserve it.
-David Warren, from this blog post
Prime Time.................................
"Well let me tell you something, son … even your critics will have critics. So don’t listen to them. Don’t let the world dictate how you live your life. And trust that behind everything — every decision you make and every decision that is made for you — there’s a purpose."
-Deion Sanders, as culled from this letter to his seven-year-old self
via
TV........................................
“We would not deem life too short if we always remembered that we do not have to watch TV.”
Act..................................
“Should we not invariably act in this life as though the God whom our heart desires with its highest desire were watching our every action?”
Wisdom And Destiny
image via
Those are two very different skills....................
"In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed."
-attributed to Charles Darwin
Copycat.............................
Humans are herd animals. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and to earn the respect and approval of our peers. Such inclinations are essential to our survival. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in tribes. Becoming separated from the tribe—or worse, being cast out—was a death sentence. "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives." . . .
We don't choose our earliest habits, we imitate them. We follow the scripts handed down by our friends and family, our church or school, our local community and society at large. . . . Often, you follow the habits of your culture without thinking, without questioning, and sometimes without remembering.
-James Clear, Atomic Habits
Fifty years ago....................
The Band..............................................................King Harvest
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Tyler Cowen talks...............................
....................................with Jordan Peterson. A brief snippet:
COWEN: If we turn to senior management of large American companies, as a class of people — and I know it’s hard to generalize — but what do you see them as just not getting?
PETERSON: I would caution them not to underestimate the danger of their human resources departments.
Fifty years ago....................
Jefferson Airplane........................................We Can Be Together
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
As mantras go.............................
Speak softly and carry a big stick was a West African proverb Roosevelt had tried out once, as Vice President, and memorized as a personal mantra. Perhaps the current situation would enable him to test its effectiveness, starting with the soft speech. "If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble, but neither will speaking softly avail, if back of his softness there does not lie strength, power."
-Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex
To put this paragraph in context, it is late 1902, Germany is sending a fleet to extract repayment of over-due loans from bankrupt Venezuela. Roosevelt, opting to enforce the "Monroe Doctrine", suggests, with the US Navy as his backstop, that Germany arbitrate instead. Judging by the absence of a war between Germany and Venezuela in the history books, his mantra was effective.
Good vibrations.........................
Feelings are energy and all energy gives off a vibration. We are like sending and receiving stations. The less negativity we are holding, the more aware we can be of what others are really holding about us. The more we love, the more we find ourselves surrounding by love. The replacement of a negative feeling by a higher one accounts for the many miracles one can experience in the course of life. These become more and more frequent as one continues to surrender.
As we surrender, life becomes more and more effortless. There is a constant increase in happiness and pleasure, which requires less and less from the outer world to be experienced. There is a diminution of needs and expectations of others. We stop looking "out there" for what we now experience as coming from within ourselves. We let go of the illusion that others are the source of our happiness. Instead of looking to get from others, we now look to give.
-David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender
Anticipation......................
"It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action."
-James Clear, Atomic Habits
Bear hunting in Mississippi, 1902.................
Paradoxically, one misadventure worked to his political advantage, and spawned the most enduring of all Rooseveltian myths. Early on the morning of 14 November, Holt Collier's hounds scented bear and began to yelp. Roosevelt and Foote galloped after the pack, but thickening brush cut them off. Collier tactfully suggested that they stake out a nearby clearing, while he rounded up the critter and drove it past them—"same as anybody would drive a cow."
The yelping hounds receded into silence. Roosevelt and Foote sat for hours, sweating as the sun climbed and cooked the humidity of the forest. Noon came and with it boredom and hunger. Eventually they concluded that Collier's bear had gone astray, so they might as well ride back to camp for lunch.
No sooner had they left than a lean black bear burst through the brush with the pack on its heels. Hot and exhausted, it lunged into a pond, and the dogs splashed after it. The bear reared and struck out, crushing one hound's spine. Collier threw a lariat over the shaggy neck and pulled tight. Then he waded in and cracked the bear's skull with the butt of his gun—carefully, because he wanted to stay alive.
Back at the camp the hunters heard excited horn calls. A messenger from Collier galloped up. "They done got a bear out yonder about ten miles and 'Ho' wants the Colonel to come out and kill him."
Roosevelt rode back at full speed. He was both disappointed and upset, on reaching the pond, to find a stunned, bloody, mud-caked runt tied to a tree. At 235 pounds, the bear was not much bigger than he. He refused to shoot. "Put it out of its misery," he said, Somebody dispatched it with a knife.
The hunt continued for another three days, but the curse of that tortured bear kept Roosevelt's bullets cold. He did not know, as he crashed vainly through the mists, that the outside world was already applauding his "sportsmanlike" refusal to kill for killing's sake. Clifford Berryman, the Washington Post cartoonist, was inspired to make a visual pun linking the incident with the President's race policy. He sketched a very black bear being roped about the neck by a very white catcher, and Roosevelt turning away in disgust, with sloped rifle. The cartoon appeared on the front page of the Post on 16 November, captioned Drawing The Line In Mississippi.
-Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex
Fifty years ago.................................
Grateful Dead.........................................Mountains Of The Moon
(Intro is sort of interesting in a cultural way, music starts at 2:00)
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Fifty years ago.....................
Steve Miller Band..............................Brave New World
We're driving fast
From a dream of the past
To the brave new world
From a dream of the past
To the brave new world
Where nothing will last
That comes from the past
It's a brave new world
That comes from the past
It's a brave new world
Put a smile on your face
As we walk with space
In the brave new world
As we walk with space
In the brave new world
Now, as you begin
You're born once again
With the rising sun
You're born once again
With the rising sun
Something new, nothing old
Something true, something gold
Something true, something gold
No spirit of the past
Can hold you back
From the brave new world
Can hold you back
From the brave new world
The direction to start
Is inside your heart
To the brave new world
Is inside your heart
To the brave new world
If you're free in your heart
You can make a new start
It's a brave new world
You can make a new start
It's a brave new world
There's nothing to hide
Leave your troubles behind
It's a brave new world
Leave your troubles behind
It's a brave new world
Wondering if he still subsribes to the "nothing old" notion?
Monday, February 11, 2019
Punch line................................
Here's the punch line: You can break a habit, but you're unlikely to forget it. Once the mental grooves of habit have been carved into your brain, they are nearly impossible to remove entirely—even if they go unused for quite a while. And that means that simply resisting temptation is an ineffective strategy. It is hard to maintain a Zen attitude in a life filled with interruptions. It takes too much energy. In the short-run, you can choose to overpower temptation. In the long-run, we become a product of the environment that we live in. To put it bluntly, I have never seen someone consistently stick to positive habits in a negative environment.
-James Clear, Atomic Habits
On the "Great Green Leap Forward".....
"The other reason I have ignored it to this point is the same reason I never enjoyed those American Idol episodes where they show all the people who can't sing but really think they are awesome embarrassing themselves. It's weird enough seeing people who are incompetent think that they are capable. It is even weirder seeing that person cheered on by a million other incompetent people on twitter."
Warren Meyer, as culled from here
Harm.............................
"Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own hearts."
-Theodore Roosevelt
Appeal.................................
It was a classic Rooseveltian opening in its complementary positives and negatives, its appeal to every social order, its biblical reference and earthy proverb. Honest industrialists, the churchgoing middle class, the rural poor—all were reassured that the President had their particular interests at heart.
Human law, he went on, encouraged moneymaking, but natural law prevented equal gain. If wealthy men abused their good fortune, or the needy sought to penalize them, both groups would be buried "in the crash of the common disaster." General progress depended on benevolence at every level of society, . . .
-Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Resistance................................
Rule of Thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
-Steven Pressfield, Do The Work!
Broaden the horizon.....................
"If news were just one of the many things that we read each day, it wouldn't have the same impact. If we would read science, the classics, history, theology or political theory at any length, we would make much better sense of today's events."
-C. John Sommerville, as excerpted from here
as quoted here
Paving.................................
Should good intentions eliminate bad consequences? No. Outcomes don't follow from intentions and intentions by definition apply only to intended consequences. But as Samuel Johnson said, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Isn't it more important to find out if the consequences are good rather than if the reasons are good? Ask: What are we trying to improve? What can reasonably be expected to happen? Are the net results positive or negative?
Good thinking is better than good intentions. In the 18th Century, Pierre S. du Pont, a deputy to the French National Assembly said: "Bad logicians have committed more involuntary crimes than bad men have done intentionally."
-Peter Bevelin, Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger
recognize and forgive......................
Whenever I go to the funeral of someone I have known well, I marvel at the image of that person that is portrayed in the eulogy. Seldom does their imperfect humanity survive the idealized descriptions that, while meant to comfort, succeed only in sanitizing the life of the deceased. To know someone fully and love them in spite of, even because of, their imperfections is an act that requires us to recognize and forgive, two very important indicators of emotional maturity. More important is the fact that, if we can do this for other people, we may be able to do it for ourselves.
-Gordon Livingston, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now
Wisdom.................................
Intelligence is just as essential a part of the Christian message as is love. God is love, but God is also infinite intelligence, and unless these two qualities are balanced in our lives, we do not get wisdom; for wisdom is the perfect blending of intelligence and love. Love without intelligence may do much undesigned harm—the spoiled child is a case in point—and intelligence without love may ultimate in clever cruelty. All true Christian activity will express wisdom, for zeal without discretion is proverbially mischievous.
=Emmet Fox, The Sermon On The Mount: The Key To Success In Life
Verse...............................
CHAPTER 8
Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?
2 She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.
3 She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.
4 Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.
5 O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.
6 Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things.
7 For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
8 All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.
9 They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.
10 Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.
11 For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
12 I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.
13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
14 Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.
15 By me kings reign, and princes decree justice.
16 By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth.
17 I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.
18 Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness.
19 My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver.
20 I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment:
21 That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.
-The Holy Bible, Proverbs 8: 1-21
Fifty years ago...................................
The Moody Blues..........................................Lovely To See You
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