Look.....................

3.  Look beneath the surface:  never let a thing's intrinsic quality or worth escape you.

-Marcus Aurelius,   Meditations, Book Six

Uh-oh...........................

About empathy.....................

When we make a mistake, we attribute it to circumstances that pushed us into doing it.  But when others make a mistake, we tend to see it as a character flaw, as something that flowed from their imperfect personality.  This is know as the attribution bias.  You must work against this.  With an empathic attitude, you consider first the circumstances that might have made a person do what they did, giving them the same benefit of the doubt as you give yourself.
   Finally, adopting this attitude depends on the quality of your self-love.  If you feel terribly superior to others, or gripped by insecurities, your moments of empathy and absorption in people will be shallow.  What you need is a complete acceptance of your character, including your flaws, which you can see clearly but even appreciate and love.  You are not perfect.  You are not an angel.  You have the same nature as others.  With this attitude, you can laugh at yourself and let slights wash over you.  From a position of genuine inner strength and resilience, you can more easily direct your attention outward,

-Robert Green,  The Laws Of Human Nature, from the  chapter The Law of Narcissism

Call me a curmudgeon................

..................................but I hope this never comes to pass:  In other words, food — for the most part — will be controlled by a small handful of powerful tech companies.  

On the importance of........................

...........................................................................Krulak's Law.

Likely not the only one, but......................

........I find across-the-board self discipline challenging.

Do I really have to.........................

...............................................promptly follow up on e-mails?  Apparently I've chosen not to be very good at that.

I see no reason to cap it at 64............

..................................................The Art of Blooming Late.

thanks Chris

Fifty years ago..............At Woodstock

Santana.........................................................Jingo & Persuasion

Groucho says..................

Fifty years ago.................At Woodstock

Santana.........................................................................Evil Ways

As Poor Richard says............

"And now to conclude, 'Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other,' as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that;  for it is true, 'We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.'  However, remember this, 'They that will not be counselled, cannot be helped;' and farther, that 'If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap your knuckles,' as Poor Richard says."  Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue.  The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon . . .

-Benjamin Franklin,  The Way To Wealth

Be....................

16.  Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be.  Be one.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10

Groucho says....................

While out walking this morning........

Verse................................

13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

14 For the body is not one member, but many.

15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?

20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.

21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:

23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.

24 For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked.

25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.

26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

-The Holy Bible, KJV, 1 Corinthians 12:13-26

On the divine discontent of Philosophy.....

     Some ungentle reader will check us here by informing us that philosophy is as useless as chess, as obscure as ignorance, and as stagnant as content.  "There is nothing so absurd," said Cicero, "but that it may be found in the books of the philosophers."  Doubtless some philosophers have had all sorts of wisdom except common sense; and many a philosophic flight has been due to the elevating power of thin air.  Let us resolve, on this voyage of ours, to put in only at the ports of light, to keep out of the muddy streams of metaphysics and the "many-sounding seas" of theological dispute.  But is philosophy stagnant?  Science seems always to advance, while philosophy seems always to lose ground.  Yet this is only because philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science—problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible to exact formulation it is called science.  Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art;  it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.  Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy);  it is the front trench in the siege of truth.  Science is the captured territory; and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvelous world.  Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed, but only because she leaves the fruits of victory to her daughters the sciences, and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and unexplored.

-Will Durant, from the second paragraph to the Introduction to The Story of Philosophy

with a calm spirit..................

     Understand:  Like everyone, you think you are rational, but you are not.  Rationality is not a power you are born with but one you acquire through training and practice.  The voice of Athena simply stands for a higher power that exists within you right now, a potential you have perhaps felt in moments of calmness and focus, the perfect idea coming to you after much thinking.  You are not connected to this higher power in the present because your mind is weighted down with emotions. . . .
     Your first task is to look at those emotions that are continually infecting your ideas and decision.  Learn to question yourself:  Why this anger or resentment?  Where does this incessant need for attention come from?  Under such scrutiny, your emotions will lose their hold on you.  You will begin to thing for yourself instead of reacting to what others give you.  Emotions tend to narrow the mind, making us focus on one or two ideas that satisfy our immediate desire for power or attention, ideas that usually backfire.  Now, with a calm spirit, you can entertain a wide range of options and solutions.  You will deliberate longer before acting and reassess your strategies.  The voice will become clearer and clearer.  When people besiege you with their endless dramas and petty emotions, you will resent the distraction and apply your rationality to think past them.  Like an athlete continually getting stronger through training, your mind will become more flexible and resilient.  Clear and calm, you will see answers and creative solutions that no one else can envision.

-Robert Greene,  The Laws Of Human Nature

Fifty years ago.............At Woodstock

Santana..................................................................Soul Sacrifice

The Intertunnel as a ....................

........................teaching tool?   Unlike most of my faithful readers, I did not know the meaning of "panopticon."   I'm sorry I looked it up.   Sometimes you are just better off not knowing.

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

You like to imagine yourself in control of your fate, consciously planning the course of your life as best you can.  But you are largely unaware of how deeply your emotions dominate you.  They make you veer toward ideas that sooth your ego.  They make you look for evidence that confirms what you already want to believe.  They make you see what you want to see, depending on your mood, and this disconnect from reality is the source of the bad decisions and negative patterns that haunt your life.  Rationality is the ability to counteract these emotional effects, to think instead of react, to open your mind to what is really happening, as opposed to what you are feeling.  It does not come naturally; it is a power we must cultivate, but in doing so we realize our greatest potential.

-Robert Greene,  The Laws of Human Nature

Been reading about Francis Marion . . .

     It was not inevitable that Francis Marion would become a patriot.  He was conciliatory, not radical, by nature;  he did not hate the English, who had provided asylum to his ancestors, granted land to his grandfather, and fought alongside him against the Cherokees; and he had long attended the Anglican Church.  Unlike the Scotch-Irish of the Williamsburg district in the Pee Dee region, the Huguenots of the Santee did not universally align themselves with the Whigs;  members of the prominent French families who were neighbors or relatives of the Marions sided with and even fought for the Tories during the Revolution.  And although the Marions, and their Huguenot neighbors, were generally well-to-do, slaveholding plantation owners, they were not part of the Charleston aristocracy from which the most rabid revolutionary faction of South Carolina emerged.
     Why, then, did Francis Marion so passionately take up the cause of independence?  The simplest and best explanation is that he was influenced by his extended family. . . .
      In short the Marions were true believers, and it was natural that Francis Marion became one himself.  Logically, as propertied slaveholders, they would have preferred maintaining the conservative status quo.  And as growers of rice and indigo, they profited greatly by trade with Britain;  it was not in their economic interest to sever that tie.  But as self-made men in a new land, they placed a higher value on self-rule.  They may have discarded their old French customs, but the Huguenots' historical antipathy toward unchecked monarchy lingered in their bosoms.

-John Oller,  The Swamp Fox:  How Francis Marion Saved The American Revolution
     

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

photo via

. . . just a little human warmth

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” 

-Leo Buscaglia, as quoted in this Tiny Buddha blog post

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

     There is nothing in the cosmos that gives us more pleasure than a cartoon that hits a philosophical idea right on the head.  And this is one of them.  In this cartoon, the prolific comedy writer and cartoonist Paul Noth pictures a God who not only embraces twentieth-century existentialism's absurdist point of view, he hopes to wring a few laughs out of it.

-Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein,  I Think, Therefore I Draw:  Understanding Philosophy Through Cartoons

Ouch..............................

"If ancient philosophers were veritable warriors of the mind, their modern counterparts had become more like librarians of the mind, more interested in collating and organizing ideas than putting philosophy to work on a daily basis as a psychological practice."

-Donald Robertson,  How To Think Like A Roman Emperor:  The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

Fifty years ago................At Woodstock

The Who................................................................Naked Eye

In praise of............................

............................................................second breakfast:

We’re not perfect, and neither were the Hobbits. Deep friendships take time, energy, and forgiveness. So, take these lessons to heart as you walk the path in front of you. Whether you are eating second breakfast or sharing a pint of ale, it is important to remember, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

-John Lucke, as he concludes this post

Embracing.....................

Be wary of bargains................

“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.” 

-John Ruskin

Hazy, lazy days............................

As you might expect..................

.....................................................he left out two of the most important factors:  private property rights and the rule of law, but other than that . . .

“America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products.” 

-Thomas L. Friedman

Good luck..................

“The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.”

-Wendell Berry

The very concept of progress..................

The very concept of ​​progress—of the continual betterment of the human condition through the application of science and the spread of freedom—was a product of the European Enlightenment, as Kishore Mahbubani reminds us. These thinkers were among the first to advance the idea that humanity’s problems are soluble, and that we are not condemned to misery and misfortune. The spectacular progress that ensued, first for the West and then increasingly also for the rest, was a matter not of historical necessity, but of diligent human effort and struggle. Pessimism is not just factually wrong, it is also harmful because it undermines our confidence in our ability to bring about further progress. The best argument that progress is possible is that it has been achieved in the past.

-Maarten Boudry, as culled from this essay

via

Fifty years ago...........At Woodstock

The Who...................................................................Sparks

Well, if it wasn't for double standards........

.............................................we wouldn't have standards at all.

Say it isn't so...............................

...............The end of Mad Magazine?   When we were youngsters, my sister's usual Christmas present for me an annual subscription to Mad Magazine.  She is the greatest.  There is a stack of those old comics (circa 1962-69) around here somewhere.  One of these days I might look.

      via

Delegating.........................

..............Responsibility for today's 4th of July themed posts has been sub-contracted to one of the world's best bloggers.

Fifty years ago...................At Woodstock

The Who..................................................Summertime Blues

Fifty years ago...................At Woodstock

The Who.............................................................Pinball Wizard

David Crosby says.....................

Fifty years ago........................At Woodstock

The Who............................................................My Generation

Infinity is a trap..............................

"The frenzied search for more is a distraction and a place to hide, all in one."

-Seth Godin, from here

One reason life is so interesting......

via

Fifty years ago..............at Woodstock

The Who.........................................................See Me, Feel Me

No me..............................

via

Implications..........................

Chris Lynch plays a game us history majors love to play—what if?

Checking in with Jim Collins again.....

Greatness is not a function of circumstance.  Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.

The good-to great companies paid scant attention to managing change, motivating people, or creating alignment.  Under the right conditions, the problems of commitment, alignment, motivation, and change largely melt away.

. . . the good-to-great transformation never happened in one fell swoop.  There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle movement.  Rather, the process resembled relentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel in on direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.

-Jim Collins,  Good To Great:  Why Some Companies Make The Leap . . . and Others Don't

Verse....................................

37 Jesus replied:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  

38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 

39 And the second is like it:  Love your neighbor as yourself.

-The Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 22:37-39


"It is a commandment — not an option."

-Bishop Michael B. Curry

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

Wind (With Tony Orlando)......................................Make Believe

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

     The South Carolina that Francis Marion set out to liberate from British control in August 1780 was the key theater of operation in the American Revolution at that point.  It was also in turmoil—a society riven by war and rooted in lawlessness, fear, violence, and oppression.
      More battles, engagements, and skirmishes were fought in South Carolina during the Revolution than in any other colony.   Conservative estimates place the number of combat actions in the state at more than two hundred, a third of all that took place in the entire war.  No other colony had as many inches of its territory affected by battle;  of the state's forty-six present-day counties, forty-five ended up seeing Revolutionary War actions.  Nearly 20 percent of all Americans who died in battle in the Revolution died in South Carolina in the last two years of the war.

-John Oller,  The Swamp Fox:  How Francis Marion Saved The American Revolution

One of life's many contradictions................

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

The Rugby's......................................................................You, I

Good gridlock...................

". . . and if that gridlock can force the real work of governance back to state and local governments, then gridlock can be healthy."

-David French, from this post toasting Mitch McConnell

In defense....................................

..............of textbooks.   No word on why they're so expensive.

Marianne Williamson...............

You're a lamp; God is the electricity. You're a faucet; God is the water. You're a human; God is the divine within you. ALLOW the flow.

-as culled from this Althouse post

Five choices.............................

.......................................................including excellent and elite.

via

Wisdom..........................

10.  Days exist to give us endless fresh starts

-the rest of the list is here

A truth...............................

..................................................................................speaker.

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

...............................The Stonewall Riots in New York City

A catalyst for change.  More on the story:  here and here.

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

The Impressions...............................................Choice Of Colors

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

There is a pleasure in philosophy, and a lure even in the mirages of metaphysics, which every student feels until the coarse necessities of physical existence drag him from the heights of thought into the mart of economic strife and gain.  Most of us have known some golden days in the June of life when philosophy was in fact what Plato calls it, "that dear delight"; when the love of a modestly elusive truth seemed more glorious, incomparably, than the lust for the ways of the flesh and the dross of the world.  And there is always some wistful remnant in us of that early wooing of wisdom.  "Life has meaning," we feel with Browning—"to find its meaning is my meat and drink."  So much of our lives is meaningless, a self-cancelling vacillation and futility;  we strive with the chaos about us and within; but we would believe all the while that there is something vital and significant in us, could we but decipher our own souls.  We want to understand; "life means for us constantly to transform into light and flame all that we are or meet with", we are like Mitya in The Brothers Karamazov—"one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their question"; we want to seize the value and perspective of passing things, and so to pull ourselves up out of the maelstrom of daily circumstance.  We want to know that the little things are little, and the big things big, before it is too late;  we want to see things now as they will seem forever—"in the light of eternity."  We want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable, to smile even at the looming of death.  We want to be whole, to coordinate our energies by criticizing and harmonizing our desires; for coordinate energy is the last word in ethics and politics, and perhaps in logic and metaphysics too.  "To be a philosopher," said Thoreau, "is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust."  We may be sure that if we can but find wisdom, all things else will be added unto us.  "Seek ye first the good things of the mind," Bacon admonishes us. "and the rest will either be supplies or its loss will not be felt."  Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.

-Will Durant, from the introduction to 1926's The Story of Philosophy

One reason I stay home so often...............

Alvin Lee.................................................................Motel Blues



Spent my life on the road
But it must be near the end
There's nowhere left to go
'Xcept 'round another bend
There's nothing left to do
There's nowhere left to go
And it's just another day
And it's just another show
Spent my life out on the road
Must be near the end

Spoils don't seem so great
____ ____ ____
And I don't wanna die
In some downtown motel
It's just another day
And it's just another show
I don't wanna go

Spent my life on the road
But it must be near the end
There's nowhere left to go
'Xcept 'round another bend
There's nothing left to do
There's nowhere left to go
And it's just another day
And it's just another show
Spent my life out on the road
Must be near the end

If you're going to recycle.........................

............................you might as well recycle the good stuff.

Wisdom..........................

A key to effective leadership, however, is identifying the real issue and building alliances so it can be effectively resolved. That usually takes courage, time, and hard work.

-Michael Wade

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

The Rascals...................................................A Ray Of Hope

The basics.......................................

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

At the newsstand..........................................Life Magazine

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

Dusty Springfield............................................A Brand New Me

Asking all the important questions........

larger print version here

What a concept......................

..................................................................Team Human.

Be VERY careful what you wish for.....

To modern millennials, however, fear of socialism seems as ancient as a rotary phone.  Story here.

via

A question for our age..................

.............is here.  Don't forget the money quote:  "everybody lies."

And here I've been trying to empty it..........

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."

-attributed to Plutarch

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

Jimi Hendrix.......................................The Star Spangled Banner

Peace.......................

The important..................

"Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is to do good for the person standing at your side, for that alone is the pursuit of life." 

-attributed to Leo Tolstoy

Alive.................................

“You'll have a good, secure life when being alive means more to you than security, love more than money, your freedom more than public or partisan opinion, when the mood of Beethoven's or Bach's music becomes the mood of your whole life … when your thinking is in harmony, and no longer in conflict, with your feelings … when you let yourself be guided by the thoughts of great sages and no longer by the crimes of great warriors … when you pay the men and women who teach your children better than the politicians; when truths inspire you and empty formulas repel you; when you communicate with your fellow workers in foreign countries directly, and no longer through diplomats...”

-Wilhelm Reich

Security................................

"Genuine security arises from actual, first-hand knowledge that one is both capable and worth of achieving happiness (through conscious, responsible action) and, once having attained it, that he deserves it."

-attributed to Michael J. Hurd

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

Jr. Walker & The All Stars......................................These Eyes

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

The Rascals............................................................................See

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

Cream...................................................................................Badge

While out walking today.............................

Pretty sure we're still not in Ohio........................

My new summer resolution...................................

………………………...is to never argue music with Kurt Harden.   The man's knowledge is as deep as it is broad.

Character.........................................

"A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame someone else."


-John Burroughs

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

Aretha Franklin.....................................................Eleanor Rigby

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

Cream.......................................................................I'm So Glad

Johnny Cash........................................

…….........….was ahead of his time with A Boy Named Sue.

On silos........................................

Over-specialisation got us into this mess: so hunkered down in a silo we didn't notice the impact elsewhere.


-Nicholas Bate

Despite it all..................................................

………………….facing life with an attitude of gratitude.

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

Johnny Adams........................................................Reconsider Me

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Ohio anymore...

He borrows...................................

………………………………………...very well:

 "You send them to school and they come back dumber than when they left."

Naval Ravikant......................................

……………………...seems like a fairly smart person:


 "School, politics, sports, and games train us to compete against others. True rewards — wealth, knowledge, love, fitness, and equanimity — come from ignoring others and improving ourselves.”


-via

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

Gladys Knight & The Pips...............................The Nitty Gritty

Regulators................................

……………………………..............…….gotta regulate.

Lists..................................

25. “We all want to de-clutter. To throw things out. But a minimalist lifestyle is bullshit unless you can do it across every sheath in the daily practice: not just physical, but also emotional, mental, and spiritual.”


-James Altucher

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

Otis Redding...................................Papa's Got A Brand New Bag

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

Three Dog Night......................................Try A Little Tenderness