thanks David
Thursday, February 8, 2024
choices...........................
Now that the proposition of crossing Antarctica by myself had taken hold, my choices were to see it through or to live with regret for the rest of my life. . . .
I wasn't sure what worried me more; skiing 1,700 kilometers or spending two months alone.
-Felicity Aston, Alone In Antarctica
connections................
By being truly alone I had seen how deeply reliant I am on human ties and in ways that were unexpected. It was not simply a matter of having company to pass the time, or backup in case of emergency. During the expedition, I found that the absence of others had shaped my behaviour, my thoughts, my actions, my reasoning. I had seen for myself that it is human relationships that bind us to places, time, and purpose, human relationships that make us who we are as individuals and that our contentment, and our happiness, depend on those precious human connections.
-Felicity Aston, Alone In Antarctica
alone-ness..................
Now that my alone-ness was coming to an end, I could enjoy the solitude and the isolation. I had Antarctica to myself and I liked it that way. I let my mind explore the prospect of seeing other people, of being back at Union Glacier surrounded by company, and I became aware of my instincts shying away from the idea.
I had to laugh out loud at my own caprice, shaking my head in exasperation. I had struggled with alone-ness for all this time and now here I was sentimentalising it.
-Felicity Aston, Alone In Antarctica
On perseverance.....................
It was clear to me that the success of my expedition had not depended on physical strength or dramatic acts of bravery but on the fact that at least some progress—however small—had been made every single day. It had not been about glorious heroism but the humblest of qualities, a quality that perhaps we all too often fail to appreciate for its worth - that of perseverance. Critical to skiing across Antarctica had been the distinctly unimpressive and yet, for me, incredibly demanding challenge of finding the will to get out of the tent each and every morning. If I had failed in that most fundamental of tasks, then my expedition would have been over. . . .
Keep getting out of the tent.
-Felicity Aston, Alone In Antarctica
laughter.............................
"Laughter," he says, "and a lot of it, is the right response to the things which drive us to tears."
-William B. Irvine, channeling Cato in A Guide to the Good Life
deny..........................
We must deny that there is any appropriate time for an inappropriate action.
-Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works, Book Two, Chapter 8
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
While checking in with.............
...........................friend Greg at Sippican Cottage, this beauty was found:
Some people nail it. And nail it to the church door, too.
Which led me to find Beatty's monologue. Enjoy.
The script is here:
Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!
You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.
It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.
And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
Beale: But why me?
Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.
Beale: I have seen the face of God.
Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.
Checking in...................
................................with Alain de Botton:
Maturity: The confidence to have no opinions on many things.
The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.
Happiness may be difficult to obtain. The obstacles are not primarily financial.
Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.
A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
There may be no good reason for things to be the way they are.
Being a good listener is one of the most important and enchanting life skills anyone can have.
Soberingly, despite all our advances in technology and material resources, we are not much more advanced in the art of delivering emotionally healthy childhoods than generations before us.
Fifty years ago..........................
Bob Seger................................Seven (the album)
a loose connection...............
They were convinced that what stands between most of us and happiness is not our government or the society in which we live, but defects in our philosophy of life—or our failing to have a philosophy at all. It is true that our government and our society determine, to a considerable extent, our external circumstances, but the Stoics understood that there is at best a loose connection between our external circumstances and how happy we are.
-William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life (the ancient art of stoic joy)
some capacity...............
Since it has pleased God to give us some capacity for reason, so that we should not be, like the animals, slavishly subjected to the common laws, but should apply ourselves to them by judgment and voluntary liberty, we must indeed yield a little to the simple authority of Nature, but not let ourselves be carried away tyrannically by her: reason alone must guide our inclinations.
-Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works, Book Two, Chapter 8
On not playing small........................
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
-Marianne Williamson, as transcribed from here
raison d'etre........................
People who tell children that their school days are their best days must, I think, be very unhappy themselves and terribly frustrated.
The world is a school. "He has put eternity into a man's mind"; and we seem to "know" that our destiny, indeed our true raison d'etre, is something bigger and finer and more splendid than what this world can offer.
On theories............................
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
-attributed to Karl Popper
Monday, February 5, 2024
Be careful what you wish for.......
Those in today's intellectual left are concerned about the planet and about international migrants, but not so much about their compatriots in the working class. . . .
More broadly, a sense of betrayal among those being left behind by progress is leading to defections from mainstream parties of both right and left. Among the working classes and the young, there is a steady growth of far-left opposition to the established liberal order, as well as strong support for the far right. This increasing movement away from the center and toward the fringes is not an ideal formula for a stable democratic society.
As Tocqueville put it, we may be "sleeping on a volcano."
-Joel Kotkin, The Coming of Neo Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class
Do you not see...................
I am told that there is no danger because there are no riots; I am told that, because there is no visible disorder on the surface of society, there is no revolution at hand.
Gentlemen, permit me to say that I believe you are mistaken. True, there is no actual disorder; but it has entered deeply into men's minds. See what is preparing itself amongst the working classes, who, I grant, are at present quiet. No doubt they are not disturbed by political passions, properly so called, to the same extent that they have been; but can you not see that their passions, instead of political, have become social? Do you not see that they are gradually forming opinions and ideas that are destined not only to upset this or that law, ministry, or even form of government, but society itself, until it totters upon the foundations on which it rests today? Do you not listen to what they say to themselves each day? Do you not hear them repeating unceasingly that all that is above them is incapable and unworthy of governing them; that the distribution of goods prevalent until now throughout the world is unjust; that property rests on a foundation that is not an equitable one? And do you not realize that when such opinions take root, when they spread in an almost universal manner, when they sink deeply into the masses, they are bound to bring with them sooner or later, I know not when or how, a most formidable revolution?This, gentlemen, is my profound conviction: I believe that we are at this moment sleeping on a volcano. I am profoundly convinced of it.
-Alexis de Tocqueville, as he begins this 1848 speech
On re-considering........................
We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.
-Charlie Munger, as cut-and-pasted from here
On progress.................
Making progress isn't always about moving forward. Sometimes it's about bouncing back. Progress is not only reflected in the peaks you reach—it's also visible in the valleys you cross. Resilience is a form of growth.
-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
discovery............................
Every person you meet knows an amazing lot about something you know virtually nothing about. It won't be obvious, and your job is to discover what it is.
On the art of living.............
According to Epictetus, the primary concern of philosophy should be the art of living: Just as wood is the medium of the carpenter and bronze is the medium of the sculptor, your life is the medium on which you practice the art of living. Furthermore, much as a master carpenter teaches an apprentice by showing him techniques that can be used to build things out of wood, Epictetus taught his students the art of life by showing them techniques that could be used to make something of their life. The techniques in question were quite practical and completely applicable to students' everyday lives. He taught them, among other things, how to respond to insults, how to deal with incompetent servants, how to deal with an angry brother, how to deal with the loss of a loved one, and how to deal with exile. If they could master these techniques, Epictetus promised, they would experience a life that was filled with purpose and dignity, and more important, they would attain tranquility. Furthermore, they would retain their dignity and tranquility regardless of the hardships life might subsequently inflict on them.
-William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life (the ancient art of stoic joy)
An idealist..........................
Power worried him: no one ever believed he possessed too much of the stuff. His sympathies were with the man in the street, to whom he believed government answered. A friend distilled his politics to two maxims: "Rulers should have little, the people much." And privilege should make way for genius and industry. Railing against "the odious hereditary distinction of families."
-Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
Morgan Housel................................
...............................talks money:
Unspent money buys something intangible but valuable: freedom, independence, autonomy, and control over your time. Every dollar of savings buys a claim check on the future.
Sunday, February 4, 2024
Marco Island.................
 |
| .4 mile from the start of the beach to the water. Lots of sand |
 |
| We managed some time away from Ohio. Blue skies abounded. |
 |
| Windy, but comfortable compared to Ohio |
 |
| We hung out on the fourth floor. Pretty special. |
 |
| Just more proof we were not in Ohio. |
choose...................
Such is the madness of men, he said, that they choose to be miserable when they have it in their power to be content. The problem is that "bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters," and because they cannot control their desires, they can never find contentment.
-William B. Irvine, channeling Diogenes
17 thoughts...........................
.............................about money:
16. People who act like they have it all figured out are usually full of shit. No one has it all figured out when it comes to money. Most of us are making it up as we go.
On the virtue of being boring................
We are a nation of rules and the rules are boring. Embrace that. In times of difficulty, go with the boring option. When faced with a frightening crisis, tamp it down with ultra-boring moves. No matter what, stick with the rules.
I can’t avoid talking about Donald Trump but I’m going to make it brief. I know you don’t like him; neither do I. But let’s assume he’s only a politician. He’s not Hitler, Godzilla or the Beast of the Apocalypse—just a guy with a loud mouth and a desperate need for attention. Most Americans think of him that way.
This is not about him. It’s about you.
When you demonize those who disagree with you, you invite treatment in kind. When you refuse to engage in political argument and resort to performative moralizing, you make it clear to any neutral observer that for you there’s only one side, one opinion, one conformist crowd that can ever govern legitimately. The rest are disgusting subhumans who should never be tolerated near the levers of power. When you trample on the rules that say “all are created equal” like that, you are destroying the fabric that holds the country together. And believe me when I say this: You will reap the whirlwind.
-Martin Gurri, from this essay
...........the way.
You will complete your mission in life when you figure out what your mission in life is. Your purpose is to discover your purpose. This in not a paradox. This is the way.
On indecisiveness...........................
What Washington's critics did not see then, and sometimes not even now, was that being indecisive was decidedly preferable to being decisively wrong.
-Thomas E. Ricks, First Principles
Hmmm..................
Deeply idealistic—a moral people, Adams held, would elect moral leaders—he believed virtue the soul of democracy. To have a villainous ruler imposed on you was a misfortune. To elect him yourself was a disgrace.
-Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
A dream with teeth..................
Things that are perfect
are dead things.
are dead things.
Empty things.
A silence beyond change or challenge.
An endpoint.
A blank page.
An endpoint.
A blank page.
You are a wonderfully messy thing.
An impossible thing made of salt
and rainwater.
Meat and electricity.
and rainwater.
Meat and electricity.
A dream with teeth.
You're too good for perfection.
-Jerod K. Anderson, Flawless
a boost........................
When our circumstances threaten to overpower us, instead of only looking inward, we can turn outward to mentors, teachers, coaches, role models, or peers. The scaffolding they provide looks and feels different depending on the type of challenge we're facing, but it has the same effect: giving us a foothold or a boost.
-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
agnostic........................
Our distractibility seems to indicate that we are agnostic on the question of what is worth paying attention to—that is, what to value.
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Monday, January 22, 2024
Sunday, January 21, 2024
decisions, decisions.......................
The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance. We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems.
-Michael Crichton, as cut-and-pasted from here
Sowell.............................
Understanding the limitations of human beings is the beginning of wisdom.
The key feature of Communist propaganda has been the depiction of people who are more productive as mere exploiters of others.
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
Envy plus rhetoric equals 'social justice'.
If I could offer one piece of advice to young people thinking about their future, it would be this: Don't preconceive. Find out what the opportunities are.
Before the Iraq war I was quite disturbed by some of the neoconservatives, who were saying things like, "What is the point of being a superpower if you can't do such-and-such, take on these responsibilities?" The point of being a superpower is that people will leave you alone.
What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people—like themselves—need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.
Racism has never done this country any good, and it needs to be fought against, not put under new management for different groups.
The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.
-a few quotes from Thomas Sowell
Lifelong learning....................
Human improvement has come from learning. We learned how to achieve better health and greater longevity. We learned how to grow enough food so that people do not have to go hungry. We learned how to cooperate in large societies.
But we do not know
everything that we need to know in order to live better. Both individually and
collectively, we have more to learn. We have more to learn today, and we will
have more to learn tomorrow.
To learn requires an open
mind. My father, Merle Kling, used to say that the First Iron Law of Social
Science is “Sometimes it’s this way, and sometimes it’s that way.” My
undergraduate economics professor, Bernie Saffran, would say “I’m willing to be
wrong,” meaning that his ideas were open to challenge. My graduate adviser,
Robert Solow, said in his address to the American Economic Association that
government intervention in markets is neither always right nor always wrong.
-Arnold Kling, from here
Opening paragraphs................
Nine-year-old Henry Knox entered the Boston bookstore, leaving his childhood behind. The boy, blond and tall for his age, could see shelves of books and boxes of fine stationery adorned with floral designs imported from London, along with writing materials, inkwells, quills, pamphlets, and writing paper neatly laid out for customers. His days of playing with friends or attending school would be replaced with the bookshop's chores and adult concerns over money and the support of his family.
HIs life had been turned upside down that year, 1759. His father, William Knox, a once-prosperous shipbuilder, left the family after his business collapsed in the midst of economic hard times sweeping the American colonies. Plagued by debts, the disillusioned Knox boarded a ship bound for St. Eustatius in the West Indies, leaving his family with no means of financial support. Henry was left to care for his mother and his three-year-old brother. His older siblings, John and Benjamin, had left home years earlier to earn a living as merchant seamen, never to return to Boston.
Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution
refueling......................
Of all the factors that have been studied, the strongest known force in daily motivation is a sense of progress. You can't always find motivation by staring harder at the thing that isn't working. Sometimes you can build momentum by taking a detour to a new destination. A detour is a route off your main road that you take to refuel.
-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
Thursday, January 18, 2024
A few snippets.............................
...........from the ever-readable Morgan Housel:
There’s obviously a hierarchy of information. It ranges from life-changing good to life-changing disastrous.
That got me thinking: What would be the most interesting and useful information anyone could get their hands on?
---------------------------------------------------
We have so much information, and we know so much about the world. But no matter how much we ever know it will always be dwarfed by what we’re blind to.
-----------------------------------------------
I met someone a few years ago. When we parted ways he said, “Life is long. I hope we stay in touch.”
Life is long. No one says that. They always say, “life is short.” But obviously it could be either. We have no idea.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
A few thoughts..........................
.....................from Kevin Kelly:
It's thrilling to be extremely polite to rude strangers.
Your time and space are limited. Remove, give away, throw out anything that no longer gives you joy in order to make room for those that do.
Actual great opportunities will not have "Great Opportunities" in the subject line.
Do more of what looks like work to others but is play to you.
If you repeated what you did today 365 more times, will you be where you want to be next year?
Games..............................
I have a three-layer model of human behavior, in which we play games at the level of the individual, the tribe, and society. The games that we play at each level can undermine the other levels.
Sunday, January 7, 2024
Highly recommended........................
A carpenter faces the accusation of his level, and electrician must answer the question of whether the lights are in fact on, a speed shop engine builder sees his results in a quarter-mile time slip. Such standards have a universal validity that is apparent to all, yet in the discriminations made by practitioners of an art respond also to aesthetic subtleties that may not be visible to the bystander. Only a fellow journeyman is entitled to say 'nicely done.' . . . It is in doing the job nicely that the tradesman puts his own stamp on it. His individuality is not only compatible with, it is realized through his efforts to reach a goal that is common.
His individuality is thus expressed as an activity that, in answering to a shared world, connects him to others: the customers he serves and other practitioners of his art, who are competent to recognize the peculiar excellence of his work. Such a sociable individuality contrasts with the self-enclosure that tis implicit in the idea of "autonomy," which means giving a law to oneself. The idea of autonomy denies that we are born into a world that existed prior to us. It posits an essential aloneness; an autonomous being is free in the sense that a being severed from all others is free. To regard oneself in this way is to betray the natural debts we owe to the world, and commit the moral error of ingratitude. For in fact we are basically dependent beings: one upon another, and each on a world that is not of our making.
Saturday, January 6, 2024
Recommended.......................
The question "Why don't you agree with me?" can have infinite answers. . . .
But usually a better question is, "What have you experienced that I haven't that makes you believe what you do? And wwould I think about the world like you do if experienced what you have?"
It's the question that contains the most answers about why people don't agree with one another.
But it's such a hard question to ask.
Friday, January 5, 2024
Lessons learned.................................
................................................the hard way:
2. Don't give unsolicited advice. Advice-giving inherently implies unequal status. Unless people explicitly relinquish claims to equal status by asking for advice, offering it will cultivate resentment.
19. Be strict with yourself and forgiving of others.
25. Your choices shape your identity, not the other way around.
28. Be kind, but always have a “fuck off” chambered and ready to go just in case.
32. Everyone says they want change, few people are willing to change themselves, and just about everyone is eager to tell others how they should change.
Checking in ...................................
............................with Morgan Housel:
Evolution is ruthless and unforgiving—it doesn't just teach by showing you what works but by destroying what doesn't.
Success has its own gravity. . . .being right instills confidence that you can't be wrong, which is a devastating characteristic in a world where outlier success has a target on its back.
Every industry and career is different, but there's universal value in accepting hassle when reality demands it.
the truth is, everything comes with overhead. That's reality. Everything comes with pieces you don't like.
The most efficient calendar in the world—one where every minute is packed with productivity—comes at the expense of curious wandering and uninterrupted thinking, which eventually become the greatest contributors to success.
Not maximizing your potential is actually the sweet spot in the world where perfecting one skill compromises another.
The best financial plan is to save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist.
The trick in any field—from finance to careers to relationships—is to be able to survive the short-run problems so you can stick around long enough to enjoy the long term growth.
A pretty good lesson from history is that the long run is usually pretty good and the short run is usually pretty bad. It takes effort to reconcile those two and learn how to manage them with what seem like conflicting skills. Those who can't usually end up either bitter pessimists or bankrupt optimists.
-all are excerpts taken from Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes
Life its ownself...........................
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as lifted from the wondrous Hammock Papers
Monday, January 1, 2024
A reminder..................
There is a lot written about happiness and its elusive nature. However, what we can do is create conditions within and outside of us where happiness is more likely to happen. Happiness is not a thing that happens to us but rather a thing that we create for ourselves through our mindset, how we relate with our problems and how we generally see the world.
-from the archives of Tanmay Vora
Asking all the important.....................
.....................................questions for 2024.
Mighty fine advice....................
Let's lower our voices, listen carefully, and have a great year.
Sunday, December 31, 2023
apparatniks.......................
Our apparatniks will continue making
the usual squalid mess called History:
all we can pray for is that artists,
chefs and saints may still appear to blithe it.
all we can pray for is that artists,
chefs and saints may still appear to blithe it.
-W. H. Auden, as he concludes Moon Landing
About explaining.............
The more time it takes to explain a course of action, the less likely it is to be a good one.
-from our friends at Farnum Street
Posting reading lists....................
..............seems to be something poplar in the blogosphere. Here are most of mine from 2023.
1. Books actually read in the past year:
2. Books purchased in 2023 that have been opened, dipped into, and occasionally cherry-picked for the blog, with the intention of actually finishing them sometime in the not-to-distant future:
3. Books purchased in 2023 that may, or may not, get read:
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