Month: February 2021

That’s all I want from myself.

The victory lap? It happens inside my head. Outside? No one gives a fuck, and why should they?

Better? It’s achieved one disciplined action after another.

Feels good.

From Discipline Equals Freedom, the “Good” chapter:

Accept reality, but focus on the solution. Take that issue, take that setback, take that problem, and turn it into something good.

Life doesn’t stop. There is no finish line, so no end state for any event. Each action is the end of something and the beginning of something else.

That’s why it’s important to not look on a seeming setback as awful and bewail the fact. It’s just an event. Investing an opinion in the event is a waste of time at best, or damaging at worst. Opinions about the past? Past events are out of your control, so don’t pay them any mind.

Except, pay attention to them as they are right now. The present is good. Always good. And the present facts are what you have to work with.

Your opinions and thoughts are the only thing you can control, so why not be default positive? Default optimistic? Default constructive?

Using that attitude means you don’t wallow in regret or bitterness about past events. Negative opinions about things out of your control are crowded out.

Using that attitude means you focus on improvement and achieving your goals right now, using what you have on hand, not what you wish you had.

Using that attitude is contagious to those around you. Not everyone defaults forward. But most people default to follow and mimic. And a few observe and embrace.

Whatever happens, default to “This is good. Let’s get into action.” Not just the right opinion. No. Attitude and immediate action.

Back to work.

Do something hard.

The most important thing to learn is that we have so much to learn.

Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom

There are so many people in the world that know so many things that I do not know. There are so many things to learn. As a practical matter I am at noob level and will be for the rest of my life. It’s like facing a meal of 300 billion hamburgers. As a practical matter no matter how many I eat the number might as well be infinite.

So have a bit of humility. You might know a little thing here or there, a skill or insight. It means nothing. You are showing up for the first day of school every day of your life. share what you know and go learn something new.

At least I know that!

Meditations.

We find ourselves in a river. Which of the things around us should we value when none of them can offer a firm foothold?

Meditations 6:15.

I don’t have an answer today. I’m trudging.

I’m putting this here to remind my future self:

i. Anywhere you can lead your life, you can lead a good one.

Lives are led at court.… Then good ones can be.

Meditations 5:16.

I can live a good life even in this place: a city and state festooned with politicians hell-bent on short-sighted, self-enriching adventures.

Will I vote with my feet? Perhaps. We have already made scouting trips for that purpose.

All of that is fine. Move to a different place to seek something finer. But do not leave this place and live elsewhere in the vain belief that you can escape self-aggrandizing buffoons and corruption amongst the politicians. These characteristics are some of the defining elements of what causes a person to seek political office.

Not all, but enough of them. And the higher the office, it seems, the more likely you are to find a bullshit person. There is a reason why we praise a Ghandi, a Mandela, a Lincoln. They are exceedingly rare. And flawed, as are we all. Even Marcus Aurelius.

Clearly there is some problem in my soul that needs to be worked out. So much bile! This is why I write: to reveal self to self. Something to work on.

And one more thing. When you move to a different town, a different state? You take yourself with you.

Ran another 10k today. My body was telling me I was out of juice at mile 2, and my mind told me to finish it out. I did.

What’s interesting is that last night I ran and my body had all the energy in the world but my head wanted to quit because this whole running thing is stupid. My body kept going to the end and let the mind chatter.

Do whatever it takes to get it done.

Just a thought that’s trying to grow in my head.

The idea is that life doesn’t end until you’re dead. Some things are extremely difficult to accomplish, but on the far side of those things you will find knowledge and understanding that would be impossible without having experienced the difficulties.

Especially use this idea with voluntary difficulty. Running. What’s on the far side of getting up and running 10K every day? That’s difficult for me at the moment, though I’m doing it.

One view from Marcus Aurelius:

For there is a single harmony. Just as the world forms a single body comprising all bodies, so fate forms a single purpose, comprising all purposes.

Meditations 5:8.

The randomness of life drives to a single purpose. What is that? A singularity of purpose for Nature?

Or is it the inevitable dispersal of atoms—entropy?

Marcus Aurelius talks of Nature and the Gods on one side, and randomness and atoms on the other. There are many places in Meditations where he basically says, “Either way, why worry?”

Me, I’m kind of interested in the question. I need to read up on what physics means by entropy. In my head I use it as a shorthand for the end state of a particular process. Government inevitably devolves to dictatorship and tyranny. Competition devolves to duopoly. Etc.

That’s probably wrong, both in my understanding of the word entropy and in my understanding of end states for things, ideas, and organizations.

I want to know more.