Month: February 2024

This is for future me, in case I look here.

You’re in Milan again. It’s mid-day, rainy and chilly outside. You’re in an AirBnB in your familiar neighborhood. I will go get lunch soon.

An endless series of coffees has done nothing for me. I am jet-lagged despite a full night’s sleep.

And starting, ever so slightly, to perceive the shadows that I shy away from, driving me this way and that.

It has taken a lifetime. A spiritual awakening of the educational variety—that’s my path, apparently.

“One day, he decided to be happy.” This works when I remember to make that decision.

“One day, he decided to be at peace.” That should work, too. Because why not?

I write stuff here as a journal, yet I never go back and read what I wrote. Same same business website: I hate looking at it. Same same life: I ignore the past utterly. I only look forward; occasionally I am present in the now.

Why?

When I’m working I can be at or beyond my current limits of skill and ability.

That’s stressful. It could be a happy stress or a fearful stress.

Or I can be operating below current limits of skill and capacity.

That’s not stressful. That’s effortless. Calm.

If I operate at or above current capabilities, I grow. I am learning something new. I’m getting stronger. So it’s good to be there. It’s fun and invigorating to learn something new, to develop a new capability.

The stress comes from external factors. What are the stakes? Is someone relying on me to get them out of a jam? Am I imposing arbitrary expectations on myself, for example to develop mastery in a new field in an impossibly short time?

I’m going to aim for awareness in selecting projects to work on. Try to operate below my limits at all times when advising people. Expand my limits by writing and learning. Then backfill into those limits by doing projects.

“Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.”

G.K. Chesterton

Yeah, this applies the culture and America and all that. The propaganda is obvious and it is subtle. But it is pervasive and it erases all that came before — good and ill.

Let’s talk about me, an individual human gliding inexorably towards infinity.

Every man decays by forgetting obvious things.

Don’t forget the obvious.

First, biological. Sleep. Rest. Eat. Exercise.

Second, spiritual. Who am I? As above, so below. That is where I am, in relation to time, matter, and God. At once ephemeral and the center of the universe.

Third, social. What is true and has been since the beginning of the universe? Family. Friendship. Loyalty, honor. These are true today — as true as they were 2,000 years ago. Live that way.

Maybe one place to look is how I talk to myself.

“What do you want to do?”

Is the answer an action? Ask why.

Is the answer a result? That’s not really answering the question, is it?

Why am I going to work? Because I want money. Interesting question and answer.

What do you want to do? Get breakfast. Good.

What do you want to do? Not be hungry. Not so good. Ask why.

Nothing happens without an action. Look for actions. Predict consequences.

Because when you look for actions you will have an interesting experience. Why do you think this action is going to make that result? And why did you pick that action? I think a lot of the time it will be conditioning and “truth” you were handed and accepted without examination.

The part of me that I most hate and fear to inhabit has the information I need.

. . . what we cannot do for ourselves.

In a fit of ego I wanted to enable stats here after not caring and not watching.

Couldn’t make Jetpack work. Can’t be bothered with trying anything else.

If I can’t run this site from my phone it’s not going to happen.

UI failure and personal laziness = no stats for this website.

Result? Ego successfully not inflated (or deflated).

Next action? Carry on with life. Continue using this as a journal or notebook.

Sometimes God uses mysterious methods, like inspiring seemingly inscrutable, poorly-considered decisions by software engineers and business owners.

I’m looking at you, Automattic. You’re doing the Lord’s work. Even when you’re “improving” 🙃 things.

Hmmm. I probably should turn that judgmental microscope around and look at myself for a minute. Maybe I’m just trying to push the door open when the sign says pull.

And I know one thing I can do: get into my passwords and clean up the litter of WordPress-related credentials. Website logins, WordPress.com usernames (why?), logins to the servers on which the sites are/were installed.

Life is woo only, all the time.

“sometimes the most ambitious move is to be the least ostentatiously ambitious one in the room, but the one most optimized for survival + long game. then you watch as one by one each of your competitors crumble, burn out, give up, quit, and you’re casually the last one standing”

@visakanv again on Twitter

Twitter wisdom. That sounds like a dig but in this case it’s not. (Social media is The Shallows but depth can be found with care, blocking, and filtering).

Actually deeply wise.

The comment sounds like it is all about flexing because you’re the last man standing.

Nope.

What happens in “the room” is irrelevant to you. are they going to live your life? Are they going to raise your children?

No. This is wise because you survival is the only thing that matters.

You don’t care one way or another about competitors. The universe is immense and generous and more to the point malleable and infinitely flexible and expandable so why worry about competitors?

Said as someone who has fucked things up for decades but survived the fuckups and stayed consistent in plodding in the direction I desire.

And still I plod forward.