In the usual telling, the fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one thing.
Maybe the hedgehog acts on one thing and the fox acts on many things.
Idea from Warrior Poet’s Hobbitses episode.
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Author: Reality Laughs
Let’s do it.
- Push-ups
- Pull-ups
- Squats
- Steps (in thousands)
Leave the dog behind. She got her workout already.
Note: I didn’t post this until I finished. Here’s the idea: Announce accomplishments after accomplishing (if you announce at all, and STFU is probably the better way to go). Announcing accomplishments before accomplishment is grandstanding and virtue signaling.
Let your actions talk for you.
So do it.
Edit (later): done. Much relief. Why do I still avoid certain situations? Have I not learned that showing up and telling the truth is liberating? It has happened so many times that you’d think I’d change behavior. Nope, not yet.
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Simple but not easy physical fitness
Less glamour than a gym, but:
- Push-ups, pull-ups, squats.
- Walk. Slowly.
The “not easy” part is boredom and my perception of the value of time. Especially walking. I could be running! STFU. Walk. And the Achiever Module in my brain is like one of those annoying warning things in modern cars. Let me tell you about the lane warning sensor in a 4Runner. Fuck you Toyota.
I am weird about numbers. So I do the 10’s. Ten each of the bodyweight exercises. Ten thousand steps.
That’s just me. Give it a while. My routine will get different.
And shoot for perfection = 70%.
How is this for an idea? The path to mastery is to do something that has been done before.
Don’t seek to be novel. Seek to be good. And good is not an achievement, but an activity. It’s a verb in this context.
Be persistent and consistent in something other people have done before you.
Pianists do scales. From scales comes mastery.
Find a model, a secret mentor, and follow what he did. How do you know if you a good model? By trial and error, probably.
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Pay the price and ignore luck
Everything has a price.
If you want something, you must pay for it.
Envy is a weird emotion in that way. Someone has something you want. He paid the price for it, and you didn’t.
What about luck? Sometimes what someone else has (and I don’t) is a matter of luck. He was lucky, I was unlucky.
True. There are a billion reasons why things happen, most of them outside our control. What we call luck is the cumulative effect of all of those forces that are invisible to us or visible but beyond our control.
Luck, in a way, is like Arthur Clark’s magic. Any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic. So too with luck. Luck is just opaque causation.
And even though luck evens out in the long run, sometimes it is a every long run.
“Though the mills of God grind slowly; Yet they grind exceeding small;Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all.” Longfellow, who was only one of an unknown host of people who have used this analogy through all of recorded history.
Someone could have luck for his entire life, while I am unlucky for my entire life.
And so? What is in your control? It is there that the price is paid. By paying with attention. By paying with time. These are the only currencies I know that will be accepted.
Ignore luck. If someone has a big house and you don’t, that’s either luck or him paying in time and attention to achieve that big house. If he paid with attention to get a big house and you paid with attention to have a happy family (luck existing equally between the two of you) who got the better end of the deal?
Even then, maybe he got the big house and the family, and I just got the family. Not so bad a result, is it? And anyway, it’s not in my control whether someone gets the big house.
Ignore luck. Or better yet, manufacture luck in the pmarca or @naval sense. But after that, pay the price in time and attention for the things that matter.
Really, too, the things that matter are the ephemeral, incorporeal. Ideas, love, peace, freedom. These are what to buy with your time. Wealth will be a byproduct.
But that’s a topic for another day.
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Simple but not easy
Things that are simple but not easy. That seems to be a path to success.
Simple meaning obvious, easy to understand how to do, and easy to see the expected payoff.
Not easy usually just means persistence and consistency is the problem.
Simple but not easy actions, in the way I define it, should be my objective.
A man’s gotta know his limitations. Persistence, I’m pretty good at. Consistency not so much.
Let’s do this. I know how to be consistent in brushing my teeth, so it’s not impossible for me to be consistent in a given behavior. It’s a “cannot” vs. “will not” situation. I am not physically or mentally incapable of consistency in a given venture.
Takeaway from this: keep stop doing stuff, so I have less noise in my life. For the remaining things, just focus on consistency. Not outcomes, not “is this a good idea or not”, not nothing else. Just keep doing. If I can’t keep doing, keep discarding until I am at the point of consistency.
It’s a via negativa strategy, isn’t it? Remove everything that doesn’t stay consistent until only the consistent remains. Then keep doing that.
Don’t try to take a given activity and make it consistent. That’s via positiva. You already know how well that doesn’t work.
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A series of improbable events
A series of improbable events led to me sitting right here living the life I live.
Don’t try to impose a narrative on top of that, a “just so” story. The narrative would be a lie to yourself and others, because who could, in advance, engineer these events to occur in sequence? And what result would be expected if you could? Life is not a replication experiment.
The best you can do is see some deep principles in action. Those seem to produce good results. Hold true to those principles.
Ask Lindy to reveal the principles. Or look for the obvious, the boring and slightly uncomfortable. “Tell the truth”. “Keep trying”. “Be loyal”. Stuff like that.
It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
A quick read of a website on my Freedom blocklist and I’m off to the races. My thoughts go straight into the ditch. “Them son of bitches”.
A man’s gotta know his limitations. I am learning mine: I am not so mentally strong.
But the brief detour to hell brought an interesting realization. The article that I read, taking my brain straight to hell? Glenn Greenwald’s resignation from The Intercept. He perceived Biden-friendly censorship from that publication.
The realization: that I am uncomfortable with inferences he draws from facts he sees. I simultaneously admire his work and feel deep discomfort because he doesn’t think the same thoughts that I think. He doesn’t see the same facts that I see, either.
This discomfort is in the “within my control” region. Why am I uncomfortable? And so what if I am?
There is no finish line. Let go of the discomfort. That’s within my control.
It is also within my control to be fearless and clear-eyed. Reality seems to reveal itself in the face of fearlessness.
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You already know the answer
The kingdom of God is within.
Even the Stone Roses knew that. Listen to Breaking Into Heaven.
A feeling of unsatisfied yearning is a sign you’re looking for answers in the wrong place.
Even Johnny Lee knew that. Listen to Lookin’ for Love.
You are already home. You never left.