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Vilfredo Pareto told me to turn this website off.

I’m playing a word game.

You can receive knowledge from books or teachers.

But you only learn by action. Action (you), reaction (the world). Now you have learned something on your own, that you—uniquely—possess. And I mean you possess it in a way no one can steal.

Can anyone steal your ability to spell, to multiply numbers? To walk?

Faith without works is dead, says the New Testament. It’s like that in all facets of life. Learning is an iterative acquire/test/refine loop.

Learn by doing.

Freedom.to is now running back-to-back 24 hour sessions.

Haven’t seen X in quite a while. And I’m a happier person.

So you can’t find me on the X on the account for this domain anymore.

Causation or correlation? Don’t care. Life is better.

The hosting renewed for another year. I won’t renew next year.

And then these posts will be dust in the wind. As, eventually. I will be, too. And then all memory of me when everyone who knows me dies.

Meanwhile, Marcus says:

Discard your thirst for books, so that you won’t die in bitterness, but in cheerfulness and truth, grateful to the gods from the bottom of your heart.

“Discard your thirst for books.”

Wat mean, fren?

A positive attitude is the best thing you can do for yourself and others. Pursuing things you enjoy is not selfish…it will benefit all of those around you.

Start today on a path that brings you happiness and share it with those you love…after espresso.

-@dagosupremacy on x.com

Pareto x Pareto x Pareto

100% x 0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8 = 51%.

100% x 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.2 = 1%.

Rounded.

One percent of your efforts produce 51% of your results.

. . . because you might not want to pay the price.

And the true price is always hidden from you until you get what you ask for.

If you want something and you see nothing but the benefits, stop. Search carefully for the associated costs.

The easiest way to do this is to watch people who already have what you want. Especially watch quietly for those small sighs of tiny exasperation.

But there is always a price.

The church bells announce the beginning of a new day.

A bit of Emmet Fox with coffee focuses my thoughts—the Kingdom of God is within. Remember.

What you focus on, grows. Gentle focus, patient focus. Daily tasks yield to persistent attention and care, foundations are laid and astonishing towers are erected.

How did those circumstances come to be? The comfortable companionship of that wife of decades, those charming and pleasant children—now fully grown?

Chop wood, carry water—this would be the Buddhist answer, perhaps. For me, it is Emmet Fox speaking of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the Serenity Prayer, elegantly summarizing Marcus Aurelius. It is doing the next indicated thing, one day at a time. Sometimes willingly, sometimes grumpily and after much procrastination.

It is this: Be still, and know that I am God.

. . . you will start to find it.

The near-perfect digital nomad “office” has been located. It is a small wine store on via Vitani in Como.

I say near-perfect only because it is a wine store. I want a place with coffee, not wine.

But that’s the place. If you find it you will know why: get an outdoor table, bring a notebook and pen, and spend thirty minutes watching ideas arrive—some to be captured, some to be allowed to roam free. Fill a page or leave it blank. It’s all the same.

On a cold, rainy day go inside. Same experience: a place to let the brain sediment settle. Clear, slow mind. Something, nothing. It’s all the same.

“If you resist sadness, you are always sad. If you resist suffering, you are always suffering. If you resist confusion,you are always confused. We think that we resist certain states because they are there, but actually they are there because we resist them.”

~ Adyashanti

For your souls, it is an important to remember the arrow of causation and not get it backwards. Hence the “wet roads cause rain” headline, borrowed from Nassim Taleb.

In this quote the author points out that your state of mind has an arrow of causation. “I am at peace because I actively work at stuffing down the sadness and despair.” No. You are sad and despair of finding peace because you are fighting against something you see as “sad” and you despair of ever finding calm because you resist confusion.

Focus. Focus on what you want more of. Not on what you want less of.

Acceptance. We stopped fighting everyone and everything. Thy will be done.

Consider perhaps that you are installing fear. Installing despair. Installing confusion.

The answer you seek is already here. You already know the answer. The Kingdom of God is within, to quote an ancient saying.

“Resist not evil.” There’s another ancient quote from the same guy.

That’s all very well, but what do I DO?

I have said that to my teachers repeatedly. Desperate for change, hearing the spiritual principles, but frozen. How do I put those spiritual principles into practice and experience the transformation that my teacher experienced?

Take the quote above. If you feel sad, accept the feeling BUT GO TAKE A LONG WALK. Don’t fight the sad feeling, and don’t wallow in it. Don’t fight the despair—you think your life is falling apart and dreadful things are happening. Don’t scheme and analyze and figure things out to fix whatever has befallen you.

Allow all of these feelings to be, but pay it no attention. Turn your attention elsewhere.

In short, don’t resist—ignore, just for a moment.

Go outside, walk around for a while.

Look at trees. Aren’t they spectacular? Spreading above and below the earth, connecting two worlds. If you could live below-ground and walk around as you can on the surface, the root system would spread in a self-organized glory just as trunk, branches, and leaves spread themselves in the sky above the ground.

Look at the sky. Blue. No—really! Look. BLUE. And big. So big. So impossibly big. How far can you see when you look straight up? Look deeply at the sky, as a child. Look at the clouds and marvel.

Return home and drink cold pure water. Ahhh.

All is well.