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19 posts

Meditation

Choosing contentment

The only way to be wholly content and happy doing something is if you have considered your alternatives and decided that doing this thing, right now is the highest possible use of your time. Skipping the consideration spoils it. Harboring resentment spoils it. Feeling forced to do it spoils it. Feeling guilty spoils it. Rushing to just get it over with spoils it. It does not have to be something other people would praise you for; it only matters than you know you made the right choice. It can … (Continued)

Weight on the bar

It's not very much weight on the bar. But, still. It's weight on the bar. When ego tells you "Just quit. This is beneath you." Don't listen.

Contempt

Replace contempt with condolence. If they knew better, they would do better.

Discomfort

When you experience discomfort, your natural response will be to ask "How can I stop this most quickly?" Instead, challenge yourself. "What would it take for me to reach my limit of this? Am I already at it? Can I go five minutes without showing a sign of weakness? Five minutes after that?"

Parable of Discovery

Imagine two people meeting for dinner at 6 at a restaurant neither of them has been to before. Harry is a busy man with a calendar full of meetings. Google Maps says it's a 27 minute drive to the restaurant. At 5:31 he gets in his car, starts up the navigation, and gets directions straight to the restaurant. On the way, he listens to his podcasts at 150% speed because he has so many of them to get through. Tom on the other hand knows the general area is about 30 minutes away from his house. He … (Continued)

Contempt

A moment of contempt is like a cigarette. Each one is a buzz. But it's the accumulation of them that kills you.

Empty Mind

The only way to an empty mind is not to push everything else out and decree silence. It is only by being open to every thought and allowing them to arise until they slow to a trickle. This may take a while, but it is quicker than the other option which is unending.

Good Things In Bad Times

There is a strange irony of difficult times like the current moment, when everyone expects everyone else to be tense and short-tempered. The podcasts, newsletters, and smartphone notifications say the world is coming apart at the seams. People expect bad things to happen. The result is that the slightest moment of friendliness has a magnified effect. A smiling nod, holding the door for someone, a kind word of thanks to a stranger. It's so unexpected that people are warmly surprised by it. It's … (Continued)

Transitional Moments

I've come to the decision that there is nothing of intellectual substance that can be done in under two minutes, which is the amount of time I am most often looking to fill on my smartphone. At best, I can review things and eliminate the ones that don't need attention: emails I don't need to read, RSS reader posts I'm not interested in, notifications that don't require a response. But even those tasks only take a few seconds when the time comes to read email or RSS. So I haven& … (Continued)

Palantiri and Social Media

Journal, 13 March 2020 So much of social media reminds me of Tolkien's palantirs. Dangerous and corrupting for mortals. Manipulated to show you what will redirect your will to someone else's aims. Seemingly a gift but more a temptation. Can lead even mighty kings to crazed suicide. Is long-distance, many-to-many communication beyond a small forum always doomed to do this? It seems harmful every time it's been tried.

Voluntary Hardship

You must choose your own forms of hardship, or they will be chosen for you by fortune. Suffering through workouts or being surprised by injury and frailty. Budgeting your money or being blindsided by unexpected events. Controlling the food you eat or being weakened and sickened by the lack of discipline. You get to choose all of these. You get to choose what form of exercise to do, or what to spend your budgeted money on. The only choice you do not have is "No Hardship."

Winning is a Mirage

So, if most people who show up for an individual competition are losers and show up anyway, what's the point? At least the guys who win are satisfied, right? In my experience? No. For the people who are interested in growing and developing their skills, winning at a certain level just means one thing: it's time to go to the next level. Everyone climbing the mountain is looking up at the guy at the top of the mountain, but he's not looking down the mountain at the people behind him. He's loo … (Continued)

The Present Alone

This moment right now is not so bad. If you're sitting somewhere, reading this, wherever you are, whenever you are, it's not so bad around you.   Sure, somewhere in the world there are people facing very tough challenges. But they are less worried about their predicament than you are right now. When you are in the midst of the battle, you don't have time to worry. You just do what you have with the resources on hand. Right now, on the other hand, you are probably idle. You have time to sit, a … (Continued)

Areas of Influence

The smaller area you try to improve, the more effect and influence you can have. You are a tiny sliver of your country, but you are a tenth of your team at work, a quarter of your family, and one half of your marriage. You are also, of course, 100% of your own self.

Being on the Inside

One of the advantages of being early in your career is that you're on the outside of things. People talk to you and tell you the truth because you don't have any power. When you have power, people would tell you what they think you want to hear. Sometimes you'll get someone who will tell you just the right things to try to manipulate you into exercising your power to further their goals. Neither is particularly helpful. But early on, you don't have to worry about that. One of the perverse rea … (Continued)