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diff --git a/scratch.txt b/scratch.txt index 95659ee..c5a04fc 100644 --- a/scratch.txt +++ b/scratch.txt @@ -8,64 +8,71 @@ every essay needs a story to hang it on. And an audio/visual podcast of it. --- -"outsourcing your daily needs tends to lead to outsourcing your beliefs." +I have found that I’m able to see much more clearly when I’m doing the least. Sometimes, the irony is, what I see more clearly becomes things I want, or perhaps need to do. Those are the least interesting moments though. -Maybe. Because it breeds dependency? It does. Which then leads to being dependant for ideas, for values. This is what any power structure must do to gain power, take it from you. There is a fixed amount of power in this world. for one person to have more, others must have less. +an elusive “sense of fullness” we get once in a while, based on fleeting experiences of life as “fuller, richer, deeper, more worthwhile, more admirable, more what it should be.” Such moments are difficult to access, but supremely important because they give us indications that there is an objective reality, independent of ourselves, that is morally substantive in the sense that is shot through with significance. Its significance for me is no merely idiosyncratic response of my own, nor is it an artefact of some evolutionary process that tricks me into caring about things as a device for propagating the species. Rather, the felt significance of the world is an apt and appropriate response to the fact that there is something transcendent into which I fit, or must fit myself. -dry leaves whispered, +--- +The whole idea of "being present" has always seemed ridiculous to me. What does that even mean? Trying sitting and actually being "present" you can chase this goal for years and in the end what do you have? I have never seen anyone improve their lives much by "being present." In fact I've seen some people derail their lives pretty well chasing that idea by one means or another. +Being conscious is the key to seeing. By being aware of what is around us, and then noticing that awareness, we allow our vision and perception to grow. It’s very difficult to do this on a regular basis. Stillness is a life practice. At times I will catch myself unconsciously spinning my wheels, and then consciously try to center myself and observe. -Snow bathes the world in white, reflecting and multiplying the scant light on gray days. The world feels clean, and smooth dressed in snow. At least where we are, out in nature. Snow is a mess in the city. +Photographs are one of mankind’s most profound expressions of stillness. They allow us the ability to hold time in our hands and facilitate a merging with time that exists in no other form. +--- -## The Good Life -I got all I ever wanted +One of the biggest problems I see with our current education system is one that I rarely see questioned. That is, the segregating of children by age. With very little opportunity to enteract with children both younger and older than them, kids have no slightly older, attainable role models in older kids, and no chance to provide the same for children younger than themselves. homeschool kids do not have this and in fact most that we've encountered are like my kids, will to play with kids much younger or older. It's been my observation that kids who've grown up in situations where they had both older and younger kids around day in and day out are better at handling conflict and resolving it rather than hiding from it. +Si comprehendis, non est Deus -- If you understand it is not God - augustine +dry leaves whispered, -The whole idea of "being present" has always seemed ridiculous to me. What does that even mean? Trying sitting and actually being "present" you can chase this goal for years and in the end what do you have? I have never seen anyone improve their lives much by "being present." In fact I've seen some people derail their lives pretty well chasing that idea by one means or another. +Technology was part of the larger culture. The emphasis of the ancient world and early Christianity was ways in which technology could make a better person or bring them closer to god, temple architecture, painting techniques, etc. +truth is not something we make, it is something that is already there, that we discover. Or that we are guided to by the archangels in william grey's terms. -doing things for their own sake, rather than as a means to something. +Seminar method meaning the book is the lecture, you do that on your own, in your room, with the author, and then you come together in a small group and discuss. +teaching via the seminar method is imperfect, you may never get to the point that you thought there was, but the questions are always your own, you are not just imbibing something pre-digested, you're wrestling with it yourself. +## Outsourcing -Yeah, I mean I don't let them do things I think would be an outright bad -idea, but those are pretty rare. I try to err on the side of trying -things and having them not work out than the side of not trying. But -then, you don't want too many failures without some successes. But what -I like about what we've done so far is that there's been very little -"education" that isn't hands on. That's part of the reason we stayed the -winter, you never know what winter is until you live through it. They -may not know the name of every tree in the forest, but they have been in -the forest and know what it's like. +I remember when I read the 4 Hour Work Week back in 2006 or so. I was freshly back from traveling Southeast Asia, and crashing on a friend's couch. To stay out of her way, I'd go across the street to a little bookstore in Venice Beach and read whatever was on the rack. At some point the 4 Hour Work Week made its appearance and, I mean, who doesn't want a 4-hour work week? I read it, and a lot of it resonated with me. Most of its ideas I'd already either heard elsewhere (especially, H.D. Thoreau, Rolf Potts, and Edward Hasbrouck), but it synthesized these ideas into a vision that was a bit different. I bought it. +If you haven't ever read it, the basic premise is, you can arrange your life around having free time instead of having a career. Money is a tool, don't waste your whole life trying to get more or it. Remember to live. Etc. Like most pop culture books it's a clever mix of genuinely good ideas, cherry-picked data, with a nice helping of rehashed 1930s New Thought ideas sprinkled on top. That might sound dismissive, but I don't mean it to be. I don't think Tim Ferriss was trying top deceive anyone the way say, the author the The Secret is doing[^1]. Ferriss has some really good ideas I had not heard before, especially for dealing with email and problematic clients, which as anyone who has run their own business can tell you are both a time and soul suck. -collilary: everyone worries about their productivity but it's rare I hear anyone talk about what they're producing. +Much as I liked the 4 Hour Work Week, there was one idea that always struck me as a bad idea: outsourcing. +Be cautious what you outsource. + +"outsourcing your daily needs tends to lead to outsourcing your beliefs." + +Maybe. Because it breeds dependency? It does. Which then leads to being dependant for ideas, for values. This is what any power structure must do to gain power, take it from you. There is a fixed amount of power in this world. for one person to have more, others must have less. + +[^1]: I have never read The Secret, but I have read a ton of New Thought books, enough to know that the secret is taking those ideas, removing all the hard work, and telling you if you want it bad enough you'll get it. Spoiler alert: you won't. -# Scratch -## The Good Life -I was recently talking with my editor about my decidedly low ambitions at work. Writers often have trajectories. They start at small publications, write that one big story, then move to a larger publication, write that one big story, then move on to a larger publication, and so on. I have never had any interest in that. I've spent my entire writing "career" primarily at Wired. I've been writing for Wired in one form or another since 1999. In all that time Wired has never rejected a pitch[^1], why would I want to write for anyone else? -I don't and never have felt the need to climb any ladders. At least not in a job. -But then later I was thinking, perhaps I am looking at this whole thing the wrong way. Perhaps I'm not that driven because I've already got everything I ever wanted. -One of the great dangers of life is that we don't know what the good life looks like until it's in the rearview mirror. + +doing things for their own sake, rather than as a means to something. +Corollary: everyone worries about their productivity but it's rare I hear anyone talk about what they're producing. + + + +# Scratch -[^1]: That's not literally true, but it's close. Sometimes I pitch something that someone else is already doing, and sometimes I pitch something I know they don't want because it's in my contract to do so, but by and large I am fortunately to pretty much unlimited freedom. I mean, they let me write about how we have no oven and cook on waffle irons. @@ -128,34 +135,7 @@ Tamanous—that’s pronounced “tah-MAN-oh-oose,” by the way—is the guardi # Stories to Tell -## April White - -The mild winter of 2023-2024 brought very little snow to Wisconsin. We watched the weather for months waiting for more snow to fall, but it never did. Last year we arrived after Memorial Day and there were still patches of snow in the deep shade of the wood. This year we headed up April 1. - -So far as I have been able to discover, there is only one Wisconsin state park that opens this early and as luck would have it, it's right where we wanted to be to visit some friends. We headed north from [Ferne Clyffe](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/03/illinois-cliffs), stopped off for a night in Rockford, and made it up to Hartman Creek State Park the day it opened. - -The forecast called for some rain that afternoon, but on the drive in I hit a few snow flurries and the temperature dropped to unpleasant levels for driving the bus (the heater in the bus has never worked). The last few miles the "rain" alternated between sleet and snow, and by the time we pulled into camp it was steady snow. - -This was only the second time we've hit snow in our travels, though we've had plenty of days at or below freezing. But none of us were ready for ten inches of snow, which is what we got at Hartman Creek. The snow didn't let up much in the night and was back at the next morning, continuing all through the day. - -We had the campground to ourselves. Two other people had brought out their rigs, but they seemed to be locals claiming a spot. They left their rigs and went (I assume) home. It was just us and the snow. - -I forgot how utter silent the world is when it snows. Even the simple act of walk seems an unforgivable intrusion on the silence. - -<div class="self-embed-container embedwide"> - <video poster="https://luxagraf.net/media/images/videos/2024/spring-snow-fall-poster.jpg" controls="true" loop="false" preload="auto" id="28" class="vidautovid"> - <source src="https://luxagraf.net/media/images/videos/2024/Spring_Snow_Fall.webm" type="video/webm"> - <source src="https://luxagraf.net/media/images/videos/2024/Spring_Snow_Fall.mp4" type="video/mp4"> - Your browser does not support video playback via HTML5. - </video> -</div> - -I have no way to photograph it, but we put the snow under the loupes to see the fractal patterns, the tiny geometric order scattered about in the chaos of wind, often blowing out of my hand before I could even focus on it. I can't help thinking there's a lesson in that, but I'm not sure what it means. - -The heavy wet snows of spring never last long though and it was soon gone, leaving behind - - - +## Intrinsic Value Vs Extrinsic ## Fire Notes: Seeking the Sun People have forgotten how important the sun is. You can die from lack of sun. @@ -232,12 +212,6 @@ As I preferred some things to others, and especially valued my freedom, as I cou if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do. - - - -We sprinted across Florida in two quick drives over to the far end of the panhandle. We stopped in the middle at the Tallahassee Car Museum, I weird little museum that has a few campsites out front (not everything in Harvest Hosts is a farm) - - ## Spirit of Craft @@ -392,9 +366,6 @@ https://www.vagabondjourney.com/you-cant-get-lost-anymore/ -## Programming for Intrinsic Value Vs Extrinsic -Or the difference between Linux culture and startup culture -- giving vs getting and how it shapes the final product. - ## Carolina Wren I have so many Carolina wren stories it's hard to know where to start. |