Product Placement
taylor price
tumblr dot com
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Noah Kahan
if i look back, i am lost
EXPECTATIONS
h
Jules of Nature
untitled
RMH
NASA
roma★
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
No title available
Keni
ojovivo
Claire Keane
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
seen from New Zealand
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Germany
seen from Slovakia
seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from United States
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seen from United States
@walkawhile
Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who didn’t think enough of themselves to make something of themselves - people who did only what they had to and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.
Mark Twight: I Hurt, Therefore I Am (via ufridman)
How many of you know where you want to go? And where you are now? And how to get from here to there? How many will start on the path, but fail? How many will settle for less? The answer to these questions, based on “your own experiences (and common sense)” is that very few know, and very many will settle for less. Are you even curious?
Gym Jones (via ufridman)
Like.
The Spartans do not ask how many are the enemy but where are they.
Plutarch, Apophthegmatica Laconica (Sayings of the Spartans)
Weak dreams inspire weak efforts.
Chin-ning Chu, Thick Face, Black Heart
You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.
Brihadaranyaka IV.4.5
Review: GORUCK Bullet 10L
GORUCK is not really a brand of rucksack. It is a brand that describes a lifestyle. When I got hold of this 10L Bullet, little did I know, my packing style was about to change.
Keep reading
Great review of GORUCK’s 10L Bullet. I don’t think I read this one before making a purchase decision--but I discovered for myself the author’s note about how this pack changed his view towards packing only the essentials.
Never forget that absence of follow-up is not evidence of follow-through.
Blair Warren, Silence Doesn’t Mean Squat
So choose yourself a Cato–or, if Cato seems too severe for you, a Laelius, a man whose character is not quite so strict. Choose someone whose way of life as well as words, and whose very face as mirroring the character that lies behind it, have won your approval. Be always pointing him out to yourself as either your guardian or as your model. There is a need, in my view, for someone as a standard against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler to do it against you won't make crooked straight.
Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Freedom, fear, relentlessness, true challenge
It’s Monday, October 5th, 2015. Not quite a week ago, life got tired of subtly nudging me and threw a solid, unavoidable kick my way.
I am suddenly, terrifyingly, beautifully free. Well, not 100% free. It’s like I was in prison, then released into the world, except with weights still chained to my feet so that I can walk but not without a reminder that this freedom is limited.
Those weights and chains are obligations and debts.
Relentlessness
Relentlessness is a quality I’ll be strengthening in myself through this year and the rest of life. Reading part of *Relentless* primed my mind and gave me a basic vocabulary; running the Lake Tahoe Beast gave me an example of this quality in action when both Gary and I swam frigid waters and started to go hypothermic after as a result.
After he began to shiver, Gary determined that he would finish the race regardless to ensure that he would catch his flight — and he pressed on despite injury from the Ultra Beast two weeks ago, despite violent shivering and the risk of hypothermia.
After I began to shiver, I determined that I should warm up so that I could safely (relatively speaking) continue to finish the race. So I went back down a long hill to the warm gondola area that I’d found previously and spent around an hour drying off and warming up by an industrial radiator. Once I had finally stopped shivering and was mostly dry, I pushed myself to continue.
I’ve never had a better story in my life to demonstrate the mindset of relentlessness. Not yet, anyway. Mind you, I’m not saying that Gary’s decision was necessary the safest or best or even good in the short-mid-term for his health — but I recognize that his strength of will allowed him to persevere and push towards a goal, and that this same strength of will is one that I want to cultivate in myself.
It’s related to overcoming fear: I was on some level afraid of risking my healthy and safety to accomplish the goal of finishing the course in a faster time. I knew that I would rather miss my flight than get pulled off the race or having to be hospitalized due to being hypothermic. The end goal of catching the flight wasn’t important enough to me.
In the beginning miles of the race, I was afraid of the pain of having difficulty breathing in the thinner air, and so I consciously did not push myself to run as hard as Gary did. So it surprised me to later catch up to and eventually pass him.
Fear and demons. Calling for me to slow down when breathing became tough, calling for me to stop when I set a slower pace, calling for me to drop instead of returning to the cold after I warmed up.
I ignored them and focused on counting my steps. 12 steps with one foot position, 12 steps of another, back to the first, switch to the second. Massive attention and focus in those moments, carefully placing each foot beneath me and in such a way that I wouldn’t slide and waste energy. In that way I climbed every hill.
Nancy and I were talking yesterday about relentlessness and mindset as it comes to challenges. Challenge is a topic that comes up often given our participation in races and really, given what I care about. And I said something about the idea of wanting to develop relentlessness in myself and that it was important because I knew I had been born without it. Nancy asked how I knew that. I know I was born without it because I was pampered as a child, where life seemed easy and I didn’t have too many fears to face and challenges to overcome. Life was smooth in the bad sort of way. I didn’t have a massive emotional challenge until I had to come to terms with rejection in 2007 and beyond.
This year I’ve focused a lot of time and money on working on myself, on emotional growth and strength and understanding and building true confidence and trust in myself.
One of ideas I came upon was something to the effect of how women challenge you in those areas of your weakness. That through interactions with women, your personal areas of weakness are exposed: if you’re not great at bantering, if you’re too uptight, if you can’t take a joke, if you aren’t reliable, if you can’t stay present, if you’re too controlling, if you’re a bad listener, if you’re unwilling to empathize, if you can’t trust, if you can’t love, if you can’t forgive, if you’re quick to anger, if you’re bad at sex, if you’re insecure, if you can’t let go.
I tend to think this of life and not just women — that by interacting in the world, you’ll be shown your areas of weakness. That in those areas where life is hard for you, areas of possibility are exposed that you can then choose to work on if you so choose. The risk is that those areas exposed are always tough and touch upon emotional areas because they’re the deep areas of life that you’ve been avoiding, consciously or not. The payoff is if you face those deep fears and do the consistent, rough work to pass through them… you grow stronger emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
As I think about it, I realize I’ve only a handful of occasions in my life where I’ve been challenged in such a way, and I’ve always come out of it so much better.
Handling anger
One of the earliest occasion of this challenge is handling anger. Around high school, the earlier years, where I suppose hormones were raging and children were going through some phase to distinguish themselves from their peers and their parents, I had to handle my anger. I was decently sharp, quick to speak and had a fragile ego… so I was quick to criticize or condemn or lash out when I felt threatened or annoyed. That was probably often. And I hurt people around me — my parents, sister, maybe the few friends I had. I don’t remember when it comes to friends, because I wasn’t good at thinking about others or empathizing.
Finally at one point things boiled over. I don’t know what the cause was. Maybe if I could find a journal or writing from the time I would see. What I remember is doing or saying something that was hurtful to a friend one day. I don’t remember how I learned this — maybe in conversation with my sister afterward. But I felt the same kind of remorse whenever I realized I’d hurt someone with something I’d said.
Somehow I learned that when I had a clear mind, anger would dissipate. That when I could see a situation objectively (as objectively as one can when being naturally subjective), I’d see that what had stirred my anger was really a small, insignificant thing compared to the harm I was causing. My mantra became, “Clarity corrodes the iron grip of anger” — something like that — and I would repeat it to myself when I got mad, when my emotions flared up. Slowly but surely, I began to hold my tongue in situations where previously I’d lash out. I would start to see my anger before it rose, and I could see that no situation was worth losing my temper.
I learned that even that phrase, “lose your temper”, is misleading because it deflects responsibility from the person responsible. Temper is surrendered, given away, and not lost. I decided no one would ever cause me to lose my temper — and related, control of my life — again. In the 10+ years since I first thought this, I’ve let anger take control a few times and I’ve never been proud or happy with the results. But I no longer cause those around me the same unhappiness or fear as before.
Handling love, attachment and rejection
I’d write more about this but I sense my willingness to free-flow-write waning as I start to get too structured instead of letting my thoughts flow as they were for the ideas of relentlessness.
So I’ll leave this as a placeholder for when I’m feeling like I want to write more on this specific emotional challenge.
Maybe I’ve thought and written too much about this already haha.
Return to relentless & true challenge
Two times in my life of true challenge.
From working with anger, I learned how to control it so that it did not control me. I saw how anger would damage relationships and hurt others. Hurting others wasn’t what I wanted, was never my goal, and I wanted to be good to others and to be respected and loved. The respect and love that I craved didn’t start to come my way until I stopped lashing out at the world around me and began to love and trust myself and others. What I didn’t know at the time was that love and respect are almost a side-effect of loving and respecting others and loving and respecting myself. Life has been good since.
In the experience of love, attachment and rejection with the first real romantic connection I ever had, I had to learn in the span of several months to a year, what many others learned socially and in groups and earlier in life — what it meant to care for others, the meaning of rejection, how to think of others. Why I needed to grow, why I should work on my social skills. What I brought to a relationship and why that mattered. What it meant to be needy and attached, and why that kept me from what I wanted. I wanted to feel deep connection mentally and emotionally, as I felt with TT during that week of camp. I craved validation that I didn’t even know I needed until after I had it, and then it was gone. Validation that despite the formal way I spoke, despite my sense of responsibility and self-control and respect for people standing in as a shield for not knowing how to relax and have fun — that despite that all, someone could care for me. Care from someone else changed my life; and one of the many results of that entire experience is why I make it a priority to care for those around me, and for those I see. I care — freely, without expectation — because I recognized that care freely given can change the course of someone’s life as it did with mine. In this way I learned about how to love in the world and how to love the world without having to control it. I’ve been rewarded — blessed? — since then by closer relationships, greater friendships, happier interactions.
It’s funny. I never put together all the above into a cohesive essay, or written piece, or anything, until now. I’ve written because of emotional overflow (thanks, Anaïs Nin) and that seems to be why I can write so freely now. Maybe the recent improv lessons have helped (thanks, Jill & Jen & Engaging Educator) me be more free-flowing as well.
I can’t ignore an aspect of procrastination here — in some small way, I recognize that this writing is a holding-off of the many difficult things I need to do soon. To read and learn and connect and push myself to focus in a short span of time, in a way I’ve never successfully done before.
I’d written how life exposes your areas of weakness; I forgot to mention that life returns again and again to those areas until they destroy you or until you pass through and beyond them.
The major problem I’ve recognized in my life since before and after college is a lack of direction. I had no big picture until years after college, 2011 into 2012, those fascinating years of Scott Dinsmore and LiveYourLegend and life planning and focus. Even during college, I was bad at working single things unless I felt “motivated” and felt interested.
A lesson I’ve learned since then is that to the truly successful, motivation and interest are much less important than focus and the ability to complete, deliver, to just DO. I’ve never truly developed this capacity to just do the things I don’t always want to do. But in doing these things I’ll exercise the qualities I admire and intend to build: focus, relentlessness, formidability.
From this point of view, sitting in a comfortable library chair, at the start of fall weather, in early October… I know the next few weeks and months ahead will be somewhat rough. I’ll be tested physically, socially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. But this time I know I’m in the midst of a potentially amazing period. I recognize at least part of the shape of this challenge, enough to know what I’ll gain when I pass through. I’m grateful to have come to this point with all I’ve learned, with great relationships, with life and love and energy.
“Every moment of your life is either a test or a celebration.”
I may have gotten chills when I read that line in David Deida’s The Way of the Superior Man, because it was a statement so simple but resoundingly true to my life experience. One of the great themes and lessons of this year was a reminder about the paramount importance of attention and presence. That sentence is the admonition, the reminder of the importance of presence and attention to all I do.
Here before me is a trial, a worthwhile test, a challenge waiting to be unmasked as the opportunity is really is. I’ll have thousands and thousands of tests before this is through.
But I won’t forget, and I plan to cherish, the celebrations along the way.
Adventure - Be That Guy
Be That Guy.
The Skull Cave. A representation of a lifestyle seeking adventure. Exploring the unknown. Possibly…even the dangerous. But it’s not just the physical exploration. The mental exploration as well. Exploring a new idea, or researching a theory can be just as rewarding as exploring that unknown destination. The locations may be different…a library, a desert, a coffee shop, a mountain ridge, the back porch, a boat off the coast of some uncharted island.
The point is…Be That Guy. Be the one that stares something new, unknown, and yes, maybe even dangerous in face. Take that first step into a bold newness. Explore those unknown lands just as much as you explore new principles. Read a new book just as much as you study a new map. Get excited about expanding your knowledge just as much as you do about getting new gear.
We all have our Skull Caves. It’s a journey that never ends unless we allow it to end. It’s that moving target. That living idea. It’s what makes you better. Smarter.
Find your Skull Cave. Stand at the opening. Stare in. Take the first step towards something new. And never look back. Be That Guy.
Roger that.
Tips for traveling light
These are simple tips, but they have served me well all these years of packing light:
Think in layers. With clothes that can be layered, you can pack less and be warmer or cooler when needed.
Always have a “buy-it-there” money, so you can buy upon arrival the things you might need like shaving kit, etc. This money can serve too as emergency, when you need to buy a pair of pants because you spilled wine in the one an only pair you brought.
Take a minimal amount of toiletries. Buy the rest there and dump them before you return home (see previous).
Don’t use a wheely suitcase as carry on. Bring a backpack or duffel bag.
For your clothing, choose just three colors you look good in; make certain everything matches. Don’t worry about wearing the same outfit several times or more. Most people you encounter will see you only once.
Check the weather 1 day before your trip and pack accordingly. This will ensure you have the best options for the weather.
When you buy things, like presets or souvenirs, ship them home.
Make certain you have one comfortable pair of shoes that can be worn with most of the clothes you selected.
Take synthetic, wrinkle-free clothing.
Whenever possible, wash your underwear in the hotel/place you are staying. If you have the right underwear (syntheric), they will be dried overnight.
Think light on electrocnics. Do you really need a laptop, iPad, iPhone, ebook reader and camera?
Always pack a Booboo Kit or at least a minimal first aid kit.
Leave your oversized, thick wallet at home. Bring only the needed cards/ID and some cash. Leave all your coupons at home.
#pdwlife #prometheusdesignwerx #savethebees
Review: GORUCK Bullet 10L
GORUCK is not really a brand of rucksack. It is a brand that describes a lifestyle. When I got hold of this 10L Bullet, little did I know, my packing style was about to change.
Keep reading
Finally purchased a 10L Bullet mid-September after comparing it against similar-capacity packs.
As the post from @packconfig notes, having less capacity does cause you to more carefully consider what you do/don’t need. Ultimately it’s a good exercise in practicing essentialism.
New design! Do or do not.
Shop it here - https://www.startupvitamins.com/
Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. (…) Find the best writers in the fields that interest you and read their work out loud. Get their voice and their taste into your ear—their attitude toward language. Don’t worry that by imitating them you’ll lose your own voice and your own identity. Soon enough you will shed those skins and become who you are supposed to become.
William Zinsser, “On Writing Well” (via austinkleon)
Jon Ronson, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
There is no evidence that we’ve been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather interesting things.
This is my second Ronson (I read So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed first, so now I plan on working my way backwards, to The Men Who Stare At Goats, and eventually Them). Very enjoyable, especially compelling in the beginning, slows down just a tad at the end.
At some point while you’re reading the book you start to worry about whether you are a psychopath, but thankfully one of the characters goes out of their way to set your mind at ease, by pointing out that psychopaths don’t worry that they’re psychopaths:
She said if you’re beginning to feel worried that you may be a psychopath, if you recognize some of those traits in yourself, if you’re feeling a creeping anxiety about it, that means you are not one.
I loved this conversation about the artist Mary Barnes, who was a psychiatric patient before she started painting:
“By the way,” I said, “did they ever manage to formulate a successful shit policy?”
“Yes,” Adrian said. “One of my dad’s colleagues said, ‘She wants to paint with her shit. Maybe we should give her paints.’ And it worked.”
Mary Barnes eventually became a celebrated and widely exhibited artist. Her paintings were greatly admired in the 1960s and 1970s for illustrating the mad, colorful, painful, exuberant, complicated inner life of a schizophrenic.
“And it got rid of the smell of shit,” Adrian said.
Here’s a great TED talk Ronson gave with material from the book:
And here’s a This American Life episode where Ronson tells one of the stories in the book.
Filed under: my reading year 2015
