Make one person happy. Ideally, the one before you, in this moment. Listen. Understand their story, if you can. But, never more than one, and don't have it be the focus of all your energy. You cannot make other people happy. We can choose to be happy, ourselves. In others, we can only help create … Continue reading Happiness of Others
Category: writing
The Blood Sacrifice Redemption
Imagination is political. Without new vocabulary, new thinking cannot be born. A change of concepts both clarify and obscure. Data erases all our nuances and contradictions. We retain the facts which are easiest to think about and then classify and organize them into representations we pretend are the whole world. When imagined worlds defiantly insist … Continue reading The Blood Sacrifice Redemption
Love is a Blank Check
"Sandra Simpson didn’t keep the suffering of the world at a distance. She invited it into her home and made it family...To believe in the power of adoption is to believe that the most profound way to help someone isn’t through large-scale structural change or foreign policy, but by opening up something as intimate as … Continue reading Love is a Blank Check
To Make Friends
Be able to talk and shut up. Listen well, particularly for the voice that is hard to hear in yourself and in others. Remember: there is little difference between being shut out and being shut in.
Standardized Thought
"From this [advertising] expert he learned that the key tool of the ad trade was to “standard[ize] thought by supplying the spectator with a ready-made visual image before he has time to conjure up an interpretation of his own.3 In that instant before the process of making sense was completed, a presupplied image and, subsequently, … Continue reading Standardized Thought
Everything is Everywhere
Everything is everywhere, but the [local] environment selects.-Lourens Baas Becking The environment can be an anything, e.g., an individual, an activity, or a society. But selection happens everywhere which is why everything isn't there.
Out in the Cow Field of Life
Out in the cow field of life, there's lot of poop to be found. Some is fresh. Some is wet. Some is old. Some is round. Even if you catalog them all, and describe every detail. The main thing is knowing, how not to step in one.
Shut Out or Shut In
"Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge."—C.G. Jung People like to tell the same stories, over and over again. The truth of those stories is changed, imperceptibly, in each telling. Our identities are a lacquer, painted on by the stories we tell ourselves and others. Identity accrual and world building are our principal occupations. … Continue reading Shut Out or Shut In
World Views & Alternative Realities
I keep seeing a disconnect between how I view and how other people view the world. For example, there are members of Republican Party in the state and local governments that think that the coronavirus pandemic is largely over and that we are about to see a huge economic resurgence that is going to sweep … Continue reading World Views & Alternative Realities
The Primary Human Problem
Note: This is why I published the Zuihitsu post yesterday. Trying to pack these ideas into a coherent essay is something I'm going to have to work on before it takes on a useful shape. At the center of human problems are two facts: Most people are good.Most people are also self-centered, lazy and stubborn. … Continue reading The Primary Human Problem
Zuihitsu: 2017-01-01 to 2020-06-15
I've been collecting little ideas and sayings for the last few years. It's turned into a fairly large list. I've wanted to incorporate them into a series of essays on various topics, but it is an unruly mass of ideas. However, today, I was reading Warren Ellis' newsletter that referred to a blog post on … Continue reading Zuihitsu: 2017-01-01 to 2020-06-15
How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens
The central idea of this book is that a system of note taking can help us incorporate our reading into a process of engaged learning. This involves three levels of note taking: Inspiration: quick notes on ideas that occur to us in a flash of insightReading: reading highlights from books and articles that capture the … Continue reading How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens
Time to Mitigate, Not Contain
"We have long needed a Plan B for the scenario where a big fraction of everyone gets exposed to Covid19, and for this plan I’ve explored variolation and other forms of deliberate exposure. To be ready, variolation just needs a small (~100) short (1-2mo.) trial to verify the quite likely (>75%) case that it works … Continue reading Time to Mitigate, Not Contain
Chances of a COVID-19 Vaccine
"The objective is to calculate risk profiles for vaccines targeting human infectious diseases. A database was actively compiled to include all vaccine projects in development from 1998 to 2009 in the pre-clinical development phase, clinical trials phase I, II and III up to Market Registration. The average vaccine, taken from the preclinical phase, requires a … Continue reading Chances of a COVID-19 Vaccine
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