941 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2020
  2. Jul 2020
    1. Your coworkers being an important part of your day-to-day experience is unsurprising, and what I’ve found increasingly true is that your current coworkers also have an outsized influence on your career long after you’ve stopped working together.

      Bangun jaringan teman kerja yang kuat, seandainya udah ga kerja ditempat tersebut, kesempatan kerja bisa datang dari mereka.

      Cari teman kerja yang bisa menjadi rival, ngepush kemampuan diri sendiri ke ambang batas.

    2. Consequently, the best roles are only accessible if you’re already financially stable, whether it’s stability from an existing role that’s you can interview from, or from savings and investments that allow you to pause between roles to rest and explore.

      Dengan keamanan keuangan, kamu bisa memberi jeda dan memilih mana yang sesuai

    3. Financial security is a prerequisite to own your pace and learning.

      Keamanan keuangan adalah sebuah keuntungan.

    4. Each year identify one or two new things–things that you’re uncomfortable with–and do them! You’ll continue growing yourself, adding more and more pieces to your toolkit.

      Ketika kamu merasa tidak nyaman, artinya kamu sedang belajar

  3. Jun 2020
    1. it’s paramount that each person — regardless of being for or against the result — individually pledges support out loud in the meeting. “Go around the room and ask each one of them to support the decision one at a time,” he says. “Commitment meetings are really important, because when you pledge to support a decision in the presence of your peers, you're much more likely to support it.

      Damn. Not gonna lie this sounds a little bit culty

    2. think of the last time you were handed a decision that someone else made but for which you had to execute and usher to success. How did that feel? I’d guess it made you feel frustrated, powerless or disengaged. We want to avoid that. That’s why the decision maker is both accountable and responsible. It’s more fulfilling and empowering.

      Plus, if you're engaged with something, it makes it no longer a chore, and more of pleasure to do the work related to it.

    3. people understand the when, and the ‘why’ of the ‘when.’”

      This is so important. I hate being told (not) to do something without knowing why I'm (not) meant to do it. Transparency is key and a lack of it can lead to a lack of motivation for me. Adding meaning to deadlines.

    4. forward-thinking companies still gravitate to consensus as the way to make decisions. It turns out that for important, difficult choices, that approach is often ineffective and impractical.

      kind of like how big FOSS projects have a BDFL for ultimate decision-making

    1. Can strongly say that this is the case for myself aswell. Another detail that wfh proponents seem to forget.

    1. There are four types among those who sit before the sages: a sponge, a funnel, a strainer and a sieve.A sponge, soaks up everything; A funnel, takes in at one end and lets out at the other; A strainer, which lets out the wine and retains the lees; A sieve, which lets out the coarse meal and retains the choice flour.
    2. There are four kinds of temperments:Easy to become angry, and easy to be appeased: his gain disappears in his loss; Hard to become angry, and hard to be appeased: his loss disappears in his gain; Hard to become angry and easy to be appeased: a pious person; Easy to become angry and hard to be appeased: a wicked person.
    3. According to the labor is the reward
    1. Snyder-Mackler, N., Burger, J. R., Gaydosh, L., Belsky, D. W., Noppert, G. A., Campos, F. A., Bartolomucci, A., Yang, Y. C., Aiello, A. E., O’Rand, A., Harris, K. M., Shively, C. A., Alberts, S. C., & Tung, J. (2020). Social determinants of health and survival in humans and other animals. Science, 368(6493). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax9553

  4. May 2020
    1. (He was also hit by a car when he was eight and stabbed by a stranger in a bar fight while out with the actor Vince Vaughn in 2001. “I came close to death,” he says, casually reflecting on the latter incident. “That was probably the closest I've been, besides being hit by a bus and a car.”)
    1. When you ask yourselves a lot of why, you might be overwhelmed about those kind of questions, because this kind of question require a lot of time, context, and knowledge to be answered.

      Perlu membatasi ruang lingkup dari pertanyaan itu sendiri

    1. I make an effort to nurture relationships with people I care about. Be a good friend, good daughter, good human

      Yang bikin hidup lebih berarti ada mempunyai hubungan bermakna

  5. Apr 2020
    1. Salganik, M. J., Lundberg, I., Kindel, A. T., Ahearn, C. E., Al-Ghoneim, K., Almaatouq, A., Altschul, D. M., Brand, J. E., Carnegie, N. B., Compton, R. J., Datta, D., Davidson, T., Filippova, A., Gilroy, C., Goode, B. J., Jahani, E., Kashyap, R., Kirchner, A., McKay, S., … McLanahan, S. (2020). Measuring the predictability of life outcomes with a scientific mass collaboration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915006117

    1. General surgeons in communities without emergency neurosurgical coverage should have a working knowledge of burr hole placement in the event that emergent evacuation is required for a life-threatening epidural hematoma
    1. “If you could have done it on your own, you already would have done it.”

      Gotta be honest with yourself. If you haven't finished what needs to be finished, there's a reason for that.

      It could be you're no longer interested. If that's the case, wtf are you trying so hard for? Give it up. Don't waste your time doing something you don't wanna do.

      However, though, if it's something you're passionate about, and you're mad at yourself for having not finished it already, then there's passion in the tank. The work must be done because, if you don't, you'll die crying.

      So if you're still passionate about the project, and you're not getting the job done to completion, there's another reason for your faults...

      You're not gifted enough to perform whatever portion of the project you're struggling to complete.

      And that's fine! It's alright to suck! If people didn't suck at stuff, there'd be no reason to have so many different professions. Everyone would just leverage their god-like overall awesomeness, where there's nothing you can't do perfectly, and do everything yourself.

      But that's not the world we live in. Our world includes other people; people who live to deliver their unique solution, talents, advice, etc. to people like you.

      Life is best when there's harmony. Harmony is often found within; but, oftentimes, harmony can't be enjoyed without help from others.

      Note to self: Hire a developmental copyeditor!

  6. Mar 2020
    1. In addition to supporting Trinitas’s medical administration, staff, nurses, and patrons, Marrapodi has been supporting consumers around the world through the 3-D virtual reality program Second Life. Second Life ’s host site, Whole Brain Health within Second Life, aims to keep people over fifty-five mentally active. “People have this stereotype that senior citizens can’t handle a smart phone,” Marrapodi commented, but over 20,000 people have seen Marrapodi’s virtual displays. She enjoyed receiving a thank-you email from a research scientist in Singapore for her efforts educating consumers on the coronavirus.

      Didn't know it was still up and running...

  7. Feb 2020
    1. Half-life22.04 hours

      It appears they are calculating based on total T3 rather than added T3. Assuming that the conversion of T4 to T3 remains constant, the half life of the liothyronine dose towards baseline is less than 10 hours (I'd estimate 5-7 hours). Given that this is short compared to other studies, it is likely that the conversion was slowed by the high thyroid status.

  8. Dec 2019
    1. This article is both beautiful and sad. It's wonderful that Duff McDonald is able to have such a rich relationship with his daughter even though he is only able to see her 2 days every two weeks. At the same time having all extra communication be mediated and recorded by 3d parties is chilling.

  9. Nov 2019
    1. The article, "Keys to success: Self-directed learning,' authors Fellows, Culver, and Beston discuss the components of Grow's self-directed learning (SDL) model. Learners and instructors fit into a matrix which can be used to determine optimal instructional strategies to meet the readiness of the learner. The authors discuss how SDL is implemented in multiple institutions for higher education. Instructional methods are shared to address foundational SDL skills as well as issues that arose when learners were having difficulty transitioning from one stage of readiness to another. Overall, holistic learner skills were enhanced with SDL. Rating: 9/10

    1. Author Jeff Cobb features guest Celisa to discuss trends in the field of lifelong learning. The speakers note twelve existing trends such as MOOCs, micro-credentials, neuroscience, and self-directed learning. Both private and public sectors or contributing to existing and emerging trends. Life-long learning is transforming as services explore free and paid services to extend learning to more populations.

    1. Section 508 compliance is discussed to support instructors knowledge of section 508 and how to begin the process of ensuring instructional content is 508 compliant. Section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act governs access of media to all persons whether they have a disability or not. Including captions, audio description, and accessible video players are vital to compliance. Compliance with 508 is necessary given that data that illustrates the percent of employees that have need for accommodations to support their learning. This brief article seems highly related to Universal Design of Learning. Rating: 10/10

    1. This makes me think shrines to birth sites should also be possible, and would also mark the boundary between life and death.

  10. Oct 2019
    1. What is the good life? What is the good man? The good woman? What is the good society and what is my relation to it? What are my obligations to society? What is best for my children? What is justice? Truth? Virtue? What is my relation to nature, to death, to aging, to pain, to illness? How can I live a zestful, enjoyable, meaningful life? What is my responsibility to my brothers? Who are my brothers? What shall I be loyal to? What must I be ready to die for?—Abraham Maslow

      Please reflect and respond to the following questions: What is the good life to you? Who are your brothers (i.e., your people)? What should you be loyal to?

      I appreciate your honest reflections (in advance).

  11. Sep 2019
    1. students quite often reported choosing their major based on taking introductory courses with particularly dynamic professors.
    2. make the entire course relevant to students’ daily lives. All of the labs center around chemicals and materials that students interact with regularly. For instance, they evaluate bottled water versus tap water, test both for pH, conductivity, and taste, and then debate why so many people choose bottled over tap
  12. Aug 2019
    1. Presidential biographies also provided context, countering the tendency to think “that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult,” he said. “It just serves you well to think about Roosevelt trying to navigate through World War II.”
    2. Mr. Obama’s long view of history and the optimism (combined with a stirring reminder of the hard work required by democracy) that he articulated in his farewell speech last week are part of a hard-won faith, grounded in his reading, in his knowledge of history (and its unexpected zigs and zags), and his embrace of artists like Shakespeare who saw the human situation entire: its follies, cruelties and mad blunders, but also its resilience, decencies and acts of grace. The playwright’s tragedies, he says, have been “foundational for me in understanding how certain patterns repeat themselves and play themselves out between human beings.”
    3. The writings of Lincoln, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Mr. Obama found, were “particularly helpful” when “what you wanted was a sense of solidarity,” adding “during very difficult moments, this job can be very isolating.” “So sometimes you have to sort of hop across history to find folks who have been similarly feeling isolated, and that’s been useful.” There is a handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Bedroom, and sometimes, in the evening, Mr. Obama says, he would wander over from his home office to read it.
    4. During his eight years in the White House — in a noisy era of information overload, extreme partisanship and knee-jerk reactions — books were a sustaining source of ideas and inspiration, and gave him a renewed appreciation for the complexities and ambiguities of the human condition.“At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted,” he said, reading gave him the ability to occasionally “slow down and get perspective” and “the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes.” These two things, he added, “have been invaluable to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president I can’t say. But what I can say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up.”
    5. Mr. Obama sat down in the Oval Office and talked about the indispensable role that books have played during his presidency and throughout his life — from his peripatetic and sometimes lonely boyhood, when “these worlds that were portable” provided companionship, to his youth when they helped him to figure out who he was, what he thought and what was important.
    1. What role does reading play in your life?It is one of the chief ways that I learn, and has been since I was a kid. These days, I also get to visit interesting places, meet with scientists and watch a lot of lectures online. But reading is still the main way that I both learn new things and test my understanding.For example, this year I enjoyed Richard Dawkins’s “The Magic of Reality,” which explains various scientific ideas and is aimed at teenagers. Although I already understood all the concepts, Dawkins helped me think about the topics in new ways. If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t really understand it.
    1. “You only get one mind and one body. And it’s got to last a lifetime. Now, it’s very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don’t take care of that mind and that body, they’ll be a wreck forty years later, just like the car would be.” — Warren Buffett
    2. “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. so I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.” — Warren Buffett
    3. Just be mindful about improving yourself. Here are some simple ways to do it: Mind: read a book (even if it’s just one page a day), journal, come up with ideas. Body: exercise (even if it’s just for 7 minutes), eat good food, drink plenty of water, get a good night’s sleep. Spirit: pray (it doesn’t matter if you’re religious or not) or just says ‘thanks’, be kind to people, write a gratitude list.
  13. Jul 2019
    1. If all giant viruses turn out to share translation-related genes that are unique to their group, then it would mean they had a large common ancestor, an ancient virus that diversified over time, and it would lend support to the idea that giant viruses started out big and constitute their own domain of life.
    2. That mingling has sparked contentious debate among scientists about when and how giant viruses evolved. All of viral evolution is murky: Different groups of viruses likely had very different origins. Some may have been degenerate “escapees” from cellular genomes, while others descended directly from the primordial soup. “Still others have recombined and exchanged genes so many times in the course of evolution that we will never know where they originally came from,” Fischer said.
    1. It is not really a trifling effort, as those will discover who have yet to essay it. To “clear” even seven hours and a half from the jungle is passably difficult. For some sacrifice has to be made. One may have spent one’s time badly, but one did spend it; one did do something with it, however ill-advised that something may have been. To do something else means a change of habits. And habits are the very dickens to change! Further, any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. If you imagine that you will be able to devote seven hours and a half a week to serious, continuous effort, and still live your old life, you are mistaken. I repeat that some sacrifice, and an immense deal of volition, will be necessary. And it is because I know the difficulty, it is because I know the almost disastrous effect of failure in such an enterprise, that I earnestly advise a very humble beginning. You must safeguard your self-respect. Self-respect is at the root of all purposefulness, and a failure in an enterprise deliberately planned deals a desperate wound at one’s self-respect. Hence I iterate and reiterate: Start quietly, unostentatiously.
    2. What I suggest is that at six o’clock you look facts in the face and admit that you are not tired (because you are not, you know), and that you arrange your evening so that it is not cut in the middle by a meal. By so doing you will have a clear expanse of at least three hours. I do not suggest that you should employ three hours every night of your life in using up your mental energy. But I do suggest that you might, for a commencement, employ an hour and a half every other evening in some important and consecutive cultivation of the mind. You will still be left with three evenings for friends, bridge, tennis, domestic scenes, odd reading, pipes, gardening, pottering, and prize competitions. You will still have the terrific wealth of forty-five hours between 2 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Monday. If you persevere you will soon want to pass four evenings, and perhaps five, in some sustained endeavour to be genuinely alive. And you will fall out of that habit of muttering to yourself at 11.15 p.m., “Time to be thinking about going to bed.” The man who begins to go to bed forty minutes before he opens his bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not living.

      How to handle post work day

  14. Apr 2019
    1. From urban ancient Greece to agrarian societies, work was either something to be outsourced to others – often slaves – or something to be done as quickly as possible so that the rest of life could happen.
    1. What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.
    1. Important skillset that can be used for direct work in a wide range of causesWeb design is a skill that’s in-demand in many types of organisations, from charities to startups, giving you great flexibility and the opportunity to work on high impact projects.Organisations that are especially high-impact to work at or volunteer for include:Government departments, such as Obama’s US Digital Service and 18F or the UK’s Government Digital Service.Effective non-profits, such as those recommended by GiveWell, Giving What We Can and The Life you Can Save.Innovative for-profits, such as Google, which now has seven products with over one billion monthly active users (Search, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Google Play, Maps and Youtube)1, or AirBnB.For-profits focused on the global poor, such as Sendwave.Effective Altruist organisations.
    1. Part-time advocacy journalismDue to the rise of online publications it is becoming easier to get published, which opens up the opportunity to pursue advocacy journalism part-time, as a freelancer alongside another job that pays the bills. We know of several people who are successfully pursuing this option.
    1. Documentary film-making seems like a form of art with a good chance of direct and advocacy impact, in that it resembles investigative journalism. It also appears stronger in terms of network and transferability of skills. As a result, we would expect a career profile on documentary film-making to be more positive than this one.
    1. So if you’re choosing between several options, it’s helpful to do your research ahead of time. But eventually you need to actually try things. The closer you can get to actually doing the work, the better. For example, if you’re considering doing economics research, actually try some research and see how well you do, rather than just think about how much you enjoy studying it – studying a subject is very different from actually doing research.This is true whether you’re at the start of your career or near the end, and whether you’re planning what to do long-term, comparing two offers, or considering quitting your job.So, if there’s a job you’re interested in, see if there’s a way to try it out ahead of time. If you’re considering three long-term options and aren’t sure which to take, see if you can try out each of them over the coming years.
    1. 5. It’s better to figure out philanthropy yourself. You say: > “My only hint is: be a Hannah Smith. She wants to help war orphans in the Congo, so she helps them. I would wish Hannah luck but also I think it would be useful for her to be linked in with informed people with similar goals to her, so they could bounce ideas off one another about how each could do their jobs more effectively.” You say “let your own brain and heart be your guide”. I’d say: don’t go it alone. Figuring out how to do good philanthropy is an enormous problem, so whether or not it’s from within this particular community, get support so that your goals are effectively realised.
    2. FLAW #5: There’s an Alternative to EA that’s Far Superior: I call it “DIY Philanthropy” Effective Altruism provides too much advice and too many judgmental opinions on who, how, or why to fund. This renders us passive because EA insists that it’s already done the research and ethical thinking for us. Compassionate people don’t need Big Brother informing them what right or wrong, how to help others. EA is just an obstacle in the path of a far better activity: DIY Philanthropy. I won’t provide your with lengthy instructions detailing how to accomplish this. being a DIY Human means figuring it out yourself. My only hint is: be a Hannah Smith. She wants to help war orphans in the Congo, so she helps them. You don’t need Peter Singer and EA telling you how to be charitable. Let your own brain and heart be your guide.
    3. Effective Altruism has Five Serious Flaws - Avoid It - Be a DIY Philanthropist Instead
    1. Oedipus, “Not to be born, O man, is the highest, the greatest word. But if you have seen the light of day, then consider it best to depart as quickly as possible to whence you came.”
    2. “It is a pretty nasty world”: Why more Indians choose not to have kids
    1. ​Technology is in constant motion. If we try to ignore the advances being made the world will move forward without us. Instead of trying to escape change, there needs to be an effort to incorporate technology into every aspect of our lives in the most beneficial way possible. If we look at the ways technology can improve our lives, we can see that technology specifically smartphones, have brought more benefits than harm to the academic and social aspects of teenagers lives, which is important because there is a constant pressure to move away from smart devices from older generations. The first aspect people tend to focus on is the effect that technology has on the academic life of a teen. Smartphones and other smart devices are a crucial part of interactive learning in a classroom and can be used as a tool in increasing student interest in a topic. For example, a popular interactive website, Kahoot, is used in many classrooms because it forces students to participate in the online quiz, while teachers can gauge how their students are doing in the class. Furthermore, these interactive tools are crucial for students that thrive under visual learning, since they can directly interact with the material. This can be extended to students with learning disabilities, such as Down Syndrome and Autism,​ research has shown that using specialized and interactive apps on a smart device aids learning more effectively than technology free learning. Picture Picture Another fear regarding technology is the impact it has on the social lives of young adults, but the benefits technology has brought to socializing outweighs any possible consequences. The obvious advantage smartphones have brought to social lives is the ability to easily communicate with people; with social media, texting, and calling all in one portable box there is no longer a struggle to be in contact with family and friends even if they are not in your area. Social media can also be used for much more In recent years, social media has been a key platform in spreading platforms and movements for social change. Because social media websites lower the barrier for communicating to large groups of people, it has been much easier to spread ideas of change across states, countries, or the world. For example, after Hurricane Sandy tore apart the northeastern United States, a movement called "Occupy Sandy" in which people gathered to provide relief for the areas affected was promoted and organized through social media. Other movements that have been possible because of social media include #MeToo, March for Our Lives, #BlackLivesMatter, and the 2017 Women's March. ​

    1. Hedgehog & Fox You have emphasized ethical action, but a worry I always have about traditions which emphasize renunciation and detachment is what that means for politics and political engagement and the ability to effect any change. Now, both traditions would say the world is so far from perfect and everything is so impermanent that we’re never going to achieve a perfect political state of being. But is there a danger that if we’re attending too much to this kind of advice that we may just think all sorts of wrongs will go unrighted. Can you say something about how you see going beyond the ethical into a more political arena? Antonia Macaro Again, it’s a difficult one. Definitely there’s a tension in both traditions between detachment and action. The Stoics did have an ‘action streak’, as it were, which was about fulfilling your duties and doing what you could, given the circumstances you were in. But yes, it is definitely a tension and maybe this is the sense in which maybe I’m a bit more of an Aristotelian. I think in the end it’s the Serenity Prayer, which is about having the courage to change things that you can change and the serenity to accept the ones that you can’t change and the wisdom to know the difference, which is actually very hard to do. But I think it’s certainly worth trying to change things in the world that you think is possible to change, maybe sometimes even if you don’t think it’s possible to change. Some things may be worth fighting for anyway. It’s a question of finding a balance between that and not getting too attached to things. I suspect that that balance may be a personal, individual choice.
    2. Hedgehog & Fox One point you make a number of times in the book is that our understanding of the mind and the brain, our processes, what’s actually going on beneath the surface, our understanding of that has changed radically. Not just from two-and-a-half thousand years ago but in the last ten years, five years. How recuperable do you think therefore the kind of wisdom traditions are within a framework where we have a very different understanding from they did of how the human mind works? Antonia Macaro Yes, that’s quite a difficult one because especially the Stoics put a lot of emphasis on only thing we can control being our moral choice. Hedgehog & Fox And rationality is well to the fore, isn’t it? Antonia Macaro Yes, yes, exactly. So I certainly think they were wrong in that, in the sense that we are told that a lot of our functioning is unconscious and that we don’t even know our motivation very well; sometimes we act thinking that we are acting for one reason and in fact we’re acting for a completely different reason. There are a lot of studies in social psychology that show that. So I certainly think we shouldn’t overemphasize those abilities because we need to be aware of the fact that we don’t really understand ourselves. But on the other hand, they are good aims to have, to be rational. That is a very good aim to have. It’s true that we have probably more choice on our reactions to things and the way we act than on actual things that happen in the world. So in that sense I think they were correct. So it’s good to remind ourselves of that, because we do get very worked up about how things go for us in the world and a lot of the time it’s good to remind ourselves that we don’t have any control on on that, so focusing more on our reaction. I think it’s good as an inspiration and as a kind of ideal, but not in that extreme way that they were they were saying.
    3. Hedgehog & Fox In your final chapter you distil some of the wisdom which you think is applicable in a secular context. How did you go about doing that? Were the things you ended up with things which you have personally found useful in those traditions? Antonia Macaro Yes, I think I just approached it in that way, just looking at things that I found useful. We haven’t talked yet about the ideal of equanimity, which was quite important for both of them, although it was tempered by compassion, there is a bit of a tension between equanimity and compassion in both traditions. But equanimity is an important ideal and I personally don’t think that pure equanimity is a realistic goal. I’m not entirely sure it would be a really good goal, because it would mean in a way that we’re too detached from certain things that give life meaning, like personal relationships and other things. But I think we can certainly do with a bit more equanimity, so some of the things that I have there are things that maybe aim to put things in perspective. That’s an important thing to do, although I am a bit suspicious of chasing states of mind because they come and go. And I don’t think that they’re the things that really matter. But yes, we could be a little bit more detached and a little bit more tranquil and that would be a good thing. So some of the things I have in there probably have that aim. And there are some thoughts about how to deal with with people, which again is an interesting one because for the Stoics, for example, you had to be realistic about what you were going to encounter in your daily life and people can be very annoying. So there are quite a lot of really nice quotations about that. But at the same time there is the thing of being compassionate and understanding that everybody has flaws and trying to understand that people act badly because they don’t understand things and that’s the same for us and it’s the same for everybody else. So there’s a lot about trying to be compassionate.
    4. Hedgehog & Fox Because certain of the ancient writers you quote, if you were to apply them strictly, the level of radical detachment would be quite hard core. You quote Bernard Williams calling Stoicism ‘lethal high-mindedness’. It would be quite a strong prescription, wouldn’t it, hardcore Stoicism? Antonia Macaro I think a lot of people who consider themselves Stoics probably aren’t quite. Obviously people do adapt it in modern life, but I’m not sure that they’d even be considered Stoics. I can’t remember the exact quotation but Epictetus does say that a lot of his students, a lot of the people studying Stoicism, if they really examined themselves would find that they are maybe Aristotelians or Epicureans, but not really Stoics, because Stoicism is very, very extreme and I don’t think that many people really live like that. I personally don’t think that it would be necessarily a good thing to be that extreme, so it’s always a modified Stoicism that I advocate. Hedgehog & Fox And maybe even the Stoics were modified Stoics. I did smile when Epictetus was suggesting you shouldn’t have more than you need to eat, and you shouldn’t have a bigger house than you need, and you shouldn’t have more slaves than you need! And then you’ve got Seneca, a very wealthy man wrestling and not quite resolving his problems [with wealth], and I thought maybe there’s a little difficulty there even with the early practitioners of Stoicism applying it rigidly. Antonia Macaro Yes, I definitely think that’s true; maybe some more than others. I don’t really know what Epictetus was like in his daily life. He’s certainly quite extreme in what he says. In fact, if you read Seneca’s letters, there are some things that are more Epicurean than than Stoic. So he was a much more rounded individual and had, as you say, his fair share of dilemmas about how attached he should be to wealth and material comforts.
    5. Hedgehog & Fox Tell me about your title, More than Happiness, because the casual observer might think you are aiming at some greater state of bliss. But tell me what in fact you’re pointing to there. Antonia Macaro It’s about what I just said really, that when we look at the wisdom of these traditions, we shouldn’t really aim just at happiness, we shouldn’t focus on happiness all the time anyway. Hedgehog & Fox Because we miss it because it’s a byproduct rather than a target. Antonia Macaro Yes, for a start it’s counterproductive; it raises our expectations about what things should be like in the world and they’re not going to be like that. So the higher our expectations, in a way, the less happy we’ll be, so it’s not a good thing to aim for. And also it’s quite self-centred, just thinking about being happier; we should think more about how we are in the world and how we act towards other people and so on.
    6. Both traditions say that the real joy that we can get isn’t from things going well in the world, because that’s quite unreliable; it’s from things like thinking clearly about things, accepting things the way they really are, and acting ethically. Doing the right things. That is the way to be happier, not relying on the world giving us what we want, because a lot of the time it doesn’t.
    1. Meaning of life?Love and meaningful work.What makes work meaningful?When you apply your unique abilities to something you regard as worthwhile – especially if you know that no one else would have done it in quite the same way.Wait. Can I have 40 more years to work on my answer?
    2. What do you do in your spare time?Hang out with family, walk and hike, play piano, read speculative fiction and popular non-fiction (esp. history, psychology, technology, and cosmology).
  15. Mar 2019
    1. the most important secret in magic is that most people believe there’s a safe somewhere that contains all the magic secrets that’s heavily guarded and carefully locked. The biggest secret magicians have to keep is that that safe is empty.
    2. In Tim’s Vermeer, our friend Tim Jenison believes that he has discovered the method by which Vermeer got such photo-realistic effects. Knowing that does not in any way diminish my astonishment at looking at a Vermeer painting. Alexander Pope wrote, “A little learning is a dangerous thing/ drink deep, or not taste the Pierian spring.” He’s talking about exactly that. A little learning can spoil magic. A lot of learning enhances it.
    3. Magicians get into magic because they’re seduced by the feeling of amazement. The ironic thing is, the deeper they dive into magic, the less often they get fooled. That seems immeasurably cruel.The deeper you get into magic, the more profound your amazement becomes. There’s an intermediary stage where you go, “Oh, is that all there is? It was just a thread?” And then when you work with a thread for four years, and you work out what must exactly be done to make that thread into something that is profound and difficult to imagine could be the cause of whatever it is you’re doing to it, you veer right into a different kind of amazement. It’s the amazement of the knowledgeable person. It’s the amazement of the astronomer who has studied everything about the stars that is available, and who sees and understands the mechanisms that we know about, but is able to appreciate how mysterious it all is in the larger picture.
    1. Simplicity is a state of mind. It dwells in the main intention of our lives. A man is simple when his chief care is the wish to be what he ought to be, that is, honestly and naturally human. And this is neither so easy nor so impossible as one might think. At bottom, it consists in putting our acts and aspirations in accordance with the law of our being, and consequently with the Eternal Intention which willed that we should be at all. Let a flower be a flower, a swallow a swallow, a rock a rock, and let a man be a man, and not a fox, a hare, a hog, or a bird of prey: this is the sum of the whole matter.
    2. I despair of ever describing simplicity in any worthy fashion. All the strength of the world and all its beauty, all true joy, everything that consoles, that feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of simplicity, those who have made another object of their desires than the passing satisfaction of selfishness and vanity, and have understood that the art of living is to know how to give one’s life.
    3. Herein is summed up the experience of humanity, and this experience, which each man must remake for himself, is more precious in proportion as it costs more dear. Illumined by its light, he makes a moral advance more and more sure. Now he has his means of orientation, his internal norm to which he may lead everything back; and from the vacillating, confused, and complex being that he was, he becomes simple. By the ceaseless influence of this same law, which expands within him, and is day by day verified in fact, his opinions and habits become transformed . . . The necessary hierarchy of powers is organized within him: the essential commands, the secondary obeys, and order is born of simplicity. We may compare this organization of the interior life to that of an army. An army is strong by its discipline, and its discipline consists in respect of the inferior for the superior, and the concentration of all its energies toward a single end: discipline once relaxed, the army suffers. It will not do to let the corporal command the general. Examine carefully your life and the lives of others. Whenever something halts or jars, and complications and disorder follow, it is because the corporal has issued orders to the general. Where the natural law rules in the heart, disorder vanishes.
    4. Need we say that one does not rise to this point of view without a struggle? The spirit of simplicity is not an inherited gift, but the result of a laborious conquest . . . But by dint of action, and exacting from himself strict account of his deeds, man arrives at a better knowledge of life. Its law appears to him, and the law is this: Work out your mission. He who applies himself to aught else than the realization of this end, loses in living the raison d’etre of life. The egoist does so, the pleasure-seeker, the ambitious: he consumes existence as one eating the full corn in the blade — he prevents it from bearing its fruit; his life is lost. Whoever, on the contrary, makes his life serve a good higher than itself, saves it in giving it. Moral precepts, which to a superficial view appear arbitrary, and seem made to spoil our zest for life, have really but one object — to preserve us from the evil of having lived in vain. That is why they are constantly leading us back into the same paths; that is why they all have the same meaning: Do not waste your life, make it bear fruit; learn how to give it, in order that it may not consume itself!
    5. Art is the realization of a permanent idea in an ephemeral form. True life is the realization of the higher virtues — justice, love, truth, liberty, moral power — in our daily activities, whatever they may be. And this life is possible in social conditions the most diverse, and with natural gifts the most unequal. It is not fortune or personal advantage, but our turning them to account, that constitutes the value of life. Fame adds no more than does length of days: quality is the thing.
    6. confounding the secondary with the essential, substance with form. They are tempted to believe that simplicity presents certain external characteristics by which it may be recognized, and in which it really consists. Simplicity and lowly station, plain dress, a modest dwelling, slender means, poverty — these things seem to go together. Nevertheless, this is not the case . . . No class has the prerogative of simplicity; no dress, however humble in appearance, is its unfailing badge. Its dwelling need not be a garret, a hut, the cell of the ascetic nor the lowliest fisherman’s bark. Under all the forms in which life vests itself, in all social positions, at the top as at the bottom of the ladder, there are people who live simply, and others who do not.
    7. At no epoch have the exterior conditions which man has made for himself by his industry or his knowledge, been able to exempt him from care for the state of his inner life. The face of the world alters around us, its intellectual and material factors vary; and no one can arrest these changes, whose suddenness is sometimes not short of perilous. But the important thing is that at the center of shifting circumstance man should remain man, live his life, make toward his goal. And whatever be his road, to make toward his goal, the traveler must not lose himself in crossways, nor hamper his movements with useless burdens. Let him heed well his direction and forces, and keep good faith; and that he may the better devote himself to the essential — which is to progress — at whatever sacrifice, let him simplify his baggage.
    8. We must search out, set free, restore to honor the true life, assign things to their proper places, and remember that the center of human progress is moral growth. What is a good lamp? It is not the most elaborate, the finest wrought, that of the most precious metal. A good lamp is a lamp that gives good light. And so also we are men and citizens, not by reason of the number of our goods and the pleasures we procure for ourselves, not through our intellectual and artistic culture, nor because of the honors and independence we enjoy; but by virtue of the strength of our moral fiber. And this is not a truth of today but a truth of all times.
    9. we have in abundance that which, if must be, we can go without, and are infinitely poor in the one thing needful.
    10. When one passes in review the individual causes that disturb and complicate our life, by whatever names they are designated, and their list would be long, they all lead back to one general cause, which is this: the confusion of the secondary with the essential.
    1. What really matters is . . . what really matters.There are lots of reasons why people aren’t doing what they want to do. For one thing, many of us don’t know what that is. When I was still in real estate, I met with a career counselor. The counselor said, “Why don’t you take a year off and figure out what you really want to do?” The suggestion was mind-boggling. My schedule wouldn’t let me take a day off – let alone a year! But that suggestion, as crazy as it sounded at first, forced me to ask basic questions about my professional life. In fact, I did spend a year away from my job. And if I hadn’t taken that time, I would have been in real estate forever.If you’ve spent years not knowing what you want to do – in your career, in your family life, with your civic obligations – it can seem like an impossible challenge to figure it out. For many people, it’s easier to keep doing what they know they don’t want to do, or what they don’t mind doing. Simplifying your life frees up time for you to figure out what really matters.
  16. Feb 2019
    1. We refer to a way of life

      I view that through the lens of mindsets; I get there by learning that, when confronted with a life-threatening diagnosis, taking full ownership of the dx can save lives. I map that to strategies for preventing life-threatening diagnoses (think: all the complex, urgent issues about which Douglas Engelbart spoke).

    1. ಅನಾದಿಯಾಗಿ ಪಶು ಪಾಶ ಮಲ ಮಯಾಕರ್ಮಗಳುಂಟಾದರೆ,ಈ ಜಗವನೊಬ್ಬರೂ ಸೃಷ್ಟಿಮಾಡಿದ ಕರ್ತುವಲ್ಲ.ಎಂದೆಂದೂ ಜಗವಿದ್ದಿತ್ತು ನಿತ್ಯವೆನ್ನು.ಎಂದೆಂದೂ ಜಗವಿದ್ದಿತ್ತೆಂಬೆಯಾದರೆ,ಶಿವನ ಸೃಷ್ಟಿ, ಸ್ಥಿತಿ, ಸಂಹಾರ, ಸ್ಥಿರೋಭಾವ, ಅನುಗ್ರಹವೆಂಬಪಂಚಕೃತ್ಯಗಳು ಹುಸಿಯೆಂದೆನ್ನು.ಶಿವನಿಗೆ ಸೃಷ್ಟಿ ಸ್ಥಿತಿ ಸಂಹಾರಾರ್ಥವುಂಟಾದರೆ,ಈ ಜಗತ್ತೆಲ್ಲವೂ ಶಿವನ ನೆನಹು ಮಾತ್ರದಿಂದ ಹುಟ್ಟಿತ್ತಲ್ಲದೆ,ಎಂದೆಂದೂ ಉಂಟೆಂಬುದು ಶೈವ ಪಶುಮತವಲ್ಲದೆ,ವೀರಶೈವರ ಮತವಲ್ಲ.ವೀರಶೈವರ ಮತವೆಂತೆಂದಡೆ:ಘನ ಗಂಬ್ಥೀರ ವಾರಿದ್ಥಿಯೊಳಗೆ ಫೇನತರಂಗಬುದ್ಬುದ ಶೀಕರಾದಿಗಳು ತೋರಿದಡೆ,ಆ ಸಾಗರ ಹೊರಗಾಗಿ ತೋರಬಲ್ಲವೇ?ಆ ಪರಶಿವಸಾಗರದಲ್ಲಿ ತೃಣಾದಿ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮಾಂತವಾದ ದೇಹಿಗಳುಉತ್ಪತ್ತಿಯಾಗಿ ಮತ್ತಲ್ಲಿಯೇ ಅಡಗುತ್ತಿಪ್ಪರು ನೋಡಾ.ಇದು ಕಾರಣ, ಲಿಂಗನಿರ್ಮಿತದಿಂದ ಜಗತ್ತಾಯಿತೆಂದೆ ಕಾಣಾ,ಮಹಾಲಿಂಗಗುರು ಶಿವಸಿದ್ಧೇಶ್ವರ ಪ್ರಭುವೇ.
  17. Jan 2019