It is going to be a new year and it is time to shake off the dust and debrisThe new year is here and I have decided to focus in on six things in 2012. I call them a plan, as I think it gives a more definite feel to them than resolutions, and I plan on tracking as I go. The six are; 1. Learn to type fast. I can type, but it isn't pretty, and it is one of the three things everyone should know. ( The three things are typing, at least two languages, and entrepreneur/ accounting.) I really need to improve. I have much to do with little time and typing like a caveman is nether very skilled or helpful. 2. Learn a language. I have dabbled, but this year I go and do it. I want to read some authors in their native language, I just have a feeling I am missing a lot in the translation. The two languages I want to learn is Japanese (Haruki Murakami) and French (Albert Camus). French is the one in 2012. I want to read Camus' essays in French this year. 3. Fitness - fell out of shape in the last 6 months with the chaos around me. Need to get the discipline back. I will start training and watching what I eat. Thinking of learning Krav Maga. 4.I want to learn a new cooking skill. I can do Italian, Mexican, and a little Asian, but need to widen it out. 5. Write 50,000 words. I want a book. It is in me, I know what it is, and needs to get out. 6. Start a business on the side that will teach me some more online techniques and make at least a $1,000 in 2012. No more studying, now you do. Each of these will make me better at what I do, and we all want to be better. I feel you need to put it down, make yourself accountable. D Sitting outside on the patio, looking at the trees around me, each tree seemingly twisting towards the California sun. I have my old black sweatshirt on,my hood over my head against the morning chill, drinking yerba mate tea, eating some whole wheat scones I made, and reading and reading and then thinking. I read several books at a time, and at first I thought it showed a lack of discipline, that I couldn't focus, but I have come to learn over time that the way I read balances and keeps my mind and focus fresh. People find it odd, but it works the best for me. I average 4 to 6 books a month, and so I combine then, as studies have shown that you can study for about 30 to 40 minutes, and then you need to take a break, and I use that concept in my reading plan. I read usually four books at a time, and right now I am reading; One fiction book ( I am reading Haruki Murakaim's 1Q84 - he is one of my favorites) One nonfiction book ( usually science or business, right now I am reading Uncertainity by Jonathan Fields) One health/ brain nonfiction book ( I rereading the four hour body by Tim Ferriss) And usually one biography ( Just finished Steve Jobs by Issacson and I am deep in a biography of Voltaire right now. Voltaire was quite the entrepreneur) I am also reading a fifth book that I find interesting called Lean Six Sigma for Supply Chain, which is a pretty good book on the subject. I am studying for a new job. I find by changing between books as my focus lags allows me to reset my concentration and keep reading. The world would be a much better place if we all read history books, as we would make much less of the same mistakes that plague us today if we read of the mistakes of others before us.. D Do not be an Institutional Man.
I have been thinking often lately of the movie The Shawshank Redemption, which is a great movie that the people around me get upset when it comes on because I will always want to watch it, or at least watch two specific scenes in the film that never fail to move me and or to make me think.. The first scene is the scene where Tim Robbins talks to Morgan Freeman in the prison yard, late in the movie, after spending years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In that scene Robbins tells Freeman that there comes a time in your life when you either get busy living or get busy dying ( a paraphrase on my part and also a crib from Dylan), and that phrase gets me each time because it is always completely true. It also motivates me every time. Each moment you have in life you need to choose whether to grow and learn, you take risks, and you improve, or you don’t. If you don’t, then you become a smaller person each day as time goes. It is always time to get busy living. Always. The other scene is the one where Red (Morgan Freeman) is paroled and he goes out into the world that he doesn’t understand, and in the voice over he discusses being an Institutional Man. An Institutional Man is someone who is no longer independent, and who has lived so long as part of “the system” and under rules that they can no longer make their own decisions. They can no longer think for themselves, and they live not as themselves, but as shadows. This one always hits home for me. It is something I don’t ever want to be, someone who cannot think or fend for himself. I think it is some of what affects the United States today. We have become an Institutional Population, a nation of people who always wait for others to solve their problems, and who meekly follow the yellow lines on the floor unthinkingly. The world is an amazing place, full of potential and options, and the worse thing we can do is believe we do not have control. We always have options and we always have the choice of control and the more chances we take in life, the better our results, the better our life. Waiting for change is a loser’s game. Making the change is how you live, and it is how you win, and it is how you avoid being an institutional man. The world is simply too big and bright for any other way to be. D Watching the rain come down in Southern California, I hear the rain drops hit the roof and watch as they fall off the rough edge of the shingles to the ground.
Tiny drops, each individual, fall from the cloud--full sky, and then come together near the Earth to form larger drops, and then steady streams of water droplets fall together in the form of ribbons of water. The drops form steady streams of water that fall and then hit the ground to form puddles. The puddles come together across the world to build streams, and then rivers, and then finally giant complex oceans of water. The rain makes a drop of water and that drop of water will make a river, and the rivers merge to create oceans. Your actions are like water drops falling from the sky. Each action is individual and seemingly separate, but over time each action will form consistent streams of combined actions, and will continue until it forms the river that is your life. Every drop matters, every action matters, each is needed to make the whole. D Does your virtual self match your physical self? Not just in how you look, but also in how you act, who you strive to be. Who you say you are. Why is it different? What is it that you changed about yourself when you went on line? Why can't you be the same everywhere? I think your personality on line evolves as you, the person, off line grows or changes, and I think that the ability to have a different persona online allows you a certain distance and gives the ability to experiment with who you are, and who you can or want to be. Creating a name or persona online allows you to break away from who you are off line. I think it allows you to see who you really want to be, and it lets you escape from the expectations and definitions of those who know you. I think the online persona shows who you want to be, it shows who you could be in the physical world if you had the courage, it allows you to find others like you, to learn how to become what you truly want to be. It allows you feedback to change yourself. You can look at yourself online objectively, and then try use those personality characteristics to see who, or what, you can or want to be. That is incredibly powerful. Self knowledge is important. The online world allows you to experiment with who you are. The goal should be to become more natural online with what you are, and that does not mean an alias, or hide behind an online name, it means to play with the fundamental idea of who you really are. We often live a life defined by others, built by external decisions, and by our fear of action. If you could do anything, Literally anything. With no rules, no past, if you know now what you didn't then, what would you do? That answer shows the inner you, and that doesn't necessarily mean that is what you will be, but it shows you where to go, what matters,and the tools you will need. The goal is to be yourself, everywhere and anywhere, to be whatever you need to be, no matter what that will be, or what it will change. It is a path. D The beauty of the world is that it is all connected, and that everything is interdependent, everything is one. However we spend much of our time seperating, defining, and catagorizing, none of which are real, they are all fictions and narratives. When defnitions are made and catagories created, there are always those items that don't fit the nice neat box. Mankinds tries to contain the infinite in words but needs to understand that nothing exists by itself. Nothing is seperate from anything else. All of it, all of us, are all connected, and ultimately part of the same whole. That leads to the thought that if you treat everything as seperate and distinct, you end up with processes and actions that lead to unforseen results. Bring in animals from one region to another region where it has no predator and wrong things happen. The list is long, but none of the actions was meant to cause harm, but they did because they ignored that we are all connected. Look at ecosystems and our inability to make them stable or thrive, it is because we cannot grasp the complexity. Man sees himsekf as seperate and is not. We are not managing the world, we are in it. We are part of the process. All living things matter and have a effect on the system, and all living things are affected by changes in the system. We need to coexist with nature, the world, our systems, and our our actions. We are simply part of the whole. D Listen; It is simple. What makes you different is what makes you interesting. Revel in that thought What you think makes you a freak, is what other people will find interesting about you. Too often we try and hide our differences, we hide what is truly us. We often try to hide our eccentric thoughts and actions that are not the common "norm." We should highlighting our uniqueness. Look st the fasmous, they are seriously a wonky bunch, and it is exactly that sbout them that is interesting. Like fish in water, it is hard for us to understand the culture around us, as it is deeply psrt of our psyche, but when we all buy the same clothes, watch the same television shows, we all read the same books, there is an innate pressure to conform. Everyone feels it, but not many admit it. We work hard to blend, we work hard to not be different, but listen, different is what works. Different is what makes this world better. Those that do not conform, that ignore the common culture are the ones who shape our society for the future. Those who simply fit in are not doing anything but existing. They simply consume. Those who do not fit in, us freaks, we are creating and building and making. Like a lighthouse on the rocks, those that are different shine a light on the "rocks" that could sink our culture within our society. People want to be different, and they are afraid to show it. People may not always show their admiration, but they truly admire those that walk their own path. Society may not appreciate it openly, and society may try to attack you and make you conform, but deep down, you have their respect. Your goal then is to be yourself. Be yourself so naturslly, be yourself in such a true way, that people cannot view you any other way. Be real and true. Naturalness of movement snd thought, with you being you, is what also fascinates others about you. Be as radically freaking different as you can be, please, our society need it. D Mental discipline matters. The ability to maintain a constant push towards a goal, to keep yourself moving in a chosen direction despite distractions and roadblocks is important to success. We are not pre-destined machines, we control ourselves. People often forget that fact. No, we do not control all circumstances, nor how others react, or events of random chance or luck, but we do control ourselves, or at least we can, and we can control how we react to everything. How we act defines what we are. Our physical and mental selves are malleable and infinitely changeable, we truly can make ourselves anything or anyone. No one is born finished. We are created. If we do the work then we become what we chose. Our task is to consciously pick and chose daily to do those things that matter to us and that will make us what we chose to be. These tasks we chose to do daily can redesign us, and we can literally rewire ourselves. To change, you first must define what success means to you, what success means specifically to you. How do you know if you succeeded? You then break down that defintion into what are the crucial factors that define that success. What actions make those factors happen? What actions did others do to succeed? Simplify these to one, two, or three daily actions, and do them each day. Every day. If you want to be an artist, that is what you need to think about. Artists are who you need to talk to, to be with. You need to meet people who have made art that you respect. If you want to be rich, you must think about money, how it works, the process, how it functions,you need to start a business, and you need to be with people who have built businesses. Our lives are reflections of our thoughts. Daily actions matter. As your thoughts go, so your actions follow. As your actions flow, so you build your life. Do daily what you want to be. D Choices matter.
Every choice matters. Every time, all the time, every choice matters, all of them. Choices are how you got to be you, they are critical, and if you look back on the many decisions that have lead you to where you are, you realize the power of choices and the end results and the power of the choices you have a made in your life. They were choices that you made. The food that you eat that makes your body run the way it does matters, and what you choose to eat affects who you are and what you can do. The books you read make you aware of all the possible choices there are to be human, and by what you choose to read, you choose who you are. The activities, the exercises you do or don’t do are important, and it decides what kind of life you will lead. We are social beings, often reflections and combinations of those around us, and who you choose as your friends make you what you are. Where you are, how you live, always matters. What you are doing this second, each second, always matters. Make each choice consciously; make it real, deliberate, and true. Make it what you what it to be. Make sure what you choose is what you know is right and not what was convenient or easy. Make your own choices; don’t let others make your choices for you, and remember that to make no choice is make a mistake, because your choices matter. You are never too young or old or too poor or too rich, to make your world better through better choices. When you make your life better, you make your corner of the world better, and if a small part of the world is made better, ultimately, the world is better for the choice. D He found a way to enter a world that had always been feared and was unknowable. - Jacques Cousteau5/24/2011
I found a first edition in good shape of The Silent World by Captain J.Y. Cousteau. Amazing book. When I was younger, after reading this, my only goal was to work on the Calypso, I had a model that I had made, I had diagrams, I had even designed my own sub., probably would have drowned me, but it was beautiful to look at. I read this book several times, over and over, looking at the pictures again and again. The life this depicted was exactly the life that I thought we all should live, exploring new things, learning and inventing, and the life that Cousteau created is so amazing that if it was read as fiction, it would be unbelievable. He found a way to enter a world that had always been feared and was unknowable. Cousteau literally discovered a new world, and he did whatever he could to get there. The man created scuba diving while there was a war around him. This book has reminded me of what it was like to think about a world that was limitless and self created, and this thought helped me to understand going forward what I really want to write about, and that is people who's lives broke the mold and who saw the world in their own personal way, and how their views, what they considered important and a daily priority helped to shape their reality and the world around them. I made plans to design my own sub, and I still own the book on the Calypso, with the diagram of the inside of the ship. I still admire the way he can wear a red beanie. What we focus on is what we become. D |
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