Boredom is a good thing. Ideas in competition. Dumbasses yell at me. Manners? What manners? Question the ideas you hold dear. Everyone's background music is different. Speaking and writing clearly.
“We contain multitudes. But sometimes we also just contain wine and exhaustion.”
– Lyz Lenz
1. “Embrace the Solitude”
Five Key Pillars of a Happy Life – Tome Greene – (Wit & Wisdom)
Honestly, none of these are surprising, but they’re all worth being reminded of. I focus on solitude.
We are surrounded by chattering voices. The talking heads on the news channels, the podcasts and the near constant buzzing and pinging of smartphones. There is simply no time—no time for quiet contemplation, no time for reflection, no time to practice gratitude when we feel lost.
There’s really nothing new about this. I’ve known people for decades who can’t stand to be doing nothing. The concept of just sitting and thinking — something I recall my parents doing regularly — is not just foreign, but downright uncomfortable. And yet silence, even boredom, is where much great thought comes from.
Do this: Embrace boredom.
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2. “Ideas competing like products, truth emerging through contest”
What is the marketplace of ideas, actually? – Stepfanie Tyler – (Wild Bare Thoughts)
An interesting analysis of freedom of speech in light of recent events. One of the most difficult concepts for just about anyone to hold is this:
It requires us to tolerate speech we find stupid, offensive, or dangerous—not because that speech has value, but because the alternative is giving someone the power to decide what can be said, and that power will inevitably be abused.
Inevitably. We’re seeing it happen.
Here’s another concept that’s difficult for many to grasp:
Market consequences—losing your job, losing advertisers, losing audience—are part of how the system imposes accountability. They’re features, not bugs. You have the right to speak, not the right to a platform or an audience or continued employment regardless of what you say.
I wrote about free speech myself not that long ago. There’s a lot of misunderstanding. My point then: “Before you complain about your free speech rights being violated, make sure they really were.” More often than not, they haven’t been.
Do this: Protect free speech.
3. “If you create things for the public, you will get yelled at by dumbasses.”
Getting Yelled at By Dumbasses – Hamilton Nolan – (How Things Work)
I thought this was going to be an essay about writing on the internet. I write on the internet (a lot), and I get yelled at by dumbasses all the time. It’s part of the territory. Indeed, the essay has a long list of inevitable yet unintended consequences, misinterpretations, and unwarranted reactions that creators face regularly. It felt spot-on.
But its true message is from a different direction entirely.
America’s entire power structure has been taken over by the very same sort of dumbasses who have been yelling at all of us on the internet for years.
A different perspective, to be sure. And I can’t say he’s wrong.
The weapons of fascism—the masked secret police, the corruption, the crackdowns on civil society, the mocking disregard for law—are but the emboldened physical manifestations of Getting Yelled at By Dumbasses.
So, yeah. Dumbasses are in charge, and they’re yelling at us. Not just the creators; all of us.
Do this: Beware of dumbasses.
4. “Manners are no longer the default”
How I handle rude people – Darius Foroux – (Blog)
This is partly about writing on the internet, since many lessons apply. But it’s really about life and interacting with people in general.
What caught my attention is a technique I use frequently:
Humor disarms negativity. Find amusement in rude remarks or absurd criticism. Turn insults into anecdotes or jokes. When you laugh, the insult loses power.
Perhaps contrary to what Foroux might suggest, I often share that humor publicly. A thick skin is required to publish online, but that doesn’t mean that barbs don’t cause pain. Humor and sarcasm to the rescue.
Do this: Find the amusement.
5. “Is the belief really true?”
The Practice of Examining Our Beliefs – Leo Babauta – (Zen Habits)
As the essay title indicates, Babauta describes situations and techniques where examining what it is we believe can benefit us. Perhaps they’re unrealistic, perhaps they’re limiting, perhaps they’re irrelevant.
And perhaps they’re wrong. And that’s where I think we run into trouble.
The idea is to question the absolute truth of the belief … because if we can see that there’s even the possibility that it’s not true, then maybe we can begin to consider letting it go.
Most of us hold our beliefs to be Truth. They’re not something we believe as much as something we hold to be true — self-evident, even. This makes the mere act of questioning what we believe a more difficult exercise than it would seem. We’re not being asked to question what we believe; we’re being asked to question The Truth. Valuable, to be sure, but difficult.
Do this: Question.
6. “Introverts may perform worse than extroverts with background music”
Can listening to music make you more productive at work? – Anna Fiveash – (The Conversation)
While the introvert/extrovert thing surprised me, other characteristics of music itself obviously play a large role in how it affects us as we work. Loud/soft, vocal/instrumental, fast/slow all come into play, as does the type of work you’re attempting to perform. Timing even matters.
Playing music before a demanding task has been shown to boost language abilities in particular.
So if you’re about to do a cognitively demanding task involving reading and writing, and you feel that music might distract you if played at the same time, try listening to it just before doing the task.
What I find interesting, and not mentioned in the essay, is how our relationship with music-as-we-work changes over time. In my college days, I always had music — usually loud-ish pop or rock — in the background as I did my thing. Today I need to be much more selective lest I get distracted. But I find that the right music can be, ironically, both energizing and soothing.
Do this: Listen to the music.
7. “The most uniquely human tool we all wield is our ability to speak.”
Go Deeper With What You Already Have – Kim Witten, PhD – (Medium)
I would generalize a little further and say it’s our ability to communicate — both spoken and written.
And even with that said, I’ve been known to muse that it’s amazing we haven’t all killed each other because of our inability to communicate clearly. Misunderstanding runs amok, as do half-baked assumptions made on poorly worded ideas.
Improving your ability by even a fraction of a percent sets you apart from the rest of humanity, too.
The author, a linguistics professor, focusses on understanding … to the point of almost analyzing … the communications we hear. The “improvement” quote above I think relates mostly to that.
I would go further: it’s our ability to express ourselves clearly, in both spoken and written word, that can become a super-power, and is worth every effort to improve.
Do this: Improve your communications.
#speaking #writing #communication
Random links
What I’m reading now
- A Night in the Lonesome October – Roger Zelazny
- Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World – Anne-Laure Le Cunff
- Creative Intellegence – Greg Storey
- The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One 1929-1964 (Audio)(re-read)
My Reading List – everything I’ve read since 2021.
My Sources Page – the common sources I scan/read regularly.
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