isn't it the height of folly to learn inessential things when time's so desperately short?

more stoic philosophy:

“…isn’t it the height of folly to learn inessential things when time’s so desperately short!” - Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLVIII

i think this idea is universally true and has always been. in fact, i can actually imagine that it’s part of what certain people at certain points in history “get ahead.” maybe it has to do with being an early adopter, maybe not. but i can imagine a trend among people who have a knack for identifying what is folly to learn based on their current context and avoiding those things.

this is showing up for me in two contexts. the first is preparing to live life in a trump presidency. the second is watching education systems fail all over the place.

on the trump point, i’m finding myself drawn to different things than before. i’m thinking more about what skills and knowledge do i want to have to best serve my community (myself included) in a fascist america. this has shifted my reading list and also where i think i should be spending my time.

on the education systems side, i’ve talked about this several times before, but it really comes down to google and cell phones. it’s crazy to me that school systems are still “teaching” people, young and old, with a deficit model. we have a lot of human knowledge available at our fingertips, but we’re still transferring knowledge in industrial ways. the model of school has just got to evolve to take that into account. the goal of education (to prepare future generations for participation in the world) can still be the same, but the tactics and methods need to evolve. it is folly to not do so and i’d argue that we’re actually wasting resources while also diminishing the ability of future generations to participate well in the world we’re living in (which is, itself, changing constantly).

ps - the edition i’ve been linking to isn’t the edition i’ve been reading. the one i’m ready has language that makes much more sense to me, but isn’t online. the translation differences seem minor but they have a marked difference on meaning. sucks.

writing: 12:54
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one of the people i respect the most about the internet is going dark as soon as possible

one of the people i have the most respect for in the tech world (let’s call her alex) is planning on going dark as soon as possible. this terrifies me.

alex has watched the internet evolve pretty much from day one and she has gone from staunch advocate for it to wanting as little to do with is as soon as is feasible. this is difficult because she works as a technology head at her day job, but as soon as she can retire, she said she’s going off the grid.

her reasons are pretty solid:

1. nothing is neutral.
2. with the amount of data that private corporations now have on individuals, it’s almost trivial for someone to hack a system and learn everything about who you are.
3. america’s response to the snowden situation is insane. at a national scale, we publicly saw that the government is regularly committing unconstitutional acts… and almost nothing has changed. the snooping that the government does has basically been socially greenlighted (under president obama, this seemed like not a big deal… under president trump, this is fucking terrifying).
4. google, a private company, is constantly and continuously collecting data on us in order to garner massive profits and sell our information to marketers and advertisers. people talk about the fear of artificial intelligence like it’s going to appear in a humanoid form (a la ex machina). if google knows basically everything about you (they have almost all of your emails even if you don’t use gmail yourself and many of your documents), targets you with ads, and then is able to learn whether or not you respond to those ads to do the targeting better, google itself is a learning machine that sooner or later will be ai (or something).

yikes.

scary resources:

• ACLU Says the Feds Have Asked Apple and Google to Unlock Devices Many Times
  
  
• Google Deceptively Tracks Students’ Internet Browsing, EFF Says in FTC Complaint
  
  relevant line: “While Google does not use student data for targeted advertising within a subset of Google sites, EFF found that Google’s “Sync” feature for the Chrome browser is enabled by default on Chromebooks sold to schools. This allows Google to track, store on its servers, and data mine for non-advertising purposes, records of every Internet site students visit, every search term they use, the results they click on, videos they look for and watch on YouTube, and their saved passwords. Google doesn’t first obtain permission from students or their parents and since some schools require students to use Chromebooks, many parents are unable to prevent Google’s data collection.”
  
  
• Not OK, Google: Chromium voice extension pulled after spying concerns

writing: 15:03
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seneca’s rejection of useless work

i’m pretty surprised about this, but seneca is really my jam right now. letter LXXXVIII (88) is all about the distinction between useless pursuits of knowledge/skill and meaningful ones. if you can stomach the style of language, he really just shreds so many different lines of work into bits. it’s actually kind of comical when you really get into his flow. but mostly it feels refreshing.

his overarching point, and i think i’m learning that is a pillar of stoicism, is that unless your work is helping you or other people learn how to live better, you’re not doing important work. and better, in the stoic sense, means with more alignment between mind and body. there is a staunch rejection of consumerism and wealth accumulation. some quotes:

Pronouncing syllables, investigating words, memorizing plays, or making rules for the scansion of poetry, what is there in all this that rids one of fear, roots out desire, or bridles the passions?

The mathematician teaches me how to lay out the dimensions of my estates; but I should rather be taught how to lay out what is enough for a man to own.

“I am being driven from the farm which my father and grandfather owned!” Well? Who owned the land before your grandfather? Can you explain what people (I will not say what person) held it originally? You did not enter upon it as a master, but merely as a tenant. And whose tenant are you? If your claim is successful, you are tenant of the heir. The lawyers say that public property cannot be acquired privately by possession; what you hold and call your own is public property – indeed, it belongs to mankind at large.

some of those last lines sound identical to things i’ve learned from my new interactions with and readings of work by indigenous people. their words and seneca’s all make me throw into question (even more than i already had) ideas in the west about society, land, education, ownership, and more. if any of these aren’t helping us move towards being better people individually, better people as a collective, and better stewards of the land on which walk, then like wtf is the point?

anyway, this whole letter is worth the read, but here’s some of the chunks i like the most.

quotes:

“The scholar busies himself with investigations into language, and if it be his desire to go farther afield, he works on history, or, if he would extend his range to the farthest limits, on poetry. But which of these paves the way to virtue? Pronouncing syllables, investigating words, memorizing plays, or making rules for the scansion of poetry, what is there in all this that rids one of fear, roots out desire, or bridles the passions? The question is: do such men teach virtue, or not? If they do not teach it, then neither do they transmit it. If they do teach it, they are philosophers. Would you like to know how it happens that they have not taken the chair for the purpose of teaching virtue? See how unlike their subjects are; and yet their subjects would resemble each other if they taught the same thing…

Now I will transfer my attention to the musician. You, sir, are teaching me how the treble and the bass are in accord with one another, and how, though the strings produce different notes, the result is a harmony; rather bring my soul into harmony with itself, and let not my purposes be out of tune. You are showing me what the doleful keys are; show me rather how, in the midst of adversity, I may keep from uttering a doleful note. The mathematician teaches me how to lay out the dimensions of my estates; but I should rather be taught how to lay out what is enough for a man to own. He teaches me to count, and adapts my fingers to avarice; but I should prefer him to teach me that there is no point in such calculations, and that one is none the happier for tiring out the book-keepers with his possessions – or rather, how useless property is to any man who would find it the greatest misfortune if he should be required to reckon out, by his own wits, the amount of his holdings. What good is there for me in knowing how to parcel out a piece of land, if I know not how to share it with my brother? What good is there in working out to a nicety the dimensions of an acre, and in detecting the error if a piece has so much as escaped my measuring-rod, if I am embittered when an ill-tempered neighbour merely scrapes off a bit of my land? The mathematician teaches me how I may lose none of my boundaries; I, however, seek to learn how to lose them all with a light heart. "But,” comes the reply, “I am being driven from the farm which my father and grandfather owned!” Well? Who owned the land before your grandfather? Can you explain what people (I will not say what person) held it originally? You did not enter upon it as a master, but merely as a tenant. And whose tenant are you? If your claim is successful, you are tenant of the heir. The lawyers say that public property cannot be acquired privately by possession; what you hold and call your own is public property – indeed, it belongs to mankind at large. O what marvellous skill! You know how to measure the circle; you find the square of any shape which is set before you; you compute the distances between the stars; there is nothing which does not come within the scope of your calculations. But if you are a real master of your profession, measure me the mind of man! Tell me how great it is, or how puny! You know what a straight line is; but how does it benefit you if you do not know what is straight in this life of ours?“

writing: 11:38
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reverse scavenger hunts

earlier in 2016, i had dinner with my good friend, erin, and he told me about a project he started a few years bad that really resonated with and inspired me. it’s called a reverse scavenger hunt and i think about weekly. not only is it an interesting idea on its own, i think it also has some broader implications for ways people can positively engage with their surroundings.

the general idea, just like a standard scavenger hunt, is that he would create a list of tasks that teams of people had to complete. the more things you do/get on the list, the more points you end up with. the team with the most point at the end of the game wins. the flip is that instead of taking things, the tasks encourage positive actions with people and places nearby. so instead of buying or stealing an item, like might be on a normal scavenger hunt list, a task might be buying flowers and giving them to someone on the street.

i really appreciate the idea that groups of people can run around the city doing little acts of kindness or funny stuff in a way that randomly but positively impacts the people and place where they live. from a systems perspective, maybe ideas like this could be critiqued as being too small or not having enough impact. but the way i see it, how people feel in public is a big deal and has serious implications on culture. if things like reverse scavenger hunts were more common, maybe people would come to associate random sidewalk encounters with more positive experiences than negative ones. and then maybe the safer people feel in public, the more likely they are to engage in positive social change work or be more empathic.

a new friend, nick, just told me that he heard or read something that indicated that empathy might behave just like cognitive budgets. you can use up your empathetic capacities over the course of a day just like you can use up your cognitive ones. if that’s the case, maybe reverse scavenger hunts could be a way to replenish and even grow people’s empathetic capacities… that’d be cool.

update: resources from nick

• is it possible to run out of empathy? 
• is the internet killing empathy?

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put your house in order and discover what you really want to do

a few weeks ago, i tore through marie kondo’s wildly popular book, the life-changing magic of tidying up. i think i finished it in like four days… it’s the 2nd fastest i’ve read any book this year (only giovanni’s room was faster).

my old landlord and adopted dad, roy, was the first person who actually made me want to read it. i’d heard a lot about it in the media, but roy’s recommendation made me actually get it. i’m really glad i did, but even as i think about what i’m about to write, i can already hear it coming out hokey…

the dominant narrative (subtitle included) about the book is that it’s about cleaning. her methodology gets mostly talked about in a frame that’s about how to get rid of things. however, as i read it, her actual point is that by using her method to clean up, it’s possible to be happier and​ discover your life’s work (this is hugely important, imo, and will only continue to increase in importance as work and economy continue to behave like shifting sands…)

her signature question, “does this spark joy?” is a question that’s meant to help you decide whether you should keep a particular item or not. taken on an item-by-item basis, it’s a very useful question. however, the undersell is in the application of that question to literally everything you own. “the magic,“ then is that by getting rid of all things that don’t spark joy, you actually allow yourself to remember, rediscover, or discover for the first time what you actually want to do. kondo believes that our passions and true selves are surfaced when we only have possessions that bring us joy.

the most concrete example she gives of this is how it shows up in book collections. by going through your book collection, taking each book in your hand and only keeping the ones that bring you joy, you will end up with a much smaller library. the books you have at that point usually will be the subject matter that most excites you. it’s likely that you should be focusing your energy (career, hobbies, etc.) on those things. i think that’s an pretty incredible idea.

definitely added going through my stuff, konmari-style, to my list of things to do over winter break. there’s always room for more magic in my life.

ps - marie believes that the things we really enjoy and are passionate about don’t change over time. i’m not so sure about this, but i’m interested in her perspective because she’s been doing this work for way longer than me. i am definitely curious, though, if my coaching practice and jungle’s SNaP work will surface the same or a contradictory insights.

writing: 17:02
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