W-9s and 1099s (Oh My!)

Having your own business is really different than being an employee. Apparently, you're supposed to file one if you're paying rent to someone over $600 unless that person is incorporated.

Spent some of the morning searching the Goog on how this all works (for someone else, I don't have a business... yet).

It looks like there is a service that exists to help collect W-9s and 1099s. I found it when searching out "Freshbooks W-9". It's neat to see that someone setup a service like Tax1099.com to streamline paperwork drudgery.

While I find the existence of the service inspiring from a distance as an example of identifying a problem and creating a solution, that's about where the interest ends. I couldn't see being interested in taxes or the IRS long term. Ick.

Just... Ick.

What Does Passion for Work Look and Feel Like?

How do you know that you are passionate about something?

Seems like a strange question to ask, doesn't it? I expect that a lot of people think that passion is something that is self-evident when you are in it.

One might argue: "If you have to ask, you're probably not passionate". But I think this may be a flawed notion because I suspect that passion and pain come together.

I've started reading "The Dip" by Seth Godin and he says, pretty much categorically, that anything worth getting good at is going to include a dip. And he defines a dip as the hard slog that you have to push through in order to become world class at something. This is a kind of pain, yeah?

I'm experiencing a kind of pain at work right now.

I do infrastructure automation. How do you go from empty data center to racks of servers ready to take work? I solve a part of this problem. And it's a big problem.

We've done a good job of coding through the work of cable validation and initial configuration for a rack of compute and network devices. But now that we know which servers need work, we're stuck on the next problem of how to triage and dispatch repairs. And, frankly we've taken steps back, since the vendor recently shipped with different firmware which is incompatible against the code we wrote to employ their auto-provisioning mechanisms.

"The nature of work is inherently unremarkable," says Godin in Poke the Box, which I have read enough to get the gist of it. This sentence is profound to me right now because I have chosen this path and I'm in this slog and I'm wondering if it's something I really want to become world-class at doing.

And so we come back to the question I started with. Am I really passionate about this thing that I am doing? How do I know whether I am or not?

I have tended to measure passion by tirelessness:

• I don't notice time while doing the work
• I tend to think about the problems when I'm not working

These can, of course, also indicate that I merely have an obsessive personality.

It's hard to tell but I am clearly in a Dip and I am really deeply wondering if there is something that I should quit. Maybe not the coding... maybe just the infrastructure bit where I work with factory-fresh and us configured hardware... Where I have to work with The Vendor to solve problems.

I suspect there will always be someone else... maybe not a Vendor, but some other group, whose work I will have to depend on. In this case, it happens to be a manufacturer of hardware... In another case, it might be software. Is this sort of dependency with long resolution times ultimately avoidable? Maybe if I worked for a smaller outfit doing a smaller thing.

I haven't quit any aspect of what I am doing though my attitude has wavered. For now, I am leaning in and seeing what impact I can make. This is my default course of action.

I don't love the way the story looks right now. Maybe that's how it is when you're in Act 2 of a 3-Act play.

Hallelujah on Ukulele

Update: I've done a good bit of work on this since I initially wrote this blog post and now I have since settled on the F-major version.

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A link to my Google Doc of the tab.

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Last weekend at the Northern VA Ukulele Meetup, someone brought a copy of "I only want to be with you" by Dusty Springfield. And the first two chords are C and A minor. And I thought I heard a familiar song and this one shook out of the tree, so to speak.

Hallelujah, which I think is originally written by Leonard Cohen. But, just about everyone has a cover version because it is a gorgeous tune with emotional complexity. It's like a good cup of coffee actually. And I don't mean the sugar-laden version that most people drink.

I also added a transposition to they key of F.

Anything You Want Re-read - #01

"Anything You Want Re-read" is a series of posts where I will publicly post my notes from reading "Anything You Want" by Derek Sivers a second time. In these posts, I will share the things I find interesting, or that I disagree with, or that inspire other thinking, or that reinforce principles I have seen elsewhere.

These are mostly for me but can act as a taste sampler for the book in case you are curious about it.

What's Your Compass?

In Which

Derek Sivers shares a list of directives that he thinks will allow a person to pursue a business that will not end in regret.

Business is not about money. It's about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.

At some point, all activity involves money. Either spending it, or making it, or doing something instead of worrying about it. Contextually one could argue that Derek is wrong because eventually you gotta pay the bills. I think this bullet doesn't stand alone.

It stands better when combined with one of the later bullets:

Never do anything just for the money.

When taken together, I can see what Sivers is getting at. Money has the potential to be a distraction and is dangerous to pursue for its own sake.

It's a way to lose touch with your internal compass.

I think Sivers is saying that chasing money is a way to end up some place you never intended to be and uncertain of why you do what you do.

Don't pursue business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help.

Sivers insists that you will know you should start a business by the fact that people are already asking for help; for this thing you will do for your business. Forget about crafting the perfect business plan or waiting until you have enough money... just start helping people.

I think this is very interesting. And, I need more elaboration on how, in this day and age, I can be in a position to hear the calls for help. At my comfy desk job, I am surrounded by very similar people who are hard-working but have solved or resigned themselves to the problems in their context. I don't hear very many calls for help. I am isolated from those calls and I wonder what I could do to increase my exposure to them.

Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business.

Sivers makes a point that I have seen elsewhere. And it is important. If you go into business you need to go to work on the business, and not just at your business.

You have to make it run whether you are present or not.

This topic is covered in detail by a book called The eMyth Revisited by Michael Gerber, which is a very interesting cautionary tale about what happens when technician types, like me, try to create a business in what the author terms an "entrepreneurial seizure". Often technicians end up self-employed in a business they have to manage as well, which they are not prepared to do. Or they abdicate managing the business to someone else.

Gerber and Sivers are in accord: A business has to be a system that you design (and iterate upon) to achieve a goal without requiring that you are present for the business to happen.

What I notice

Because this section is a list of bullets I put most of what I noticed in line above. One additional observation occurs to me.

Sivers opens with the cash value of his books. I figure that the rest of the stories in the book will reinforce these themes and vice versa. They are predicated of his stories and make short lessons of them.

Just selling my CD

In which

Sivers tells the story of how CD Baby came to be. At this point in his life, he had achieved some success as a musician including having saved enough to buy a house.

He was selling his CD in local record stores but wanted to sell online as well. So he called the online record stores to see if they could sell his CD they all told him that you needed to go through a major distributor.

That wasn't going to work. So he went to his bank and got a credit card merchant account and put his CD on his own website with a "buy now" button. And then then friends asked him to sell their CDs on his site, to which he agreed. And this happened many times over.

What I notice

This may not be mind blowing to you, but it is to me. He called the online record stores!!

You mean, I can just pick up the phone and call people?? Perhaps I can make an exercise of this.

Also, he was scratching his own itch, as Tim Ferriss likes to put it. And he belonged to a demographic which had the same need. One by one, they asked him for help to do the same. The growth was slow and organic, requiring no promotion on his part.

Finally, his credit card merchant account was, at the time, a difficult to acquire resource that he shared. Sivers refers to his conception of business as "the Co-op model of business" where he simply splits the cost of an expensive but shareable resource by acquiring it and then making it available to others.

Make a dream come true

In Which

Sivers goes from realizing that he had accidentally created a business to applying a utopian dream-come-true stance to prevent the business from growing too much.

He lists 4 points that are a dream come true for an indie musician (unsigned to a major record label) trying to sell his/her own music:

1. Pay me every week
2. Give me the name and address of everyone who bought by CD
3. Never kick me out for not selling enough.
4. Never allow paid placement.

Sivers closes saying he wasn't trying to make a business. "I was just daydreaming about how one thing would look in a perfect world.

What I notice

Sivers claims he hadn't intended to create a business but he created a business anyway. Perhaps "the reluctant businessman" is the right kind of business man to avoid the soul-crushing corporatization that seems pervasive in America.

We are much too good at creating soul-less businesses. That's why it's amazing when a company like Apple becomes a big deal. I suspect even Apple has long been in the process of becoming soul-less and most of us haven't admitted it.

Apple have become the establishment in certain spheres. I understand their original purpose to be to disrupt the establishment and to empower individuals. And I think this will be much more difficult if they are trying to protect their hegemony over certain domains.

Back to Sivers. I don't know if he's right in a categorical sense. What he says feels good to me. Stay small, and stay true to your utopian purpose. There is a part of me that wants to believe that this kind of good is possible in our universe. But examples are rare.

Next Time

That's it for this time. Thanks for reading along and see you next time!

On Presidency, and Brushfires, and Stewardship

Avoiding the Temptation

This morning I am tempted to reflect on work first thing but since that's where my mind seems to want to go, and another part of my mind is feeling willful, I guess we're going to have to write instead about...

I Voted for Donald Trump

Yes, folks. The news based on in yesterday's Primary, is that he is motoring ahead. And a large number of people that I know actually got out to vote.

Many of them are also appalled.

I saw a couple of instances of wondering-in-public by people I know whether they know any people that voted for Trump. I saw one specific request by someone, whom I expect to be a liberal (as most of my friends and acquaintances are) to contact her if you voted for Trump. From what I know of her, she strikes me as capable of genuine curiosity so I can take the request as an earnest desire to understand.

I voted for Donald Trump.

Really, I voted for everybody. That's the same as voting for nobody but they don't give you a sticker for this. (That's fine. I don't need social standing on this. I prefer stickers bearing the names of startups on the cover of my Mac.)

You might ask why I didn't vote. Don't I care enough to vote against someone? Even Trump?

Virginia is an open primary state, which means that you don't need to register with a major party to vote in a primary. But you can only participate in one in any given year.

Here's my reason. You can't vote for anyone without holding your nose. And we don't have a vote-against system. We have a vote-for system. The last time I voted against someone, we got Obama-care and 8 long years of increasing racial tension in the United States.

(Though I voted for him in the Primary I didn't want Obama, who seemed at the time like the Prototype of a socialist-leaning Democrat, in office.)

Here's a grand irony: fans of Ayn Rand, the people whom I have connected with who call themselves "Objectivist", (which I still resemble... but I no longer accept as a label for myself).... They are in accord with the liberals on opposing Trump.

I can' t help but notice how easy it is to agree when you state what you stand against, and how difficult it is to agree when you say what it is you wish to move toward.

Maybe it's easier to see something bad when you can point right at it.

Much easier than trying to predict the future if we implement policy X or Y or Z (or all of them).

Life Under Donald Trump, Executive

I didn't vote because you have to hold your nose to vote for anyone. I couldn't convince myself that Trump had to be opposed because he was worse than Ted Cruz, whose election would be a step further down the road to American Theocracy.

No one on the ballot really wants to reduce the size and scope of government, and some wish to increase it.

Maybe this would be especially true of Donald Trump. If you'll pardon my ranting a bit... He might be able to slap that name on more doomed projects. At his age, with so many failed ventures, he is as close as we can come in our nation to *an expert at *spending other people's money. He'll fit right in in Washington!

There is a valid fear that the man has no boundaries or principles. That he would strain the constitution. Well... good.

Maybe the congress and the judicial branch will grow more mature in their stewardship of this country by getting some practice at performing checks and balances rather than aligning with their party and opposing the other guys.

Maybe after a disastrous and gridlocked Trump presidency, we will come to understand the error of our ways. We will respect the Office of the President more... And demand someone of appropriate stature to occupy that seat.

This is analogous to how the human body responds to threats.

We make the human body stronger by introducing stresses which do not kill us.

Weakened virus cells. Physical workouts involving lots of weight.

The body responds to this stress with immune response or hypertrophy to grow and overcompensate in order to handle the next instance of a similar challenge.

Organizations tend to respond in this way as well.

With this in mind... Maybe Trump will be the brushfire that prevents the wildfire. If he is the wildcard everyone expects him to be, maybe that will adjust the American psyche to reject unprincipled pandering in the future.

On Respecting the Office

What can you say about the last few that have sat there? "Leaders eat last" say thought leaders in the discipline of leadership, but I think most of the people on the ballot do not think of any person or mission before their own personal gain: power, prestige, money, hubris. And you can probably say the same about Bush and Clinton.

Yes, even Obama.
(I don't support his agenda or his programs, I guess that makes me a bigot)

Vice is so deeply associated with political office that the best among us would not even consider running for it.

Now I don't imagine myself to be the best anything. But my self-conception includes integrity. And I can't imagine a situation where a person with integrity can take the mantle of a position that seems to be ultimate power, therefore ultimate corruption.

I couldn't imagine a man like Jocko Willink wanting to run for President. Or Sam Harris. Or Tim Ferriss. They have better things to do and would probably disqualify themselves.

Does it take a lack of self-awareness to be delusional enough to think that being president seems like "the right thing to do"?

I want to respect the office because the men who occupy that seat are the most honorable sort. I want to be able to look back on the last 5 presidents and ask what they had in common, and the answers that I come up with are: they were stewards who were dedicated to liberty... and they refused fame and fortune after their time.

I will probably only find that in Brandon Sanderson's writings.

For Purpose Running

The First Race: GW Parkway Classic 10mI

The first race of 2016 for me. It's coming!

I am back on track with my training for the GW Parkway Classic 10 Mile Race. I got in about ~6.5 miles of running with some walking this weekend.

I plan my running to take me to the Lake Anne Recreation Center so that I can stop for a drink of water at around ~3 miles. I don't like to carry water or anything that unbalances me left/right wise. It's nice to know the Rec center is there and I make sure to thank the people behind the desk for being my oasis.

Calculating for the Race

I will need 60-90 minutes a day 3-5 times a week to get the level of training I need to finish my 10 mile race. My run during the weekend was really hard work and left my muscles sore, but that will be less of a problem next week if I get in all of my other scheduled runs.

There are 6 weekends left until the race... 7 if you count the race itself. If I increase by 0.5 miles each weekend, I can get to 10 miles on race day.

That leaves me with a question of how to add social elements of motivation to my own practices of #discipline and #will...

Adding Purpose to Running

I am tempted to attach fundraising goals to my running goals.

My main goal with running races is that it provides an anchor event for the connection I enjoy with my family and friends. We support one another to keep "getting after it", keeping fit, and making ourselves better physically and mentally.

Adding fundraising would be congruent with my current explorations of non-remunerative activity. What would I do whether or not I got paid for doing it?

People won't be funding me. They will be funding the efforts of others to make a difference, or to get by, or to do things differently than before in a way "the market" hasn't chosen to pull and push.

Here's what I envision:

• Four races this year.
• Four different charities.
• Four different sizes of race.
• A crowdrise campaign for each.

I will be the first donor to each, to get things started and put my money where my mouth is, and publicize these efforts.

It will connect people to me and to one another! We will all be generous! And it will force me out of my shell to go find people to fund my campaigns.

For The Family of Officer Ashley Guindon

Maybe I can even do something in response to the senseless tragedy in Lake Ridge this weekend.

It looks like the PWCPA has set up a fund for Officer Guindon:

The Prince William County Police Association has created the fund for the family of Officer Ashley Guindon. The association will collect all donations and send them directly to Guindon's mother.

If possible, checks should be made out to "PWCPA in memory of OFC Ashley Guindon," authorities said.

Anyone who wishes to donate can leave their donation at any county police station or mail it directly to the police association at: Prince William County Police Association, Officer Guindon Memorial Fund, P. O. Box 1845, Manassas, VA 20108.

Police are warning people not to donate to GoFundMe pages that purport to be raising money for Guindon's family. Police determined that at least one fraudulent page was set up in the officer's name.

So I can definitely do this and I can definitely ignore the last paragraph because I only intend to hit up people that I know personally and they know I'm not a crook!

Instigation Initiative

It is 6am. Early...

I try not to do things when I am awake at odd hours. But maybe this is just the sort of thing I ought to embrace and act right now.

By an hours time, I expect to have this post up and have my crowd rise page going.

Just watch me! :)

Status Update

Okay... well I've hit a snag. I can't seem to designate the PWCPA fund on crowdrise just yet but I have e-mailed their support and we will see where that goes. But I am proud to have taken immediate action on this.

On Absolutes

Extremism is rarely the thing we need.

Absolutes let us off the hook, because they demand not to be negotiated. But absolutes usually bump into special cases that are truly hard to ignore…

-Seth Godin, At the edges, it all falls apart

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I generally consider myself an absolutist with a set of fundamental priciples that are not to be violated. But this claim is subject to verification.

I certainly think the list of absolutes we hold should be short and subject to modification based on the incorporation of new data.

Whatever we believe, we have to admit that there are times when absolutes serve us well, and there are times when we are blindsided by unexpected implications. They always seem to face the special case challenges that Godin talks about above.

Maybe they are contextually helpful but not categorically so.

An absolute right to life?

You end up with the abortion debate. You end up with debate on the morality of the death penalty. Do animals have rights?

If rights are derived, as Ayn Rand suggests, from the requirement to exercise one’s reason in order to determine how to act to sustain one's existence… does a mentally crippled human being have exactly the same right to life in the same context?

Do two people battling over water rights where one is dumping waste and the other is drawing water to drink have an obvious solution answered by an absolute right? First come first served?

There are more questions than answers. And more pragmatic answers than principled ones. And in some contexts, the pragmatic answers may be measurably more just or generous.

An absolute right to free speech?

Consider Edward Snowden. Consider the caricature of yelling “fire” in a crowded room with tiny exits guarded by Nazis with submachineguns.

An absolute right to privacy?

An innocent person is suspected to have information pertaining to a missing-person-slash-murder investigation. Do the police have a right to the data on his/her electronic devices?

What I Notice That Absolutes Actually Do

What I notice about absolutes is that they help us to notice a situation where grave injustice may occur. The desire to impose an absolute indicates an area of grave importance.

Absolutes reduce cognitive load. A person thinking in principles can keep fewer "things" in mind at a time when trying to make a decision.

We use absolutes to communicate and express what is important with a lot of poetic license. The tendency is to hear what is said and to suspend disbelief. This occurs in any echo-chamber.

We also use absolutes to avoid communicating in the raw detail of a topic. Moral grandstanding is good example of this. Think about how impossible it is to have an honest conversation that doesn't get dragged fully into the weeds on any of these topics: Racism, Sexism, Islamism, pay inequality, affordable medical care, immigration, or Abortion.

In light of this, I suspect that we might do well to rewire ourselves so that when we find that the thing we most want to say is an absolute principle therefore a change in policy that we remember that great care is needed… the best and clearest thinking you can muster will be needed in order to be able to engage in honest conversation and/or decision-making.

Absolutes and Policy

In my observation, most human beings do a pretty poor job of thinking through the long-term implications of applying broad principles. Some of us can do this well in certain contexts but with small contextual changes, we start showing gaps in our logic.

Human beings get bogged down when multiple principles interact in a dynamic system.

And human beings are especially bad at predicting behavior in such a system while they are driven by their own panic in response to what seems like a crisis.

Conclusion: We are wise to avoid making broad changes in policy while in a panicked response. Let’s just wait until we are calm to review the situation and decide how to respond.

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…The good middles, the difficult compromises that matter, that’s where we can build things that have long lasting impact.

We need a compass and a place to go. But the road to that place is rarely straight and never absolute.

-Seth Godin, At the edges, it all falls apart

What We Need: It's Not More Money

Lunch conversation went deep yesterday. Everyone at our lunch table has, in some way, arrived at the point where we have financial fitness. And although Craig is a bit too young to be as much in a state of existential transition as the older gents at the table, I think I can say this about all of us:

We make enough money and adding more money will not make us any happier.

Money right now is just this game we play to help us select one employer over another.

But the larger task we have before us is to figure out what it is we are going to do with what we have, now that we have more money... if we can make more time.

We are employees, not entrepreneurs. This place that we work... we are delivering the best hours of our days to act out someone else's purpose... for money. And we have to question whether it's worth it. And also, if not this, then what?

Strangely, Salesforce is also helping in their own way to provide fodder for consideration.

My volunteer gig wouldn't be if I were still working for Juniper or Verizon. I don't think it makes me a happy person, or better than anyone else for that matter, to be doing a volunteer gig. But I do think it makes me better than I was before I starting doing it. It gives me a practice venue for being humble and getting my hands dirty and reminds me that hands-on service can be rewarding.

Wednesday mornings, I go to tend the cats at the Sterling Petco and I love to try to do an unquestionably thorough job of it. When I sweep those cat habitations, they are CLEAN.

I don't sweep my own house that well!!

Maybe that says a lot about me, but I don't quite know what. If nothing else, that I am able to drive hard when:

• I know there is a clear purpose (making sure the cats have a clean living space and getting those cats homes)
• I know the beneficiaries personally (Twinkle, Halley, and the black-and-white-one whose name I can't seem to remember)

I think it is really generous of Salesforce to give us paid time to do volunteer activities. It's a grand experiment of sorts.

These are largely community activities that are of uncertain impact and are most certainly not remunerative. Non-remunerative... means that it doesn't earn money... is not lucrative... is not financially rewarding. They don't know what they will get out of it. Probably good PR. But also, maybe, a tiny sliver of a way to change the world by changing people. Reforging them.

Think of it as 10,000 tiny nudges, one delivered to each employee. I accept the challenge. And, I find that it is feeding me spiritually to have my volunteer time as a practice as I ask myself questions about what the hell I am going to be doing in the world that will matter. It helps a great deal to have a space where I can consider what matters without also considering whether something is remunerative.

On Cats, Coffee, Threats, and Leadership

The Chatty Cat Might Go And Hide

I'm still doing my volunteering gig with 4Paws Rescue Team. I picked up cats, Peanut and Raphael, from Campbell Animal Hospital to Manassas Petco yesterday. Doctor Olivia Kim always comes out to greet me when I come for a cat transport. Her commitment to the cats is awesome.

Raphael was the more vocal one in the carrier. So when I made the choice for which cat would go on top, I chose Peanut since he was the quieter. Raphael suprised me by hiding under the cat bed and being as quiet as a stone after I put them in place. Good intentions with incomplete information don't necessarily make good decisions.

I'm sure Raph will warm to the space some but I can't fault him for hiding since it's a retail space with a lot of loud noises that are not agreeable to cats.

Not Letting Threats Distract You From the Main Objective

I also got to play some hands of Hearthstone with Elliot for the first time last night and he gave me some good critiques and advice on general strategy. I'm still running a beginner deck build but it seems well-constructed for late-game damage dealing.

There was one hand I almost won but he made some very threatening moves and I lost sight of the objective when I had a lethal winning move within my grasp. I focused on taking out minions rather than attacking his hero.

The Lesson: Threats can shift your focus from something more important to something less important. It's worth checking in with your main objectives to ensure you are making them your primary consideration.

Still Experimenting with Pour-over Coffee Brewing

I don't think I have the pour-over thing down yet. The coffee is a bit lacking in body and a fair bit more earthy than when I use the AeroPress. I should probably read up on how best to use the Tannors/Hario V60 style ceramic brewer. Note also, I am starting with Melitta #2 flat bottom filters which do not properly fit the V60.

Stumptown has a guide for V60 brew: https://www.stumptowncoffee.com/brew-guides/v60

I think I will try the 15 second bloom and slow pour over 3 minutes.

It's a bit of a pain learning a new brew process. Better than drinking coffee with some amount of diluted plastic in it, I suspect. The AeroPress seems to hold up well to heat but I have made a rule not put heated food/drink into plastic because the chance of the plastic losing integrity is higher than I would like.

Thoughts on Leadership and Time Efficiency

One of the last things I did at work yesterday was to submit a travel approval for scenario training the management wants us all to do. Maybe it's something that will change everything for us. And maybe it is a #boondoggle. I am expecting the latter.

Initially, I found myself reacting like a rebellious teenager. "I'm not wasting my fracking time on that! Maybe I'll just conveniently forget to go.". But I'd rather not miss out on a chance to hang with the team face to face. I LOVE my team.

Also, I find myself struggling with internal conflict on this matter. My desire to be a good leader is conflicting with my desire not to waste my time. As a leader, I own that every thing I do is an example I set for others on my team.

This has been an issue in the recent past, where I have set an example that created an issue for my management when others emulate me. Some junior ICs on my team thought they could flex their hours without delivering overwhelmingly good results and that is simply not the case. You need to be able to solve dire problems and ensure there is zero concern about the quality or timeliness of your work. Over-deliver! That is how you earn flexibility of work schedule. But exercising schedule flexibility often comes with a perceptual cost.

I went ahead and submitted the travel approval. Doing so gives me maximum #Optionality. I will commit to giving the training 1-2 hours, in the same way I will give a book a couple of chapters to grab me. If I want to keep reading then I keep reading. Often times I get the punchline well before the book is finished. Too much filler.

I will give this training a fair chance... And if they fail to hold my interest, I will extract and just go do work if it doesn't seem like it's worth the time investment. There are too many other important things to do to waste two full days sticking around just for the sake of making a gesture.

Also, I think I will try to book the flight on an Airline other than United because I've had it with their ridiculously tiny seats. I am not cattle.

What... Me? Atheist?

I am an atheist. But I didn't always refer to myself this way. And even today, in order to do it, I have to define the word differently than the way most people use it. I define it as "not being a theist".

This entire post is my tear down of belief and non belief. Primarily I look at practice. Do I live my life as if there is an all-powerful super being whose words are transmitted through revelation to certain fallable humans during the Iron Age (or even before)?

There was a solid point in my life after I graduated from college and I was becoming my own man. I took a hard look at my own practices and I had to admit that I really didn't act like I believed in any God. I didn't go to church. I didn't pray.

And I had a special challenge, much as anyone does, to figure out what I was going to say about what I believe when family members ask why I'm not going to church or why I can't be someone's godparent in any kind of traditional sense because I would find it deeply unethical to raise a child in Catholicism.

Some might say that talking about it can be avoided. Because it's best to avoid talking about religion, money, and politics altogether... these are dangerous topics that will threaten any relationship.

But I think that core human values are enjoyable to contemplate and are worthy of discussion. I love ethics. Talking about ideas and values with other people helps me to feel a student of the world... and, to feel like a steward of my own life. Like I really own it and it is mine to craft according to my own vision.

And so, we begin where I started. I reverse-engineer the question of "what do I believe" by looking at what I do and inferring. I think there are four broad places a person can land and I define that in the next section.

Stages of Religious/Secular Practice

This scale of measurement asks two questions... - Does the person claim they believe in God? - Does the person act in accordance with religious or secular principles (or both)

By secular principles, I refer to any principle not derived from religion. Secular principles are defined here specifically to exclude any knowledge from religious sources that cannot be validated by reason. If some idea is merely transmitted by religion but can be validated by reason, I consider this to be secular.

Please observe also that there are many secular notions that are fallacious ideas that seem like they are reasonable but include an inappropriate switch of context or a comparison of unlike kind which leads to a contradiction. That a notion has arrived from a non-religious source does not make it automatically more likely to be true or valid. The measure of truth as always is whether a principle is in accord with observable fact, which can only be established by a process of reason.

1. Believer with consistent practice of religious values
2. Believer with a mixed practice of religious and secular values
3. Non Believer with a mixed practice of religious and secular values
4. Non Believer with consistent practice of secular values

The top half, I label as "Theist". The bottom half I label as "Non Theist". Interestingly, Athiest should mean the same thing as "Non Theist" but because of its usage in the USA, it carries some additional meaning when you factor for how vocal they are in categorically denying the existence of any possible supernatural being or revelation.

Misunderstanding the nature of a claim of existence, they claim the non-existence... which can never be proven as proof rests upon and is implied by existence, a fundamental precondition to go from the evidence of one's senses to a syllogism.

"So hey... there's this all-powerful superbeing in another realty that wants you to obey it according to some bloke named Muhammad... are you in or out?"

This is a claim of existence. And as with any such claim, it is not incumbent on the person evaluating it to disprove it. We don't have to furnish prove that Allah doesn't exist or that the text is wrong. The burden of proof falls on the person that makes a claim of existence. Either the evidence is strong enough to support the claim, ruling out other possibilities, or it is not.

Stages of Affinity/Antagonism toward Religion/Secularism/Knowing

This scale of measurement asks more than two questions... - Does the person believe in a religion? - ...further Does the person believe that knowledge of any kind is possible? - Does the person try to argue/persuade others about to challenge their beliefs or expound the reasons for the validity of their own?

This is an interesting way to measure things because people tend to equate the degree and depth of a person's belief with whether they would get on a soap box and scream it out to the world. I don't think this is true... but it is a perception that exists in the world.

It's also a useful taxonomy particularly to new Non Theists since there is generally a problem which I call "classic over-correction". People who have switched recently from half-hearted Theist to Non Theist often act out in unexpected and repellant ways. Often this is just temporary.

I can name three flavors of non believer when measured based on whether and how they argue with others. They are:
- Those who categorically deny the existence of a god - Those who reject claims of the existence of God (and revelation) based on insufficient grounds - Those who think knowledge of any kind is impossible

Most people label the first category as Atheist, but I label it as "Caricature Atheist"; the second, Rational Atheist, and the third has no clear label so I have labeled it "cynical skeptic". The Caricature Atheist and the Cynical Skeptic tend to be the loudest and most embarrassing of the Non Theists.

I present to you this spectrum involving more than two axes:

1. (One True Faith) Believer and Vocal... Open judgment for anyone who believes other than own religion
2. (Many Religions, All True somehow) Believer and Vocal... Judgment only for people who have no faith... Any religion is better than no religion
3. Believer and Vocal
4. Believer and Non Vocal
5. Non Believer and Non Vocal
6. Non Believer and Vocal about skepticism
7. (Caricature Atheist) Non Believer and Vocal... Open judgment for anyone who doesn't deny any possible existence of any supernatural being
8. (Cynical Skeptic) Non Believer and Vocal... Open judgment for anyone who claims they can know anything about anything

These really deserve a 3D space but as I am dealing with the written page, I'll have to sketch something up in the future.

Agnosticism

Looking at the three types of Non Believer I identified above. One might argue that there is a fourth which exists somewhere between the Rational Atheist and the Cynical Skeptic.

Measured by practice, the Agnostic is very similar to the Rational Atheist. However, an agnostic attempts to side-step the question of whether they accept or reject the claims of the existence of a God and the truth of revelation.

As such, the Agnostic straddles the position between Rational Atheist and Cynical Skeptic claiming that no one can know whether God exists or not. (Incidentally, this is also true about knowledge of anything non-existent... e.g. the existence of Ducks on Mars.). When confronted with a claim that must be evaluated consciously, the Agnostic chooses non-consciousness and non-acknowedgement.

The Agnostic turns out to be a mild sort of coward that prefers to remain in the closet than to take a position that others might judge.

It takes a measure of courage to recognize that your actions say that you don't believe in the claims of the existence of God. It takes a measure of courage to break ranks with your family and friends. In some societies, apostasy may mean ostracism or physical harm.

Even though we are in a country which has a separation of church and state, the vestiges of more than 10 centuries of terror remain in the psyche a people long after the threat of terror has ceased.

It is my position that the more courageous position is that of the Rational Atheist... who has consciously weighed the evidence and finds no grounds upon which to organize her life around the existence and words of an all powerful super-being. I don't think taking an Agnostic position helps a person to feel like an owner of their selves and their lives. I think it is a way of saying that other people are more important than your beliefs or the truth.

How much better to have some integrity about what you really believe and let the chips fall where they may?

For the Future

I've talked a lot about my ideas on how I identify different substrata of religious belief in reference to practice and in reference to vocal affinity/antagonism.

I haven't talked a lot about options for ethical systems but I think I might like to do that in a future post. People often try to substitute Society in the place of God and I think that is a mistake as well. (Just imagine trying to do so in Nazy Germany or the Europe of the middle ages). Destructive ideas can go into currency.

So there is a lot to talk about in a future post.

If you found this interesting or that there's something that you disagree with and you have ideas on how you would structure and identify things, drop me a line either in the comments below or reach out to me on Twitter @francisluong.

See you next time.

The End of the Face-battical

Back in September I expunged Facebook from my life. It was no longer serving me and, in fact, was a detriment to my life. I was using it habitually.

Please Facebook Responsibly

As a blind habit... using Facebook is dangerous. It is much too easy to use it vacuously as a reaction to be bored at any given moment. But I think that being bored from time to time is a hallmark of mental health, just as being hungry from time to time is a sign of physical health. I always feel a bit weird if I do not experience the pangs of hunger for a few days in a row.

As a communications medium Facebook is not good for everything. Most people scan very quickly and spend a long time replying only to the things that are most upsetting to them... for example, the misconstrued headline that causes a person to climb onto their soap-box and preach. No one wins in this situation.

I decided to re-engage yesterday primarily to join a Facebook group for WDS2016, a conference I am attending in August. Beyond a couple of groups, I intend to use it for purposes of:

• getting bad news about good friends
• sharing along articles and my own blog posts
• posting updates

I will not use it for:

• entertainment... The cure-all for every unoccupied moment
• any reply that takes more than 30 seconds to write
• any status update that takes more than 10 seconds to read
• discussion of anything that requires nuance... Or anything that entails going more than 2 replies deep. I will use blog posts for things requiring lengthy explanations and face-to-face conversation for discussions of things that can be upsetting and require tone of voice.

Living Post: Notes on Aristotle's Categories

This post contains my notes on The Categories by Aristotle, the first book of The Organon. It will be updated as I make more notes.

Notes on Chapters 1-4

"A Subject"

Any individual instance... Socrates, Callias, Secretariat. This Macbook Pro.

"(present) in a subject"

Interpretation

Aristotle describes something (say, X) as being in a subject as which I am taking to mean "the subject has X as a characteristic". He doesn't mean a member of a collection.

Quote - from Chapter 2 (Ackrill)

(By 'in a subject' I mean what is in something, not as a part, and cannot exist separately from what it is in.) For example, the individual knowledge-of-grammar is in a subject, the soul, but is not said of any subject...

Examples

• indidual knowledge-of-grammar is in a soul
• white is in a subject, the body
• all color is in a body

"said of a subject"

Interpretation

When Aristotle says that "X is said of Y", X is an abstraction of individual instances of Y. For instance, man is said of Callias and Socrates. Animal is said of man, cats, dogs, birds.

For something, X, to be said of somethings Y, it means that there is some kind of essential commonality that is being stressed and generalized by X.

Quote - from Chapter 2 (Ackrill)

...man is said of a subject, the individual man...

...knowledge ...is said of a subject, knowledge-of-grammar

Examples

(see above.)

Four combinations of "said of" and "in a subject"

These capture some relationship of things/concepts to one another.

---
    Said of a subject but NOT Present in a subject 
NOT Said of a subject but     Present in a subject 
    Said of a subject and     Present in a subject 
NOT Said of a subject and NOT Present in a subject

Standford refers to this as the four-fold division and says the following:

Aristotle's first system of classification is of beings, (τὰ ὄντα) (1a20). The division proceeds by way of two concepts: (1) said-of and (2) present-in. Any being, according to Aristotle, is either said-of another or is not said-of another. Likewise, any being is either present-in another or is not present-in another. (2)

...By focusing on Aristotle's illustrations, most scholars conclude that beings that are said-of others are universals, while those that are not said-of others are particulars. Beings that are present-in others are accidental, while those that are not present-in others are non-accidental. Now, non-accidental beings that are universals are most naturally described as essential, while non-accidental beings that are particulars are best described simply as non-accidental. If we put these possibilities together, we arrive at the following four-fold system of classification: (1) accidental universals; (2) essential universals; (3) accidental particulars; (4) non-accidental particulars, or what Aristotle calls primary substances. (2)

Said of, but NOT Present-in

What Stanford calls "Essential Universals" (2)

NOT Said of, but Present-in

What Stanford calls "Accidental Particulars" (2)

Said of, and Present-in

What Stanford calls "Accidental Universals" (2)

NOT Said of, and NOT Present-in

Individual beings. What Aristotle elsewhere calls "primary substances".

Resources

(1) http://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Categories-Interpretatione-Aristotle/dp/0198720866/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid=1455589514&sr=8-1&keywords=categories+ackrill

(2) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-categories/

Islamism and Donald Trump: How to Shine a Turd -- From The Email Files

The following is from an e-mail I wrote this morning to a long-time friend of mine who was lamenting about the way Muslims are covered by media.  I find my friend very easy to talk to and the words flowed very easily so I thought I'd capture what I said on my blog.

...

I imagine your level of frustration is very high with the media.  As is mine.  I barely consume any news these days.  I scan headlines though so I can tell you that David Bowie and Alan Rickman died this week.  But that's about it.  

My tendency these days is toward long-form content by people who are intellectually honest, like the Dan Carlin episode I tweeted at you.  Yes, these people have a much smaller audience than Fox News, but their impact is much deeper I think.

As for the response to Muslims in the media, I agree that the response is utter hyperbole.  

I have to view Donald Trump as a symptom of the problem more than a prime mover of it.  Ayn Rand, for all of the ways you can disagree with her, once said that Politics is the last branch of philosophy and politicians are the people who "cash in" on the ideas that are already present in a society.  They don't as much move the ideas.

What is the root cause?

I have recently arrived at a conviction that people are hungry for an honest conversation about Islamism.  I have come to view Islamism as fundamentally no different than Communism or Fascism, all of which carry out actions to impose a totalitarian (all-or-nothing) political system upon others.  Some people are willing to carry out actions which harm others, and some are merely reformers with strong beliefs, and some are people who just "vote their conscience".

But there is one non-fundamental respect in which Islamism differs from Communism and Fascism.  People are worried about being racist or anti-religion if they criticize it.  And people definitely get smeared for valid criticism.  The result is that the level of intellectual honesty out there is low and the level bullying is fucking unbelievable.  (see also: http://www.jeremy-duns.com/findingannfields/ which makes the case and presents evidence that the account @xtc_uk seems to be a smear account run by some douchebag named @MoAnsar).

So the well-meaning and intelligent people like you and me tend to be largely silent about it until something big happens in the news.

The intellectually honest conversations about what happens to individual rights under islamist policy are hard to find.  Instead there is a lot of hot air.  On the right you have the real bigots and xenophobes making noises that indicate a general disregard for anyone's rights.  And on the left, you have the reverse racism of low expectations, which, ironically supports conservative views provided that they are part of some "authentic" culture.  (A view I acquired from Maajid Nawaz's argumentation).  These people all resort to smears and bullying.

It is this vacuum which makes it possible for a tool like Donald Trump to say stupid racist shit and to come out of it seeming more honest and shiny than the rest of the yahoos on stage.  It's only by contrast that this effect occurs.  When measured on an absolute scale, he's utterly inflammatory and will have no regard for our institutions if elected President.

You may have noticed that I am somewhat vocal lately myself on Islamism.  I hope that I am not making an ass of myself.  But I am trying to make a practice of talking about hard things and sharing along the intellectually honest bits of conversation.

I think conversations of cultural change within a community are hard to have even without pressure from the outside because identity issues come into play and there's always the question of whether you are abandoning something fundamental.  Well... There are people that simply don't want any debate to happen and some of them are the bullies I referred to who do their best to smear and shout down anyone who criticizes and calls for change.

I'm acting on this premise:  What if we could influence that just a little?  If non-muslims in the west could stop their part of the smearing and shouting down... perhaps the debate could ensue among Muslims, and the loud and influential regressives in Islam could see their influence diminished.  And that might be enough for me to feel just a bit better about the direction that the world is heading.

I got on a bit of a tear there.  Hope you found it interesting.  

-Franco

How We Have Abdicated the Moral High Ground to the Extreme Right

One of the big takeaways I have from reading Islam and the Future of Tolerance by Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz is the pressing importance of finding ways to achieve honest dialogue. We need to be able to have respectful but direct discussions on the unique problems faced by, and presented, by Islam.

Gag Me Elmo by Mark Turnauckas

If we fail at achieving honest discussion and finding a coherent way forward, we risk that the people who sound like Donald Trump are the only ones who are saying what they are really thinking. This creates the impression that they have the moral high ground. But it is only by our own default that they have it.

It's not worth the effort to persuade the unabashed bigots on the right who are driven by their deep racism. We have to consider how we can help the well-meaning people, those who believe in the universal rights of a free democratic society (whom I will refer to hence as "universals").

We need help each other to see that we have been painted into a corner and that it's okay to walk on the paint because the building is on fire and we need to GTFO.

Some universals are Muslim, some are atheists like me. The goal as I see it, which this book has helped me to bring into focus, is to help the universal Muslims to battle for a pluralistic view of interpreting Islam and to defeat the cases for Jihadism and Islamism.

The part that people who are not Muslim can play is to understand that there are those among us who are making things difficult for the Muslims that want reform. Actions that we think are neutral may not be neutral. And there are some deeply dishonest people on the left who have done a good job of making us question ourselves by crying out "bigotry" and #Islamophobia against anyone who criticizes muslim societies or values. Nawaz refers to these as the "regressive left".

We universals have a hard time taking action that puts ourselves in the bigotry bucket because we care about the impact of our actions. They use this against us, but I think the time has come to grow a thicker skin. I now view political correctness as an auto-immune disease. This describes any time you choose not to say what you mean because someone will be offended or, more likely, label you a bigot of some sort.

The regressive left can go fuck themselves. The building is on fire. Let's get out there and discuss it.

Photo: Gag Me Elmo by Mark Turnauckas

Deconstructing Faith: Part 0: Introduction

Any criticism of faith causes a lot of defensiveness. It's hard to talk about it and the more I think about it, the more I find that it is rightfully so that its defenders speak up. I usually talk about it as the main source of unthinkingness. And I am aware that there are many ways that we can potentially arrive there. But faith/religion is worthy of special consideration because of the many news stories which suggest it as a vector for heinous actions.

Part of what tempers my discussion of faith and helps me to treat this this as an exploration with curiosity, is that I have two dear friends I know and love and they self-identify as people of strong faith. One comes from Islam, the other is a broad-based interfaith minister. Their hearts are made of gold, and their lives are an inspiration to me. They are personified counterarguments that keep me from believing that faith must always become mental poison.

And so I declare that this will be an exploration that will be conducted with respect and compassion. The word "Faith" doesn't refer to a single concept. Like the word "Love", it refers to a constellation of feelings, emotions, practices, mental and emotional states. "Love" is the subject of a lot of writing and has been unpacked many times. "Faith" deserves some similar unpacking, because it includes way too many things to say that all of it is either good OR bad in all contexts. Either of these would be throwing out a nursery of babies out with the bathwater.

This is my introduction to a multi-part series I am calling "Desconstructing Faith" to explore the aspects of "Faith" that support life, which ones are antagonistic to it, and the circumstances under which it lends itself to enable heinous action. My hope is that I will present novel ways of understanding the aspects of faith that deserve defense and the aspects that deserve our criticism and opposition.

The goal is to identify and describe the virtues and shortcomings of the mental technologies we use... the tools that we engage to make decisions: intuition, emotion, and reason. No human being uses all of these at the same time, nor do we use them in equal measure in all contexts. But they are all a part of our decisions to act and it is my hope that a nuanced understanding of faith will permit more people to engage their rationality in new contexts to ensure that there is always an eye on outcome and that we check and correct our ideas and actions.

Everything You're Not Supposed To Do After Paris is Attacked

So Paris was attacked on Friday. And all over social media people started telling each other what to do and what not to do. I collected a list of things that it is in appropriate to do so that the next time this happens, we can be prepared. Here goes nothing!

• Don’t talk about “unimportant things”. I don’t want to hear about your toddlers… Paris just got bombed.
• Don’t say things that I disagree with. “Unfriend me if you do.”
• Don’t be silent. We must show the enemy we are not afraid and we will not accept threats. Paris needs to know that we pay lip service. Symbolic gestures (tell the enemy that they) are important.
• Don’t let revenge motivate you. We must measured in our responses, or we let the enemy set the terms of engagement.
• Don’t profile. I don’t care that a key mental mechanism of scientific advancement is noticing patterns. It’s only okay to profile if it conforms to notions of “political correctness”.
• Don’t blame religion, we believe in freedom of religion! Especially not Islam or Christianity. (But atheism isn’t a religion… you can blame that all you want. You can’t have morality without a god to punish you in the afterworld.)
• Don’t be “intolerant” of any ideas. Even if the ideas imply that it’s okay to murder you if you offend/blaspheme some notion of some god(s). Even if the ideas lead to the brutal oppression and mutilation women. Who are you to judge?
• Don’t ever even suggest that Saudi Arabia is involved in exporting the ideas that animate coordinated mass murder. They are our “friends” and they sell us oil (it may seem like it’s for profit but they have our best interests in mind).
• Don’t verbally mention Islamism or Islam. If we don’t talk about it, we can’t be called intolerant.
• Don’t ever suggest war. War is not the answer.

It really does seem like when you add it all up, people really do want us to do nothing. That is, unless we happen to agree with them.

Using notions of what is “socially acceptable”, many voices emerge to pressure people and selectively work to constrain the conversation so that no one is saying anything too “upsetting”. Of course, the definition of what is “acceptable” and what is “upsetting” shifts depending on who you are. That’s how you end up with so many “Dont’s” that seem to contradict one another.

Sometimes the people doing the pressuring are you and me. We are playing the role of “thought police” any time we take it upon ourselves tell someone to pipe down and be politically correct or to act with decorum. We all have the potential to pressure others and shut other people down nowadays. The worst of us act to embarrass and humiliate and shame others until they submit.

In the aftermath of public mass murder, who does this serve and who does it harm? Does it help the victims to suppress speech? I can’t see how it would. One could argue in reason, however, that suppression of speech is completely in concert with the aim of the perpetrators of public mass murder.

How about we let the people who are still alive speak their words and trust them to revise their words and thinking as they go along? How about we let people react in their own ways? How about we let ourselves work through it?

The enemy wants us silenced. They want the ideas they don't like suppressed and they want the ideas that constrain us from acting in retaliation against them repeated loudly.

Let us defy them. Let us speak openly about the flaws of some of our ideas and begin to revise them. Let us name the enemy’s ideas: Islamism.

Fitness is a Priority Again (and Why I'm Mapping Out My Dreams)

I'm committed to my physical conditioning again. And it's a top priority now. I was previously doing a tiny bit of training each day. And though it was maintaining some of the muscle mass I have, my stamina just wasn't quite there.

Also, I had a chance meeting wtih a man named Jup Brown. I was just south of Big Sur on the California coast trying to give myself sticker shock at their little mini mart. And inside, I was standing next to a man considering the purchase of a coke. I didn't give him much notice, in fact I kind of thought he worked there.

Outside though, I couldn't help but be drawn to an outrageous bicycle with a trailer that had a bunch of toys on one mast and flags on another. Liz and I struck up a conversation with Jup and it turns out he's a real-life, flesh-and-blood, adventurer.

He started out from LA on 1/16/2015 and ran all the way to Boston by way of the southern US. Then a friend talked him into taking a bicycle ride all the way back. He decided to do it but first went to the eastern-most point of North America in Newfoundland and came back across Canada and down the Pacific Coast Highway.

I find myself feeling thoughtful in the aftermath of meeting someone who trusts life, and maps out really big things, and does them meeting and befriending tonnes of people in the process. I am still in a "definition" phase for myself, trying to decide what ambitious but short-range project would be meaningful to me. I know I want to have more personal work and more personal impact in my life. I don't know what form that will take but I now believe that if I start mapping it out, that I can make anything happen.

I'm starting with something familiar: committing to 90 days of P90X. This is to get myself again used to physical exertion, discomfort, and self-discipline. It seems so completely achievable after 2 months of life-after-Facebook and the inspiration of Jup's year-long adventure. But I intend to identify a dragon to slay, map out the path, and get to it.

Here's the question I am sitting with and I will leave it for you to ponder and answer for yourself. What in your life seems like the sort of thing your friends might talk you out of that you really think you ought to do? It doesn't have to be sensible, you don't have to know how to pay for it. You don't even necessarily have to understand what it's all about as long as your body seems to respond to it by gushing with possibility and energy.

Feel free to reach out to me and let me know. @francisluong

Ukulele Tab for Hey Jude in F

In the quest to learn Ukulele, one of my main resources is The Daily Ukulele by Jim Beloff. This book has a version of "Hey Jude" in it but it's transposed to C, which is the easiest key for playing but not the easiest for me to sing. So I decided to learn it in the same key that the Beatles recorded it, which I think is F.

Working from an existing guitar tab, I have mapped the chords to Ukulele and worked out what some of the slashed chords should be by ear. At some point I may record a video of how to play this tune, but in the meantime, here is my Ukulele Tab for Hey Jude in F.

Quick Hits: Initial Commit

I want to use this blog not only for long, thought out, posts but also for as a seed bin for things that I plan to put in dirt and water and to see if anything decides to sprout.

I will tag these sorts of posts as #quickhits.

Undeveloped ideas, quotes, and ponderables follow:

• You can be a leader no matter what your job is. You need merely do any task better than you would expect it to be done. Going beyond the call of duty is a noble act of self-expression.
• Goal-oriented competitiveness is boring and ugly. It requires that you take credit for luck when you win and to blame luck when you lose. How much sweeter it is to make your goal practice and improvement. This requires that you see luck for what it is and to take credit for those times you applied a skill well. Win or lose any particular match, you’re winning the bigger game.
• Adopt this attitude: “assume not the ill intent of others”. This will help to remove the focus on blame, which is easy to do. It will lower your blood pressure. And it not give you less to justify any desire on your part to act-out in response. (This applies especially to friends and loved ones – there is always a reason for the things they do, even if it’s not pretty.)
• “You must find the most important words a man can say” (Gavilar Kholin in The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson)
• “Come with me if you want to live”. Imagine this being said, not by a super-human man/robot from the future but by a real someone leading an expedition to do great things.
• As adults, we get to choose how to respond to upsetting events. We can choose how we act (or not to act). This is power. We can’t directly change how we feel but we can influence how we feel by working with the the levers we have: exercise, food, avoiding blaming narratives, not asking “why” when there is no way to answer it.
• Scott Adams says I can use daily affirmations to focus my mind and my energy to make things happen in my life. But it’s hard to start new habits. I think my first affirmation will be an affirmation on the power of affirmations. That seems like a good idea. Either it will take root or affirmations don’t work after all.

Notes and Quotes from Tim Ferriss at QA Expa

• Scratch your own itch
• If I can guarantee that I will not lose money and then figure out that something works, only then do I plow money in after it.
• If you can managed to cap your downside, you can afford to do many experiments and the upside will eventually take care of itself if you’re formulating good experiments
• If you want to scale, build systems assuming you are 10x-100x the size, so that you are not the single point of failure (read: single point of decision making authority)
• Keep this in mind: We don’t all die of old age. Lifestyle design is focused on present or near-term. VC-backed startup is usually deferred lifestyle
• There should be no division between mind and body. If you want to perform well cognitively, you need to take care of the whole system.
• You will not do well at something toward which you don’t choose to dedicate mental resources.