Steinbeck Warmup

Had a deep session with my mens group last night. My seeming permanent striving to win my dad's or public approval got the spotlight. Some searches this morning and I found this blog:

Seeking Approval From A Critical Father - Financial Samurai

this is my placeholder to get back and explore this in depth. One suggestion was to reset myself towards a personally meaningful intention and soft-pedaling my striver self. More to come...

Collaborating well is a skill. Some master it in through the informal give and take of play while growing up. Others "get it" via sports, music, theater, community volunteering, or some other way.

And then, despite all the chances to learn, there are those who just fail to advance. I'm dealing with one such person now. I'll call him, Dirk.

Here's the deal: Yuck. I'll have to get free. We have a working commitment till the end of July. At some pt during the debrief I'll have my written withdrawal ready.

This is money vs soul. I have to cast my lot with soul.
Revu2

Read Gerry Spence's How to Win Every Argument. I put his ten points on 3x5 cards to flip through to get his essentials into my bones.

Found a speed bump: GS had a different context than I have. He's in court, I'm in mixed contexts. This is huge. In court, there's a process officer called a judge. Everyone needn't be persuaded, just the 12 on the jury. There are strict, ancient, rules that the judge enforces about decorum, civility, turn-taking, evidence, and so on.

In life, no judge, unclear norms and rules, not sure who needs to be persuaded, and no agreements on valid evidence, and what proves something right and true. I'm often dealing with identity issues, people claiming they feel hurt from another's behaviors (sometimes my behavior), and have vague or nonexistent measures for what makes for a "exit"—when they feel satisfied enough to allow other business to proceed.

Still, the general principles may apply. Right now, I'm focused on coming off as steadier, grounded, and confident. I feel that, but I have given myself permission for a greater display of my feelings that I notice practically anyone with an European American background displaying.

One idea that's I'm meditating on is: Logic helps reveal the truths. Stay calm and connect their dots. I'm an intuitive in the Myers-Briggs test, so my mind works in flashes. Not all can see where my connections connect. So, slow down, start slow, small steps, doublecheck people staying with me as I go, and connect their dots.

r

Began wordplay this morning while idling in bed with "surprise." Does it mean 'extra prize'? Ooo, it's more violent: "unexpected attack or capture."

Maybe a closer word to my inner sense is surplus: super + more. Running away with thoughts of super + pride around some recent achievements.

Why this running inner announcer boosting my self-pride. Growing feelings of pride, sur + pride, surpride, hubris. Greek, meaning presumption toward the gods.

Quote:

Some interesting notes from: Hubris: The Dangers of Excessive Pride and Confidence – Effectiviology … hubris occurs when a person displays excessive levels of pride, confidence, or self-importance in various ways, such as by wildly overestimating their abilities, or by refusing to believe that they can ever make a mistake. Note: in Greek mythology, the punishment for hubris often came from Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, and the term “nemesis” is sometimes used to refer to the punishment or destruction that one experiences as a result of their hubris. The main danger of hubris is that it clouds people’s judgment in various ways, which causes the hubristic individual to make decisions that are bad for them and for others who are affected by those decisions. For example, since hubris involves overconfidence in one’s knowledge and abilities, it can lead people to overestimate their ability to achieve positive outcomes in various domains, which causes them to take unnecessary risks. Similarly, hubris can lead people to overestimate the validity and reliability of their intuitions, and consequently to over-rely on those intuitions while avoiding a proper reasoning process, especially if it involves discussions with others. Furthermore, hubris is also associated with a range of additional issues, such as recklessness and impulsiveness, loss of contact with reality, unwillingness to consider undesirable outcomes, refusal to feel accountable to others, difficulties in facing changing realities, reliance on a simplistic formula for success, and impaired moral awareness, all of which can lead to adverse outcomes.

Reworded Tips:

• Always consider the dangers of hubris and the very high stakes and risks involved.
• Enter internal performance reviews through my “failure” doors.
• When I discover my hubristic thoughts, Stop!
• Any sudden success is not my ‘fault’ so accept it with good humor.
• Let people ground me.
• Listen.
• Care about others; care about the details.

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"][COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="3"]Test, operate, test, exit. Basically a recipe. Like with scrambling an egg:
Test - do I have the ingredients: eggs, oil, skillet, working stove, fork or spatula.
Operate - heat skillet, add oil, crack and stir egg, etc.
Test - is it done? No, keep cooking, Yes, ...
Exit - remove from heat, serve.

The pop song The Gambler has something like:

"If you're gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right
You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done
Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away
And knowin' what to keep
'Cause every hand's a winner
And every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for
Is to die in your sleep"

OK, looking at the lyrics, the gambler is broke! Bums a smoke, shares the narrator's booze. And, right after the first chorus, he must have died at the best he could hope for, in his sleep. Look:

Faded off to sleep
And somewhere in the darkness
The gambler he broke even
But in his final words
I found an ace that I could keep …

This reminds me to seek out Maria Konnikova's book on how she learned poker, The Biggest Bluff.

Here are some clippings from a interesting 1902 book: the Gambling Impulse. Thanks google for posting this. Uhho. Tried to get my png clippings converted to a pdf, then to text. Not happening. Therefore, over the next several visits I'll type them in.

Joining the Fray; Fraying the Join

Wrestling with this "join in" or "pass" back n forth. Felt an uprush of sensation in my chest which quiet reflection traced back to my childhood. It's an accidental feeling, some random bodily surprise which has connected itself to "motivation," "advocacy," and "making changes."

When this feeling escapes my controller, in public, I'm hot heated, "angry," loud, and amazingly fast on my feet. Combined with a sense of weights on my shoulders, the twin sensations have kept my chest literally compressed. My body has pushed back, and when I test for lung capacity I score around 98%. Once asked a nurse what it would take to fill in that last 2%? "Oh, training to become an Olympic swimmer or taking up mountain climbing." OK, I'll settle.

The shoulder-weight hunches me over to "get to work" and stay at it. The Uprise tinge takes me "out there" into "the world" to help make something happen. It's meaningful and MASSIVE. There exists no End Point, no final decisive WIN. I meet people, take part, and if I should want to stop, it partially feels to me and my compartisans like BETRAYAL.

And to feel Uprise and even hesitate to consider other motives feels COWARDLY and IRRESPONSIBLE. If I take my thumb out, the whole city will be flooded. I'll probably die. But I'm human, I'm getting weaker, plus I need a bath and change of clothes.

Western culture has been aflame with imposed violence, rape, greed, abuse of power, and injustice for 50 centuries.

Facing off is just one of many options: there's escape (drugs, entertainment, sex); these surrender (depression, bodily ills, craziness); and there's pretending now to notice (focus on personal happiness, money, fame, and ignore the misery all about).

Sigh, I wish every one was housed, well-fed, and happy so I could simply create something on a whim that carries zero meaning.

To be continued in the next installment.

To my fellow indifferents: I think I get you. You act like:

• personal life is the only life. Party hard before you die ... from partying hard.
• changing anything for the better is more than a waste of your time, it's worthless.
• If you don't raise your voice, raise your hand, raise your head, maybe the crushing forces of equally indifferent economic systems will pass over you.
• Everything is fixed in place as it is; and the fix is already in and nothing can change that.
• Just though you feel it inside, you never want to suffer hearing anyone say what you're doing collaborated with evil, & is equivalent to surrendering and selling out. Not that you have all that much to sell.
  

Polylectic & Sololectic

Somewhere in Antifragile Nassim Taleb says we have just half the words we need if we want to fully express experience. Some days I think its less than 1%.

Starting with the word dialectic, which evokes 2 voices getting exercised, I created polylectic, for many voices, and sololectic, for one voice.

From taking parting in a Liberating Structures "Cull of the Wild" workshop Thursday trickled down from about 20 scattered wild things to the last exercise and surprised myself with landing on isolation as something to cull by connecting more emotionally and spiritually with my friends. What didn't make the final cut was Polylectic, yet I know to find time for this connecting I would want to NOT engage in polylectic activities for the time being.

Culling Poly leaves me Solo. I could write. I could write about only stuff that interests me in essays, short pieces, reviews, whatever. I could write about my way of connecting, which is not my invention but needs people like me to cheerlead for it.

Writing Solo I might accidentally persuade someone. Or not. I may never know. Nor should I care a great deal. Or they might answer me, or try to argue (that Dia Thing) for which I paraphrase Neal Stephenson: I can preserve my mental and physical health by focusing on my Solo voice and inviting you to attempt the same, but let's not try to dialogue or correspond. And since I lack the interest and time to blast myself across social media, if random people now or later find meaning in what I say, it can't be helped. Thanks Emily Dickinson for saying "if I'm to be famous it can't be helped" while stashing away your great poems.

Is this settled now? I'll have to see.

Today I'm starting to comment on an article I return to often because it offers so much great advice. Originally posted on the Slow Leadership blog in 2020.

Time and effort-saving ideas for busy people

Quick Summary
However much you try to slow down and avoid activities that consume time and energy to no purpose, there will still be occasions when you are going to be busy and pressured. That’s a simple fact of modern organizational life. So how to deal with it?

Here are some ideas, taken from a wide range of sources (plus my own experience), that should help you to save time and trouble when things get hectic:

Always think ahead about the most likely consequences, not just the ones that you want to happen. The idea here is simple: to try to avoid causing yourself more problems and stress through a moment’s thoughtless action. One of the commonest consequences of being under pressure is a failure to look ahead. It seems so important to get a quick result. But cutting corners, taking risks without proper consideration, and rushing into precipitate action can all cost you far more time in cleaning up the mess afterwards than you saved at the time.

It’s always worth taking ample time to get a message across to others. It’s the same temptation: to rush through some phone call, message, or conversation because you can’t really spare the time and you have so much still waiting for you to do. Resist it! If people can see that you’re harassed, they’ll often try to be helpful by saying they understand when they don’t. Few situations are more maddening than discovering, too late, that someone you were relying on for a key element in a project misunderstood what you said that you wanted.

Consider every request to attend a meeting with the greatest skepticism. Your default position should be to stay away. Avoid any meeting with no clear agenda, no obvious ending time, and no purpose that makes sense to anyone except the organizer. Don’t assume you can go and quietly do work at the back. It’s more discourteous than staying away and it rarely works.

Practice at least a dozen firm but polite variations on “no” until you can say them in your sleep. Then use them whenever needed—which will be all the time. The best way to stop yourself becoming overloaded is to refuse to take an anything else. If the person giving you yet more work is your boss, ask for clear priorities, explaining that you need be sure what to drop to make way for the new piece of work. You’ll be surprised how often this will make a boss reconsider.

Learn the two key ways of reading: skimming for relevance and filleting for data. When you skim a document, your sole purpose should be to decide whether it contains anything worth reading. Let your gaze run down the page looking for key words and phrases. If you find any, put a small “x” in the margin and move on. Then glance over the number of “x” markings. Less than 5-6 means don’t mess with it further unless one of those is essential. Filleting is going back to the “x” marks and collecting the data you need. The best way is to make your own notes in a small book. Then toss the original.

Don’t accept what you’re told on trust, save from proven sources. When you’re rushed, the temptation will be to “save time” by accepting what you’ve been told. Always check. It’s well worth the time. You’ll look an idiot if the information isn’t true, and no one will accept the excuse that you were in a hurry.

Become familiar with the notions of estimates and orders of magnitude. You can often spot an error or problem almost instantly, without any calculation, by realizing that it is impossible. That’s especially true with numbers. If you know the answer has to be less than 10, and if what is on the page is 14.7, it has to be wrong. No more analysis is needed than that. One of the most useful skills I ever taught myself was the ability to estimate the order of magnitude of the right answer. I rarely needed to know any more to save myself huge amounts of time on analysis.

Know when to stop. The more you’re under pressure, the more you will be tempted to press on working well beyond the point where your attention and effectiveness begin to fail. Don’t do it. It seems as if it will help, but you’ll most likely either have to do all that work again or waste time clearing up the mess you made for yourself. And you’ll have denied yourself the rest needed even to do that properly.

Coping with turbulence
Imagine someone in a kayak, negotiating a river full of rapids. That’s you, facing all the turbulence and unexpected pressures of your work.

An inexperienced and foolish kayaker is totally occupied with trying to deal with every twist and surge of the current. His or her attention is fixed on what is happening right now. The ride is a nightmare of hidden rocks, violent eddies, and constant threats of being overturned and drowned. Time flashes by in a blur of near-panic. Any patches of calm water are used up in exhausted collapse, desperately trying to catch a breath before the next horror.

The more experienced kayaker faces the same perils. But that person has learned to look always a little way ahead, sensing the flow of the river and avoiding some at least of the hidden rocks and shallows. By doing so, he or she has more scope to find areas of slightly calmer water, where rest is possible and there’s a moment to look around and enjoy the view.

Although both kayakers may pass the same time in the rapids, as measured by the clock, the experienced one feels as if he or she has much more time. Time is always as much subjective as objective and when we’re in a turmoil of short-term fire-fighting, it passes with such speed that it causes stress by itself.

If I had to sum all of this up as simply as possible, I would say that the key to coping with stress and pressure is to do just about the opposite of what feels most called for: slow down as much as you can, look ahead as much as possible, drop everything non-essential, and do the rest as carefully and thoughtfully as possible so you only have to do any of it once. And always, always, try to avoid making yet more work for yourself by rushing, cutting corners, and making needless mistakes.

I will let myself be reminded and practice as I can, or must, one ¶ per day.

There must be a day when this will subside. Alas, not today.

Awoke thinking about the phrase "carry myself" re cast as "Care Re: Myself." This swirled around my getting my eyes checked. Next step: getting new lenses. Distance minor changes, daily glasses: no change! Celebrate: it's been 5 years.

I'm commenting on the Measly Steps a Day Thread about poor customer service. When I'm the poor customer being poorly served, I'm enraged. Writing this to calm myself to prepare my notes for getting into their heads what they should have understood and done all along. Someone had the gall to try to upsell me during my call get things worked through! I said I would maybe think about it after this is worked out. But their care for customers doesn't seem that strong as I'm still deal with a service around week 17 that they said would take 1 week. Grrr. Angrrr and my discontent.

This book reviewed well on goodreads. To quote.

Quote:

There are three stages of transitions: the long goodbye, the messy middle, and the new beginning. The author gives seven tools for navigating them. Accept it. Identify your emotions. Mark it. Ritualize the change. Shed it. Give up old mindsets. Create it. Try new things. Share it. Seek wisdom from others. Launch it. Unveil your new self. Tell it. Compose a fresh story.

It's messy and loopy and lively. Life.

Nearly 180°, getting there. Taking a 2 part workshop on "Living your Question" at the Theosophical Society Library. It's intentionally in 2 parts to allow time to sit with the question for a few days.

My original question was "Where do I find my tribe?" But the question that's finding me began as, "How to craft an at ease life meaningful enough to live a long, healthy time?

This touches on the dramatic shift in 'meaning', meaning to both me and others, at this time of my retiring from my career. There's also the internal "meaning" that I've relied on to strive to make my life what I wanted, rather than falling into the culture's default, defeatism, depression, or drift. Managed that. Popped out the working side, so now how to motivate myself?

Related to this—I had a tendency to get manic, and part of that is continually fielding Big Hairy Audacious Goals for myself. Epic Goals. I'm the hero of a rare achievement goals. Did that, done that. Suffered from my unchecked manic surprise when they worked out! A lot.

So, with that backdrop, I'll try to get to an 8-word question:
A calm, long, healthy life? For me? 7 w

Found this on a grouplist for family constellations:

Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2025
Subject: Prostate cancer
From: Lawrence Ngorora

In Heal your body heal you Life by Louise Hay they give a list of potential emotional causes for physical ailments and an affirmation to help people move towards healing.
PROSTATE: Represents the masculine principle. Affirmation: I accept and rejoice in my masculinity.
PROSTATE PROBLEMS: Mental fears weaken the masculinity. Giving up. Sexual pressure and guilt. Belief in aging. Affirmation: I love and approve of myself. I accept my own power. I am forever young in spirit.
CANCER: Deep hurt. Longstanding resentment. Deep secret or grief eating away at the self. Carrying hatreds. "What's the use?"Affirmation: I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my world with joy. I love and approve of myself.

“When troubled, attend even more.” This is my current 5 word motto.

I watched (attended to) a series of films on time loops: Groundhog Day, Source Code, Edge of Tomorrow, and Palm Springs in February 2025. Then I attended 4 online chats about them. In the research (more attention) I did on Palm Springs, I came across a video that placed Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, as the philosophical heart beat of Palm Springs and Groundhog Day.

Camus writes, “There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.” While my condo situation presents an unending challenge, the “sun” in my life is undeniable. I live near a major state university, a location rich in intellectual and cultural opportunities. Libraries and performance spaces are within walking distance, and an abundance of students means an array of affordable restaurants. I can walk to the farmers market. Cafes and coffee houses provide social meeting spaces, while a large park just four blocks away offers natural respite. Seasonal festivals bring community engagement, and my home, with its decent view, is paid off. We’ve remodeled it to our great joy and satisfaction. Despite the shadow of my daily grind, I recognize the lights that surround me.

Many commentators rehash Camus’s famous question from this essay: Is one going to commit suicide? He asserts that this is the fundamental question of all philosophy. This essay is a call to stay with this life, your life. Camus argues that life’s meaning cannot be dictated by external logic or a divine order but must be created by the individual. He rejects despair, suggesting that acknowledging life’s absurdity does not necessitate surrendering to it. Instead, he embraces defiance—an active engagement with life despite its apparent lack of external meaning. To Camus, rejecting suicide is an act of authority for one’s own meaning that affirms existence in the face of absurdity.

At the top of the hill, Sisyphus experiences a moment of pause before he must begin his labor again. This brief respite is where Camus finds significance.

In film studies, the slip of time between each film frame is called saccade, and it is within this interval that the mind bridges the gap, creating the illusion of continuous movement. Camus recognizes the power of such gaps—moments of reflection between struggle—as crucial to human consciousness. He concludes that within this pause, Sisyphus can reclaim agency, choosing to embrace his fate rather than be crushed by it. It is in this moment, between exertion and renewal, that meaning is forged.

I read Camus’s essay for the first time in half a century and it spoke to my condition. Like nearly everyone, there’s a steady challenge in my life that I know I must face alone: In my condo, no one else cares to do any of the needed work to the level and quality that I do. Like Sisyphus. I could seek help, but among the current cohort of fellow owners, I have asked and their answers have been a spoken or implied “no.” I'm left rolling the boulder, and no matter how much I get done, there’ll always be more. Until the end of (my) time. Like Sisyphus.

Maybe for endless rounds of chores—that is, mundane, repetitive, and yucky tasks—the goal is to find the right perspective for oneself. My role from now until when I die may be taking on an unequal, thus unfair, amount of the work needed to keep the condo afloat and legally sound. I’ve already done this, and am doing it now. It’s yucky (pushing a boulder uphill) but I must scorn the gods of anger, blame, and laziness. I must spiritually prepare for my service to never end. I still carry on and at the end of each boulder push-up I will pause and reflect on what sun does shine on me each day.

There's no shadow without a sun, and it's also essential to know the day. Carpe Diem.

Several paragraphs were drafted using ChatGPT.

Guidepost #1 is on the Measly Steps a Day thread.

Guidepost 2: Cultivating Self-Compassion and Letting Go of Perfectionism

If you can’t give compassion to yourself, you won’t be able to give it to others.

Self-compassion has three main elements (as identified by Kristin Neff, a leading researcher in the field.)

First, it’s self-kindness. This means being as nice to yourself as you would be to others.

Second, it’s recognizing our common humanity. No matter what you’re going through in life, you aren’t alone.

Third, it’s practicing mindfulness by allowing ourselves to actually feel what we’re feeling.

When you embrace these three practices, you’ll find yourself showing up as a higher version of yourself, even when you make mistakes.

Perfectionism, on the other hand, does the opposite. It encourages you to be mean to yourself, disconnect you from others, and resist feeling what you’re actually feeling. It ignores the constraints of reality and drags you down with it.

Start Practicing Guidepost 2:

Be kind to yourself. Know you’re human like everyone else. And accept what you’re feeling without judgment.
Pay attention to when your perfectionist tendencies kick in. Choose instead to be an optimalist. This means maintaining sincere effort on the things you can control while embracing the constraints of reality. If it’s out of your control, it’s not worth your energy. [And the wisdom to know the difference.]
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This guidepost is a constant challenge. Oh, how did I rail against myself when I lost my hats! Or miss place something. These often happen close to when I'm feeling great, I'm flowing with my tasks, I'm sensing a long horizon of happy feelings. Hm.

One of my remedies to overhappy is pick a chore, now do it. Still too happy, get to another chore.

So for today, I think I'll hold to my set expectations to note up a chapter in a book I'm reviewing. There's a feeling I could do 2, and be done with this phase. Resisting that. As Steinbeck says, sensing the end means holding to the same steady pace that has brought him that close. Wise.

Guidepost 3: Cultivating Your Resilient Spirit, Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness

Resilience is your ability to overcome adversity and recover from losses, errors, and setbacks.

Brown shares five common qualities of resilient people:

We are resourceful problem-solvers
We seek help when they need it
We take ownership of their ability to take action to manage their feelings
We access social support
We connect with other people

Brown says “across the board, wholehearted men and women are spiritual people.” We have “a deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to each other by something greater than us.”

It’s this oneness that provides purpose and perspective in life, especially when the going gets rough & tough. It helps us recognize that we always have what we need within us to persevere through challenges and setbacks.

Numbing, on the other hand, is a way of ignoring the challenges that need your attention. Numbing activities keep you but they don’t develop resilience. And since they’re a mechanism for avoidance, they sustain feelings of powerlessness.

In the long run, numbing makes us less well-equipped to handle the inevitable challenges of our lives. And by numbing the low points, you also numb your ability to experience the potential high-points of life.

Start Practicing:

Recognize that resilience is a skill you can build through intentional practice. Then, start practicing with these 6 approaches to develop crazy-good resilience.

Bring awareness to your go-to numbing strategies. Is it food? TV? Your smartphone? Pornography? Alcohol? Awareness of these moments creates a fork-in-the-road, where you can choose a new path. Ask yourself: “Would I like to step forward into courage? Or step back into comfort?”
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I score very high on this scale. It's hard work.