I’m trying to take more seriously the advice to just walk a few miles every day. Today I went out to the Blackstone and went from start to finish while listening to a podcast. Being out there does activate something calming and help to remove the virtual clutter that removes a lot of focus in our lives (I feel like this is a common theme when I’m in the mood to blog. Does that say something about my mind’s general preoccupation or my mindset when I write?).

Today was decently strong performance personally today. I started the morning great with my girl. Fire alarm interrupted things, but I was able to recover by using the time to grab lunch, then get back home and finish that outstanding email while reading fight commentary. Got a long walk in, and some errands done, then one more important email sent out. Did my best to execute on a job application, but even though I was not able to complete, got closer.

A really strong point was not playing video games or watching TV. I feel that my fasting from sweets over Lent has also led me to calm down overall. I’m less snacky, more appreciative of the silence in my life, and am focusing on executing important things rather than consuming.

I feel like in the last few weeks I’ve come to some sort of actualization. Maybe a metamorphosis. I have renewed focus on finding my right role in the world. I feel like I’m close to it but not quite there. What is the right position and opening? Right now, I think the best way forward is to just execute on the right things in front of me (i.e., work projects and applications), and focus on doing these well. The other things can fall into place along the way.

Inside my soul.

Inside.

I Miss you.

I miss the weekends together.

I miss resenting how you messed up my hair.

Your joy at sharing a meal with me, but I wish you didn’t have to be embarrassed about your dentures.

 

Two weeks ago, I was doing the same workout as I did today.

Today’s heart rate monitor read 152. Two weeks ago it read 182. How much stronger was my heart for cardio than two weeks ago?

My legs, however, were begging me to take it easy. Lower the resistance level. “You showed up to the gym and tried, that’s the most important thing.” But I couldn’t just quit, not when I knew I was barely challenging my cardiovascular level.

So I had to focus on my heart and cardio levels.

Two weeks ago, my legs felt strong, so I focused on my legs, and ignored my cardio level.

This is the way to move forward — when your heart hurts, focus on your legs. When your legs hurt, focus on your heart. The same can be said about life — when your motivation is down, you can focus on just moving forward. When your body is broken, you can focus on your motivation.

When emotionally you are damaged, focus on the logic. Did you lose a job? Girl told you she doesn’t want to see you again? Focus on the logic of these problems. Almost everyone who loses a job finds one again. No one in America is starving to death. Worst case scenario is that you’re middle class. As far as women — don’t I want more free time?

When you are having trouble thinking logically, rouse your emotions to make them move you forward. Situation seems hopeless? Imagine how good it will feel to prove people wrong. Imagine all the previous times in your life you’ve been validated, and how you felt then. Imagine how terrible it would be to have to ask those family members for help. And remember, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”

When the heart is weak, focus on the legs. When the legs are weak, focus on the heart.

Today, I finished reading the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

One of the premises of the book is that ideas and religions can behave like viruses. This doesn’t have to be a pejorative explanation — it just is an observation of the way ideas spread. Once someone hears an idea, if it’s good, interesting, convincing, or otherwise unique, they might repeat it to another person.

So, most ideas that repeat (such as that funny story you tell a friend, who tells another friend, etc.), will just repeat on. Many ideas (such as lessons in how to use a tool or make a recipe), will be archived away for use in particular circumstances. These are like the assortment of individual applications we may have on our phone.

However, some ideas drive deeper than just their own repetition. They dictate what other ideas we will replicate, reproduce, and execute. The obvious example, emphasized in Snow Crash, was religion. Certain levels of religious devotion will replicate themselves not only by telling the ideas to others — it will encourage you to create habits that spread the idea other ways — such as having children and teaching the ideas to them, and that the ideas are the most important thing in life. In fact, religion will determine what other applications you use as well — it might eliminate the cooking pork applications, but then add in some new prayer applications. In this way, these sorts of ideological ideas can self-replicate and determine an individual’s operating system.  This reminded me greatly of the idea in Scott Adams’ book, How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big. In it, he consistently emphasizes the idea that our thoughts and skills are “software” for our “hardware”, i.e. our bodies.

In the way religion was practiced hundreds of years ago — in that it was the primary consideration behind most actions taken — it could be adequate to describe one’s religion as their operating system. However, hardly anyone (aside from ISIS), emphasizes their religion to that degree in modern life. Now, it’s almost as if our internal “operating systems” have become a set of different modules (as an aside, anyone who has meditated to any significant degree KNOWS that we have different internal modules). I have an American module, a Catholic module, an academic module, etc. We can think of a hundred different ways to apply this.

Snow Crash also had me thinking about another way to build on Scotts Adams’ “talent stack” idea which he discusses extensively in his book. If an idea can be a limited program you execute, a “talent stack” allows you to create a string of applications, including running macros through those applications. For example, PowerPoint is a great application. It’s better because it comes packaged with Excel, which allows you to included charts and graphs in your Powerpoints. Similarly, Excel gets even better when packaged with Microsoft Access. We can then think of some talent stacks as “suites” of applications that work particularly well together. This can help design you overall talent stack. Keep in mind, however, that a “suite” of talents in your stack should just be a general understanding. People find all sorts of useful and creative ways that seemingly unrelated skills work together.

For instance — WordPress is used for blogging. Audacity is a commonly used program for podcasting. These aren’t a “suite” in any sense, but podcasters get great benefits from also running a blog, and might post a blog to accompany a podcast, or vice versa. Similarly, story-telling is a distinct skill from statistical analysis, but if you can tell a great story, it can allow you to explain statistical insight to other people and make great points about statistics (example: Nassim Taleb’s explanations of different statistical anomalies through “Fat Tony”.