Daily Writing

6/30/21 6/30/21

lpII 2-year review

It's not been a straight-line experience since I joined the Light community.

Tech-addict relapses include (but are not limited to): an over-reliance upon a MacBook, refreshing the podcast page in the absence of news or social media, pouring over the lp2 reddit to learn how others use their dumbphones.

Months after the honeymoon phase, my brain and behavior rebelled in a grasping attempt to experience dopamine hits from my new-fashioned, b&w, e-ink display. Stuck in a self-imposed, pre-internet prison, I wondered about what it would be like to return to iLife someday (fanatic, laptop monitoring of Apple news and events didn't help this state).

All this to say, not having a smartphone is not an effortless lifestyle (I haven't even mentioned software glitches and hardware limitations)...

... but it is worth it.

I've learned that sameness is not a bad thing.

We're obsessed with consumption, a 24-hour news cycle, and limitless "fresh" content online. Stagnation is postured as the villain. No change marks no progress- and by no means should you stand in the way of progress. The era of upgrades and improvements, keeping up with the Joneses, the rat race- these are not abstracts. They live in our spirits, malforming the desires of the heart to the desires of the world.

We've become content with discontentment, and we're stuck.

Ditching your smartphone doesn't get you unstuck (relapses mean one still has work to do), and sameness can be a danger (stagnation) if you become too comfortable. I'm grateful and better for the attention and focus Light allows. I believe in the mission of a phone designed to be used as little as possible.

And when people stare at this backwards-futuristic brick in wonder or stare at me like I've come out of the woods in a ghillie suit, I am content with seeing the same black and white choices I choose to remain.

What did you notice today? ///

6/29/21 6/29/21

promises

This week, LightPhone lives up to its name by adding another stripped down app it committed to users at the project's inception.

Directions on the LightPhone are limited, straightforward, and not busy- "two thumbs up" if it gets you where you need to go.

As a LightPhone user for almost two years, I'm stoked for the chance to finally venture out into the unknown, map-in-hand. The importance of LightPhone's continued success is pertinent to any entrepreneur or creative looking to make a difference.

The ability to deliver on a promise displays two things:

First, you demonstrate your ability to work. Accomplishing something that matters because it mattered enough to be spoken into existence with a promise.

Next, committing and delivering proves a desire to serve your audience in spite of any challenges that arise.

Plot a course to serve your audience. Deliver on your promise.

Thanks, Light.

What did you notice today? ///

6/25/21 6/25/21

systems

Systems are perfectly designed to fail because of time. No system is built to withstand 180 degree turns that so often happen in the wake of progress.

Henry Fords model-T assembly line wouldn't be as efficient as an assembly line today. Technology is always improving. New conveyor belts, AI robots, and advanced computer sorting systems give Toyota the advantage over the original Ford.

Also true is that humans are always changing. We've gained more scientific knowledge and a larger framework for how to apply it to systems. Benjamin Franklin may have been smarter than you, but your thoughts take a far different path.

So what should glean from this?

It's vitally important to question every manmade system's efficacy and equitability. Alexander the Great's strategy for conquest should be questioned today.

We can apply a diversity of information to a system by being people that are willing to see change. It might hurt to see your design scrapped, but the humility to accept change leads the way to progress.

What did you notice today? ///

6/24/21 6/24/21

scale

When we decide to scale, we make the assertion that-

a) this is working, and
b) this should continue to work at a larger scale.

When you see effort towards advancement, you know these two assertions have been confirmed.

Ideas are different. Your hybrid ice cream scooper-bottle opener design for true root beer float-lovers (please don't patent that) hasn't been put into packaging yet. It's sitting on the shelf of your mind waiting to be built.

The decision is not to scale or stay, you're deciding to "press go."

The critical component is whether you want it or not. If you get this one wrong and end up scaling then friction only multiplies.

If you want it, go ahead- press go.

What did you notice today? ///

6/23/21 6/23/21

being

"Men have become tools to their tools."

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

There is most certainly a "why" to this statement, and a "how'', and details making up "what'' this manifests, but we often don't hear the "so what" proposed.

Looking to the 1800's and thinking abstractly for a moment, a typewriter's chief end must have been to be typed upon. A solitary purpose and solution it achieved through the creation of knowledge work. It trumped any chief end man had in mind for himself as the eight-hour workday soon became our new purpose.

In this, and a landslide of ways before and after, we became subject to the whims of our technology- this is undisputed. Our solution, on the other hand, leaves much to dispute.

Thoreau took it upon himself to leave a life of work in knowledge and eschew all entrappments of the old (but then, new) modern man. "I went to the woods to live deliberately..." His solution is not meant to be applicable to the whole of society but possibly to those who are profoundly in need of escape or release from their cynicism about our culture.

A grand solution, usually backed by organized religion, is the radical transformation of culture around a new (but in actuality, old) set of ideals. I'll stray from grandeur temporarily to propose a simple component of this idea.

Every religious path in some way prescribes a first step - "returning to one's roots". Take this first step in its simplest form. Our deepest roots are in our humanity. We are human beings. The word being has been intentional from the start to remind us we are not human doings.

When we are being, we cannot become tools because our being is counter to any use. We be just to be (not to do).

I believe this is a starting place. Begin to reframe your paradigm about your humanity in small ways. And take a day off from being a tool.

What did you notice today? ///

6/22/21 6/22/21

convenience

What's the difference between a timer and an alarm? With one set for one hour and the other for 8am (assuming it's 7am), the same results occurs.

From a code perspective, an alarm is simple. 2-4 lines to prescribe a desired wakeup time and identify what external time measure to use. The output is singular- when the clock strikes 8. A timer requires a similar setup but results in many outputs when each second counts from when the timer is set.

We could say that an alarm is more conservative. Efficient. The timer is wasteful and clunky for such a lengthy task. Why then use the timer at all?

If we desire efficiency, setting an alarm for 4 minutes from 1:30-1:34 for a batch of cookies would be the obvious choice.

This is too simple. What if you have to pickup groceries in 75 minutes and the time is 3:57? The difficulty in the arithmetic leads to the embracing of inefficiency to set a timer. Or- it's just more convenient.

But convenience is just a short-term issue. Long-term what we're looking at from a software perspective is constant screen updates, constant background computation, and the load of being able to time each minute up to 48 hours from setting your timer.

This is a genuine reason the LightPhone opted for an alarm and not a timer. It's a hassle to generate 1,000 times as much coding fodder, and it detracts enough from other systems and operations to make a difference...

...but we, as the user, don't often see this bug.

Fatal conveniences. Darin Olien hosts a podcast where he reveals ways we have bought into convenience-culture. Darin, like a true non-conformist speaks directly to the "things we may be doing because the world we live in makes us think we have to."

His segment focusses on nutrition and wellness. My blurb was about software.

Convenience is all around us, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. When we save time, our money, attention, and energy are all saved.

The problem is when inequitable or inadvertent effects follow.

When we drink from plastic water bottles that exacerbate climate change and cause sky-high pollution of downstream fishing waters needed for a region's survival.

When we take pills to cure a headache and choose a symptom and its salve as the default over a lifestyle of freedom from both.

These are the effects, personal and global, of the conveniences we fail to question. And like our software bug, they are insignificant and far-reaching all at once.

What did you notice today? ///

6/21/21 6/21/21

///

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

#saveferris

How often do we notice the unusual before it passes us by?

Pass by: this phrase implies that we lose something in the passing (How else can we interpret a colloquialism linked so closely to another about death?). What remains after a week of work, rest, and relationships? Should anything else remain?

Unusual: As a kid, I practiced spying lizards on fences and knowing when someone pulled into the driveway. At restaraunts, I made it a game to know another table's conversation and mood. I always watched eyes movement and body language as adults exchanged pleasantries or talked business.

I grew into this "surveillance of being" in part, due to an innate curiosity with which we all are born. (We should infectiously rekindle this curiosity for those who have grown too jaded to explore parts of the natural and philosophical kingdom we intermingle with every day).

A larger part of this vigilance was due to a wrestling with adulthood I began to feel even before ten. Somehow I felt the dying of curiosity and emergence of responsibility before it ever had it's grip on me. I knew something of the world having weight before I realized the reality that we are the bowl in which that weight is poured. This is what led to hyper-awareness.

My scattered attention, then, was not a clinically diagnosable brain pattern, but an almost existential grasping for signs of when to be ready for that weight.

What did you notice today?

A deep mindfulness of the world leads to insights that are often overlooked by others. We all are aware, to a certain extent. Some take in too much, like my younger (and sometimes present) self, and some take in too little, opting for ignorance we see portrayed in dystopias like The Giver and Fahrenheit 451 that hit all too close to home.

Chances are, you noticed something today and that alone is interesting. My solution (and prescription) is writing.

“Writing is the supreme way of blotting out your ignorance on a subject… It’s a confessional; it will reveal everything about you while you imagine you are revealing someone else.”

Writing publicly is a way to say to yourself and the world, "I noticed something today... that's it." It hones your ideas, encourages others to think, and activates the creative side of our mind and being

Pay attention some- I will be...

///

6/13/21 6/13/21

space

One of the reasons writers and deep thinkers for centuries have thought of space is because it is the largest canvas we have to paint up on. The vastness of the world above coupled with the endless unknowns we face when peering into the stellar, black lagoon stirs up worry in many and possibility in more.

Similar to a whiteboard, glossy and full of diagramable regions, space gives a framework that has been mantled and dismantled numerous times.

From Frank Herbert and George Lucas to Cixin Lin and Pierce Brown, this framework has been twisted and pulled to give us stories and tales of the far, far away and nearest feeling places.

Given the grandeur of the medium of space, these stories are not mere cosmic adventures. We clutch at anachronistic paperbacks that teach us to dream again, hope for beauty in the desolate places, and deeply ponder our place in the universe. There's something more within them than meets the eye...

Science fiction is not an escape,
but a window to a better world displayed through beauty or forewarning.

5/14/21 5/14/21

wash your hands?

Hand washing is a primal act of trust. We desire sanitation, so we wash our hands. But why don't we do jumping jacks or rub our hands together to "frictionize" the germs away?

From a young age, our parents taught us the value in hand-washing. Later on, we personally learned the science and had the practice reaffirmed by authoritative bodies. This act is trust because we cannot complete the tests to view the truth for ourselves.

If this doesn't appear an act of trust, then it's merely blind trust. Unspoken faith in an unforeseen act.

Any daily act of grooming, activity, or productivity is based on trust of something. Trust in the process that produces an outcome.

Reason is involved as well. When policy or culture fail to reason, our intellect does its job to root out fallacy. When women and minorities are excluded from business and governmental roles, a pendulum is released and culture begins to shift.

This is the basis for social contracts- trust counterbalanced by reason.

But what happens to a society whose reason is impaired? Aldous Huxley asked and answered this question in Brave New World speculating that psychological conditioning through repetition would transform the world in an identical image.

His dystopian society hadn't just stopped thinking and started laughing, "they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking."

So if a culture becomes ensnared by a technology that can manipulate, not just our behavior, but our thoughts, social contract theory is out the window.

Trust becomes worse than blind- it's ignorant. And ignorant is not what we can be when it comes to cornerstone behaviors we practice in culture.

We need to proceed with our eyes wide open, so that we may use technology rather than be used by it.

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

read // lpII review

read // stg 3

read // not the end

5/9/21 5/9/21

stuck

It's very easy to get stuck.

After traveling a certain direction for a time, your route becomes so narrow or clouded that your ability to push on comes to a halt. You can do one of two things: pull out as far as it talks to readjust to a new route, or mix up your process for doing what got you stuck.

Some ways the latter option has played out for me:

Learning to play tennis left-handed to get past a hump in my game.

Writing at a coffee shop instead of at my house every morning to jog better thinking.

White-boarding a Report question before sitting down to right it up.

Change is the primary component of innovation. Find creativity in your mix-up and you may find the path to get unstuck.

4/19/21 4/19/21

seasons

Why is it so important to name our seasons?

Part of the reason why is that if we don't, someone will name them for us.

Culture and technology name sport, shopping, and political seasons. Our life's reflection is halted to partake in these cultural liturgies. Looking back a year reveals how hard it is to remember where our spiritual or emotional journey took us.

Let's stop. Remember what the last four months have been. Put a name to the growth, hurt, or shifts that have occurred. If we take back this, a slew of rhythms become available to our newly liberated schedule:

Focus on a word a month and realize it's fulness in your life.

Build core values or a purpose statement over a period by reflecting and dreaming.

Take on a 30-day challenge doing Rice 'n Beans, Zero Waste, or a Digital Detox.

Then we can ideate visions for our future from the purpose statement. We can name a word that resonated deeply during a season. We can choose growth and a lifestyle practice to capitalize upon.

First, wake up to how hard it is to reclaim our seasons. We have been brainwashed and bamboozled by corporate greed and corruption; told what to believe when and how much importance to give now.

Then, wake up to the million good reasons to name your seasons now (and the couple bad reasons to not), and find the one that pulls you from your seat.

Name it to not just own your past seasons, but to take responsibility for your coming ones.

4/12/21 4/12/21

corollaries

Pick up a pencil and write any word atop a piece of paper.

Begin writing corollaries from your life to the word. This is how idea intersectionality is most fluidly acheived.

When you begin a practice like this, you awaken a deep need within to make connections and ideate meaningfully. You may also find this method to therapeutically unlock new parts of your brain.

Having a crosswalk of ideas bumping into each other on paper nurtures originality. The limitless amount of conjunctive concepts we are each able to create from our individual experience should not be wasted.

Begin thinking along new lines. Create from a generous place of original thinking. Write what gives you clarity and freedom.

(My own writers block was cured today by this very practice...).

4/12/21 4/12/21

core values

When we embark to name those crucibles in our lives, we set out on a multi-layered, confusing journey.

Core values are the things (3-5 words is a good boundary) most central to your life and longings. Thematically, they can be found in the past, through childhood memories and major life shifts. They can be found in the future through examining deep desires and aspirational goals. Here is the first place we experience dissonance: we have to set apart the person we want to be from the person we are at our core, just until we find an anchor.

There are lots of great people we could be, great virtues we could want to pursue, but we have each been created uniquely different, and there are parts of who we are that will be missed if we grasp only aspirationally to a new 'us'.

I believe the best approach to finding our values lies in finding one word we know is true about our identity, that resonates deeply for us to be firmly rooted in truth. From there, we can reiteratively ensure our processing is remaining in the arena of our 'self', warring not against the mind, but against the heart as we transform into our called purpose.

4/11/21 4/11/21

the black box theory

The world made complex by technology will become simple again.

A core tenant of speculative fiction is technology's eventual hiddenness behind a layer of reality. Its purpose: to reduce the cognitive load of knowledge workers and engineers, while bringing focus to work and life.

Like Ford crafting the model-T line, we're beginning to realize civilization's most valuable commodity. Cal Newport in his book, A World Without Email, writes that, "in Ford's world, the workers were dispensable (supremely valuing output), while in the knowledge world, our brains are the source of all value."

The Information Age of torrential inundation has to transform into an Age of Understanding. Understanding simplifies the data flood and leads to wisdom. To get there, we need to clear cluttered desktops.

Think about Clarke's third law: "any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic." The way we send emails today follows a process incomprehensible for a person plucked out of the 60's who ran information through complicated tube systems to receive physical mail.

"Black box simplification" is inevitable.

We already see it in small ways. You have no idea how the black box (literal and figurative) you're reading this on functions, but you're still competent to access information. And while it still has a complex interface that confounds some who were not born into an iSociety, its base functions become simpler and more efficient each year.

This learning curve leads to another pillar the field of ethical technology hoists- accessibility for those on the periphery. All this complexity and overload only serves a purpose if we perpetuate it on an equitable plane.

The Center for Humane Technology established baseline conditions for humane technology to enter society:

(Humane technology) narrows the gap between the powerful and the marginalized instead of increasing that gap.

We will simplify to this state.

One revealing point economists always reference post-crisis refers to "civilization immunity". After a societal state of emergency (e.g. wars, famines, pandemics...), a civilization's immune system is triggered, so that something similar cannot happen again. This can often have unintended and far-reaching consequences for good and bad.

It's not a leap to say a year and half with the screens of our technology more prominent and under circumspection than ever will lead to societal transformations alongside COVID-19-induced evolution...

4/9/21 4/9/21

radio

The radio makes me frustrated.

On one end, we hear uninspired, inauthentic "popular music" that tries to imprint on our brains with catchiness and hearts with false messages about life and love (this is not a feat, Chainsmokers- merely an algorithm).

On the other end, classic and country radio clings to outdated beats and tones heralding the long gone "good ol' days". Stuck in the past, there is no newness to inspire or experimentation to witness (I concede we have to appreciate and study past work grasp out current state- I take issue with stubborn grasping that ignores the didactic value the classics provide).

Very rarely do innovative, deep pieces of beautiful music appear over the "waves" to move our hearts or minds. It has inspired and changed culture.

Maybe this is asking too much of the radio, but for decades radio has been (and in other countries, still is) a joining of culture and common folk around shared values and beauty.

More than all that, radio makes me sad.

I believe radio in America is another sign of our polarized times. Without those shared values, without an artist producing who young and old, man and woman appreciate, we lose another mode of connection as a people in a world of increasingly few bridges...

counterpoint // slaves to the algorithm

4/8/21 4/8/21

for the sake of Creation

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good...

Genesis 1:31

According to Genesis, when God created the world, it took Him six days to make His masterpiece. Five days of stars and fish and plants, leading to a man and woman who were created "very good."

I'm not trying to say an artist will sell every 6th day; that they will then strike upon an idea that shakes creation to its core. See in this passage the patience of the ultimate creator.

In this patience, an idea took shape and was gradually developed toward the grand finale.

God, in five days, "practiced" all the pieces of creating man He needed in unleashing his passion and love to His goal. The waves gave Him knowledge of man's heart, all at once tempestuous and calm. The stars imprinted the beauty in man's optics, shining with tear-fall and joy. The animals provided biological models and linkage to create the apex mamel.

Every piece played a part in forming God's art towards His destined manifestation of creative expression and affection.

4/8/21 4/8/21

determined

Technological determinism is the philosophy that says a simple innovation sometimes causes massive shifts, unforeseen in culture and the external environment of civilization.

This belief raises a host of questions like, "can an individual truly shape history through one act; do the impacts, for good or bad, moralize a technology; through an act of technological creation shaping our world, is technology the end all be all of existence?"

Not long ago I asked whether technology was the disease or the cure. My philosophy and this deterministic one need a revision.

Technology is a tool. We can use tools well or poorly, but ultimately, we are a more primary actor in our lives than the tools we use. We do well to remember our own agency.

More to come...

3/30/21 3/30/21

cease

It was one of those days where you come home and your body screams "cease and desist"! Quit your chatter, on the floor, stop what you're doing!

I think this is a sign of yet another modern dilemma brought about by our constant inundation in technology.

The Rock has been working out till 2am and waking up at 6am for his hustle- he's not listening to his body's commands and signals, or he's drowning them out with noise. I don't intend to judge the man or his work ethic, but when you start saying that,"the hungry human being at times can be unstoppable", a word which, in Rock's context, means losing sleep to gain muscle or fame or money."Once that human being starts to make a little bit of money — don’t be surprised if that hungry human being becomes even more hungry..."

Work in an agrarian society kept people from overlooking the signals that their bodies needed a break: sharp pain on your forearm clearly meant a gash from a plowshare.

Today, one of the aptitudes knowledge workers lose is the ability to perceive correlations between their body's groaning for rest, and how online and sedentary work styles cause this pain (mentally and physically we see this dissonance).

When we're immersed, its easy to keep going, refraining from breaks till we come home and give ourselves another dose of the mind-numbing drugs- social or TV. What we're missing is a Paleolithic connection to our physical beings. Presence in the world means we take responsibility for being aware of everything around us.

So, go for a run or kayak. Learn to juggle or bake. Your body is shouting the prescription- take it.

2/10/21 2/10/21

proximity

Van Gogh prepared his craft to go to Paris where the hub of neo-impressionists had been buzzing. He arrived to have his soul nourished by being in proximity to other painters.

Victor Frankl would say that being in proximity to those in suffering deepens your religious and existential purpose and drive. Freed from concentration camps, he began a psychotherapy practice to get close to the hurting again.

Activists in Richard Powers' novel, The Overstory, find proximal inspiration from fellow environmental defenders in upstate Washington where the battle against deforestation rages on.

Energy, depth and purpose, inspiration-unity through proximity. We all have a natural inclination toward communities. We can use community for self-gain, status, pleasure, or any other hedonistic rewards, or we can suck the marrow out of those last five letters.

Daily Writing

sameness // lpII 2-year review

meta

promises

systems

scale

being

convenience

///

space

wash your hands?

stuck

seasons

corollaries

core values

the black box theory

radio

for the sake of Creation

determined

cease

proximity

Ben Fridge