Qotd on Janusworx

Mountains, Holy Lands!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 25 May 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
Donate to Goonj, to help our daily wage earners and labourers.

click to embiggen

…

I said to him: “Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word ‘hike.’ Is that so?” His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied: “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike!”

“Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter?’ It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.”

— John Muir, A Parable of Sauntering

P.S. Subscribe to my mailing list!
Forward these to your friends and get them to subscribe!
P.P.S. Feed my insatiable reading habit.

P.P.P.S. The newsletters will now take a short holiday for about a month. Will see you soon!

Chop Wood, Carry Water

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 18 May 2020 04:00:00 +0530

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
Donate to Goonj, to help our daily wage earners and labourers.

click to embiggen

A young boy became a monk.
He dreamed of enlightenment and of learning great things.
When he got to the monastery he was told that each morning he had to chop wood for the monks fires and then carry water up to the monastery for ablutions and the kitchen.
He attended prayers and meditation, but the teaching he was given was rather sparse.

One day he was told to take some tea to the Abbot in his chambers.
He did so and the Abbot saw he looked sad and asked him why.

He replied every day all I do is chop wood and carry water.
I want to learn.
I want to understand things.
I want to be great one day, like you.

The Abbot gestured to the scrolls on shelves lining the walls. He said,

‘When I started I was like you. Every day I would chop wood and carry water.
Like you I understood that someone had to do these things, but like you I wanted to move forward.
Eventually I did.
I read all of the scrolls, I met with Kings and and gave council.
I became the Abbot.

Now, I understand that the key to everything is that everything is chopping wood and carrying water, and that if one does everything mindfully then it is all the same.’

I don’t know, where I got this story from. Probably one of Anthony De Mello’s books.

Reflection

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 11 May 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

click to embiggen

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

— Derek Walcott, Love after love.

Pair with these beautiful odes to the poem and the poet.

P.S. Subscribe to my mailing list!
Forward these to your friends and get them to subscribe!
P.P.S. Feed my insatiable reading habit.

Vastness

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 04 May 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Meghalaya

In the vast abyss before time, self
is not, and soul commingles
with mist, and rock, and light. In time,
soul brings the misty self to be.
Then slow time hardens self to stone
while ever lightening the soul,
till soul can loose its hold of self
and both are free and can return
to vastness and dissolve in light,
the long light after time.

— Ursula K. Le Guin, How It Seems to Me

Read more about this beautiful poem on Brain Pickings.

P.S. Subscribe to my [mailing list][1]! Forward these to your friends and get them to subscribe! P.P.S. Feed my [insatiable reading habit][2].

Idleness is a Virtue

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Dawki, Meghalaya

“I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spent in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days. In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them without hearing a whole lot.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

Pair with, The Art and Science of Doing Nothing.

Why Wait?

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”
— W.M. Lewis

On Bees

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Bee & Flower

“The lovely flowers embarrass me,
They make me regret I am not a bee.”
— Emily Dickinson

“Place a beehive on my grave
And let the honey soak through.
When I’m dead and gone,
That’s what I want from you.
The streets of heaven are gold and sunny,
But I’ll stick with my plot and a pot of honey.
Place a beehive on my grave
And let the honey soak through.”
— Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

or if you’d prefer a lighter quote …

“It was my uncle who taught me about the birds and the bees. He sat me down one day and said, ‘Remember this, George, the birds fuck the bees.’ Then he told me he once banged a girl so hard her freckles came off.”
— George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Get Lost to Find Yourself

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Mawlynnong, Meghalaya

“We need to feel a little bit lost somewhere, physically or intellectually, at least once a day.”

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

(spiritually too! - me)

Being Happy With Life

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 05:45:00 +0530

The Dawki, in Meghalaya

“All of life is about ending up somewhere you didn’t expect, and learning to just be happy with it.”
— Lauren Oliver, Vanishing Girls

Phenomenal Woman

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 05:45:00 +0530

Pooja Singh!

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

— Maya Angelou

Epictetus on Books

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 10:34:18 +0530

“Don’t just say you have read books.
Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person.
Books are the training weights of the mind.
They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”

— Epictetus, The Art of Living

Want to do Great Things?

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 06:00:00 +0530

Then be willing to look like an idiot.

(Claude) Shannon had courage. Who else but a man with almost infinite courage would ever think of averaging over all random codes and expect the average code would be good? He knew what he was doing was important and pursued it intensely. Courage, or confidence, is a property to develop in yourself. Look at your successes, and pay less attention to failures than you are usually advised to do in the expression, “Learn from your mistakes”. While playing chess Shannon would often advance his queen boldly into the fray and say, “I ain’t scaird of nothing”. I learned to repeat it to myself when stuck, and at times it has enabled me to go on to a success. I deliberately copied a part of the style of a great scientist. The courage to continue is essential since great research often has long periods with no success and many discouragements.

From Farnam Street’s article on doing great things.
There’s plenty more to do, than just be willing to look like an idiot though.
Go read the entire article.

If you like what I share, subscribe to the newsletter

Tim Cook on Computers & AI & the Humanities

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 06:00:00 +0530

Tim Cook’s entire commencement address to the MIT class of 2017 is lovely (with enough fluff), but this is the part that struck a nerve:

Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn’t want to do great things. It doesn’t want anything.
That part takes all of us. It takes our values and our commitment to our families and our neighbors and our communities. Our love of beauty and belief that all of our faiths are interconnected. Our decency. Our kindness.

I’m not worried about artificial intelligence giving computers the ability to think like humans.
I’m more concerned about people thinking like computers without values or compassion, without concern for consequences.
That is what we need you to help us guard against.
Because if science is a search in the darkness, then the humanities are a candle that shows us where we’ve been and the danger that lies ahead.

P.S. If you like what I share, subscribe to my newsletter.

Trying to Be Perfect Is a Waste of Time

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 06:00:00 +0530

“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.”
— Charlie Munger

That quote opens Shane’s post on the work required to hold an opinion, which remains one of the mental models I use most often.

Which is why I had my ears and my mind open, when Shane began one of his latest posts with,

“Trying to be perfect is a waste of time.”

I’ve inherited dad’s sense of perfectionism, and I always thought that should be something I ought to aspire to, at every skill I attempted to learn.
And for someone to come and say it isn’t so makes me squirm in my head.

But like Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird,

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.
I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die.
The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”

Shane too, using Taleb-ian ideas of optionality and antifragility makes a wonderful case for why good enough trumps perfect.

The post ends with a swift kick in the rear, to go forth and do …

Don’t be afraid of a challenge.
Don’t be afraid of not being the best.
When you routinely put yourself in situations where you aren’t the most skilled, you learn, you grow, and eventually you adapt.
You build your repertoire of traits and talents, so when change hits you have a wide array of skills.
This flexibility can also give you the confidence to seek change.
The mammal could explore and find new opportunities, but that bird was never going to leave the trees.

Read the whole post here. Will you be as convinced as I?

P.S. If you liked this, you will like more of what I share too :) Go subscribe!

When Death Comes

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 20:00:00 +0530

I want this glorious verse from Mary Oliver’s poem to be my eulogy, when, you know, my death comes.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

— via Austin Kleon’s touching eulogy to Mary Oliver.

P.S. Also love her instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

P.P.S If you enjoy reading what I write and share, go subscribe.

Be Persistent

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 12:18:46 +0530

More Gaiman truisms for me.
He talks about writing.
Holds true for all of my endeavours though.

lazynoodlepuff asked: Hi Neil, I wonder what could tell not native speaker like me. I struggle with writing anything. Words don’t flow in my native language and in English it’s even more difficult. Sonetimes I struggle with every sentence. But I really want to create things in English and be a part of English-speaking culture. Is this too much to try learn not only to write but also write in another language? I feel like I am so far behind everyone and have to try so hard just to keep up (I moved to the UK to study)

Two of the finest writers of English – Nabokov and Conrad – were not native speakers.
So I would not worry.
It’s okay to struggle.
Just have patience with yourself, and keep learning.

Write with Respect and Interest

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Wed, 26 Dec 2018 10:04:39 +0530

For me. For posterity. From Neil Gaiman.

miriams-song asked: Hey Neil. Someone recently told me that because I’m not ethnically Jewish (I’m a conversion student set to be “official” within the next year), I shouldn’t be writing ethnically Jewish characters. What do you think? I’ve been actively involved with my Jewish community for years so accusations like that are pretty hurtful.

As a writer of fiction part of your duty and obligation is to write characters who are not you.
Write them well, write them with respect and interest.
And don’t listen to anyone who tells you you aren’t allowed to write people who aren’t you.
You are.

Daily Writing, 76 – Mother and Son

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 19:08:39 +0530

Mothers yielding Bibles, contemplating smearing the blood of lamb chops over her doorway.
#

Anything to keep her son alive another day.
#

— Antonia Perdu

Burn Old Logs …

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:53:55 +0530

“Burn old logs. Drink old wine. Read old books. Keep old friends.”
#

— El Sabio

Also, travel and visit old towns and listen to the classics!
— Me

Daily Writing, 73 – River God

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:52:11 +0530

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?
#

#####That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Daily Writing, 70

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:45:31 +0530

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.
#

— Og Mandino

Daily Writing, 66 – Hope

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:37:04 +0530

Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness.
#

— Desmond Mpilo Tutu

P.S.
On a break, be back next week.

Daily Writing, 65 — Experience is an Arch

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:36:12 +0530

I am a part of all that I have met;
#

Yet, experience is an arch wherethro’
#

Gleams that untravll’d world whose margin fades
#

For ever and for ever when I move.
#

— Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses, 18–21.

Daily Writing, 63

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:33:03 +0530

A bell is no bell til you ring it
A song is no song til you sing it
And love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay
Love isn’t love til you give it away.
— Maria, in the Sound of Music

Daily Writing, 61

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:29:56 +0530

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
#

— Luke, 6:38

The statue of Charity, in the portico of St. Peters

Daily Writing, 60 – A Single Candle

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:27:37 +0530

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.
#

— Anne Frank

Daily Writing, 57 – Keys to the Kingdom

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:21:13 +0530

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven …
#

Daily Writing, 56 – You Will Not Be Made Whole

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:18:00 +0530

This from yesterday’s Daily Stoic newsletter.
I’m quoting it wholly, because short though it may be; it packs such a powerful punch.

Your Uber driver is delayed and you want a credit for the inconvenience. Your house is damaged in a storm and you want your insurance to pay for every penny of the repairs. Someone says something pointed and personal at you, and you want them not only to apologize, but to convince you that they never meant it in the first place.

In short, you want to be made whole. And in our service economy—where the customer is always right—you often can be. Complain to Uber HQ or Amazon, complain on social media, call a lawyer. Maybe it will work. They might even compensate you for your troubles and you’ll come out ahead.

The problem is that when it comes to life, this is a very bad precedent.
Because shit happens, and Fate does not have a customer service department.
If we expect the universe (or God) to make us whole every time, we will be sorely disappointed.

The key then is to focus on not feeling like we’ve been harmed in the first place.

#####“Choose not to be harmed — and you won’t feel harmed.
#####Don’t feel harmed — and you haven’t been.”
— Marcus Aurelius

Have you really been hurt by the fact that you’re a few minutes late? Even after paying for storm repairs, are you not financially ahead of the vast majority of the planet? Did someone else’s words really cause true damage? And on and on.

The answer is no.

To the Stoic, there is no expectation of being made whole, because the Stoic strives to reject the idea of a loss having been incurred in the first place.

The newsletter and the journal are my guides when it comes to navigating my day to day life.

You should check them out.
And to the folks at The Daily Stoic, you have my undying gratitude for such a wonderful project :)

Daily Writing, 55 – Leisure

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:16:22 +0530

It was the hour of four in the afternoon, and already in hillside homesteads the day was nearly done.
#

There was everywhere an air of that sweet, old-fashioned leisure which the world has nearly lost.
#

It lingered in the slant sunlight that threw shadows across the winding road…
#

— Florence Bone (1875–1971), The Morning of To‑Day, 1907

Daily Writing, 53 & 54

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:14:43 +0530

Spent yesterday and today doing loads of writing.
One was a project for a friend.
The other, was another project for me :)

So even though, it isn’t here. I’m done :)

A thought only really lives until it has reached the boundary line of words; it then becomes petrified and dies immediately; yet it is as everlasting as the fossilised animals and plants of former ages.
#

Its existence, which is really momentary, may be compared to a crystal the instant it becomes crystallised.
#

As soon as a thought has found words it no longer exists in us or is serious in its deepest sense.
#

When it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us; just as a child frees itself from its mother when it comes into existence.
#

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Daily Writing, 51 – Go Thou to Rome

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:08:03 +0530

Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise,
#

The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
#

And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
#

And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
#

The bones of Desolation’s nakedness
#

Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
#

Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
#

Where, like an infant’s smile, over the dead
#

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread …
#

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais, 49.

Daily Writing, 50 – On Meeting Death Cheerfully

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:06:21 +0530

Before I became old I tried to live well;
#

now that I am old, I shall try to die well;
#

but dying well means dying gladly.
#

— Seneca, Letter 61: On Meeting Death Cheerfully

Daily Writing, 48 – The Infinite has no preferences

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:03:45 +0530

“Trust that what brought you here
#

Will take you there.
#

The Infinite has no preferences.
#

It kisses both the darkness and
#

The light equally.”
#

— The Lost Writings of Wu Hsin

Daily Writing, 47 – Parents & Hope

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:02:04 +0530

“Every parent is at some point the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.”
#

John Ciardi

Daily Writing, 46

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:52:21 +0530

Learning without thought is labor lost;
#

thought without learning is perilous.
#

— Confucius.

Daily Writing, 45 – You Can Do What You Want

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:32:30 +0530

“It takes courage to do what you want. Other people have a lot of plans for you. Nobody wants you to do what you want to do. They want you to go on their trip, but you can do what you want. I did. I went into the woods and read for five years.”

— Joseph Campbell

Exactly why I went and spent a whole month in Europe. It’s not quite the “done thing” for folks like me. But I wanted to. So I did.

Daily Writing, 44 – Dark Days

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:29:09 +0530

William Styron, via Austin Kleon:

Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self—to the mediating intellect—as to verge close to being beyond description … it has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience.

Also,

One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.

Daily Writing, 42

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:24:07 +0530

“The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
— Alvin Toffler

via Sivers

Daily Writing, 41

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:22:59 +0530

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice;
in practice there is.”
— Yogi Berra

Daily Writing 35 – Make Art!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:13:21 +0530

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done.
Let everyone else decide whether it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it.
While they’re deciding, make even more art.”

— Andy Warhol

Picture Credit - Ian Burt

Writing Day 32 – Live Hidden

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:23:38 +0530

Maybe the lucky ones are the hidden figures.

… The motto of the philosopher Epicurus, which was taken up by the great essayist Montaigne as well, was lathe biōsas. Live in obscurity. The French saying, Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés: “In order to live happily, live hidden.”

This is not to say you must be poor or a failure. You can still be extraordinary. You just don’t have to be the most extraordinary. You don’t have to strive to beat out all the other broken people, to be the most well-known out of everyone who ever wanted to be known.

Because what is that actually worth in the long run? Do you think you’ll appreciate your fame and money after you die? You think Alexander the Great knows that Alexandria is still standing?

Know your enough!

via Ryan Holiday’s The Most Successful People Are The Ones You’ve Never Heard Of (And Why They Want It That Way)

Writing Day 5 – Kelton Wright’s Advice On Starting Relationships

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 15:21:08 +0530

I ran across this post on the Neil Gaiman blog yesterday and I’m quoting it in its entirety, crossing my fingers, hoping Kelton Wright won’t mind.

Her advice exudes big sister authority, kindness and clarity all at once, making me wish I read her when I was hurt and confused.

Kelton’s original post is here. She also has a book.

Anonymous asked: Hey. I am a 29 yr old female who for a slew of reasons happens to be completely inexperienced in matters of love/sex. I only just started dating a month ago and while it’s going well, I feel overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy. Like even if something does pan out what could I possibly have to contribute to the relationship? Am I just chasing a pipe dream? Is it too late for me to start looking for love/ sex? Or do I just need to calm the fuck down?

There are approximately 290,000 active commercial airline pilots in the world. Every day, they wake up to whiney kids, sick dogs, aging parents, annoying coworkers, and shitty commutes. Of course they also wake up to great runs, pretty sunrises, home-cooked meals, exotic locations, and trips home. Because they’re people. Normal people, in the grind of life, going to work and going home. And at work, they get to their gate, tick all the boxes, say their polite hellos to their passengers, and move a giant metal fuselage full of strangers 30,000 feet into the air going 500 mph across unexplored oceans of unsurvivable depth.

If someone made you pilot a commercial flight tomorrow, you would have reason to feel overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy because you would literally be inadequate. You would have nothing to contribute to flying because you would have no idea how to fly a plane.

But you do have something to contribute to a relationship, because you do, in fact, know how to be in them. You, despite your not knowing it, have plenty of training. Right now, you’re in a small but very real relationship with me. You’ve come to me with curiosity, vulnerability, and even a dash of humor. I see that vulnerability and am coming back to you with what I hope is kindness and realism. But I don’t know for sure. I can’t know how you’ll receive this message, how you’ll relate to what I’m saying, or what you’ll think of me after. And that, really, is being in a relationship. Putting yourself out there, trying to be your best self, trying to help people, trying to know someone, and knowing that, sometimes despite all of this, sometimes the relationship you’re trying to forge will fail. That is true when we’re 6 on the playground on the monkey bars, it’s true when we’re 16 negotiating curfews and grades, it’s true when we’re 29 interviewing and flirting, it’s true when we’re 43 reassessing our marriages, it’s true forever.

I get that everyone else feels like an airline pilot, navigating skies out of your reach with flexibility and wisdom. But you don’t have to fly a plane to date. You answer a message. You make a joke. You send a text. You get ignored. You turn someone down. You ask someone out. And at whatever speed you’re comfortable with, you remove whatever literal and figurative layers you’re comfortable with.

You are allowed to feel overwhelmed. Everyone feels overwhelmed when approaching something they literally have no idea how to do. That’s OK. But that’s why we learn. That’s why we take our time but also take chances. That’s why flight school exists. That’s why dating blogs and books and movies and websites and everything else exists. So you can learn to date. Because the truth is, even people who’ve been holding hands on the playground since they were 9 can feel overwhelmed by the world of love. We’ve only written an infinite amount of story around the subject. You could say almost every single human is undone, overcome, and indeed overwhelmed by love and all its facets. And that’s OK. But inadequate? A pipe dream? Too late?

No. Too late is when you’re dead. Show yourself a little forgiveness. Because what you’ve shown me isn’t inadequacy, it’s hope. And really, that’s all you need.

Writing Day 4 – Agatha Christie On Turning Pro

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 15:19:13 +0530

As I was reading David Suchet’s memoirs of his awesome Poirot run, I ran across this awesome Agatha Christie quote, echoing Stephen Pressfield (or actually presaging him …) on turning pro and doing the work.

That was the moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional.
I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.

All that matters, is persistence, slowly inching your way towards your goal; doing the work even when it’s hard and you don’t want to.

Toasty Nuts! (Or a toast to Natanya)

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 18:48:47 +0530

(My toast at Nuts’ communion reception on the 3rd of January, 2016 … posted for posterity)

Hello!

Good Evening to all you warm folks …
and a Happy New Year!

That gorgeous girl (sorry not this one – that one) over there is my wife of four years :)

She is Natanya’s much, older cousin :)
Which is how I met Natanya four years ago.
I wanted her to be my flower girl, but when I saw her, it was love at first sight and I asked her to marry me instead!

She very wisely, and very selflessly, asked me to marry Abby and walked us down the aisle along with her handsome brother, Joshua.

She was 4, turning 5 then.

At age 6, she saw her favorite uncle (that’s me), getting fat and so she volunteered to teach me Yoga.
She has helped me stay in shape ever since :)

At age 7, she taught me how to sing my heart out, because she thought I had a nice voice!
So now, nobody beats me at singing “Beautiful Sunday” on karaoke, other than the equally talented Tanya

When Natanya was 8, last October, her Abbygail Aunty fell really, really sick.
I had to take her to a big old hospital in Mangalore for a big operation.
And it was big.
And it was long.
And it took 7 whole hours.
And then, after all that, the doctor said, it was going to take a long, long while before she got well again.

There I was alone, nervous, scared and praying really hard.
And then Natanya (through her daddy) sends me letters.
One, for every day we were there.

How is Abbygail Aunty?
I really miss you.
I really, really, really, really, love you.
And just to make sure, that her dumb uncle understood, she drew a heart and explained that, that was the symbol of love; she drew a small sad face crying, and said that that was the symbol of missing some one.

Comforting messages, letters of hope, written by a child who did not ostensibly know any better.

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength …

goes Psalm 8:2

And that was when I knew, all would be well.
That was how Jesus comforted us, and took care of both of us, and got us here today.

So you see Natanya, Jesus has always been there inside you, guiding you.
And today is when He makes His presence felt, to you and all of us,through the Eucharist that you received this morning.

So, on this special day, I have no special advice; just a small reminder.
To do for everybody, what you have always done for me.
To do what Jesus says with his commandment.

Love one another, as I have loved you.

To love, like you always have.
Everytime we meet, you make me a better person.

Through your kind words,
through your concern,
through your little pieces of advice,
and through your big, big, smile!

So with Jesus’ help, leave every one you meet everyday, a little better than you found them.

A New Beginning

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 18:44:24 +0530

It’s been two months since we checked you in.
Four, since we figured out what was eating you alive.
A year and two months, since we started battling it.

You’ve been so brave, through it all!
Through scans and needles and burning meds
Sleepless nights, and broken muscles, and
A lost voice, unable to eat, to speak

And even though you’re tired,
I’m so glad we made it through.
Time to soldier on.
Time to pick up the pieces of our life.

Time to start again…
I love you, wife!

On Books …

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 16:10:21 +0530

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

–Francis Bacon

Qotd on Janusworx

Mountains, Holy Lands!

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Reflection

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! #

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. #

Vastness

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! #

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. #

Idleness is a Virtue

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! #

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. #

Why Wait?

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! #

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. #

On Bees

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! #

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. #

Get Lost to Find Yourself

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! #

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. #

Being Happy With Life

Phenomenal Woman

Epictetus on Books

Want to do Great Things?

Tim Cook on Computers & AI & the Humanities

Trying to Be Perfect Is a Waste of Time

When Death Comes

Be Persistent

Write with Respect and Interest

Daily Writing, 76 – Mother and Son

Mothers yielding Bibles, contemplating smearing the blood of lamb chops over her doorway. #

Anything to keep her son alive another day. #

Burn Old Logs …

“Burn old logs. Drink old wine. Read old books. Keep old friends.” #

Daily Writing, 73 – River God

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? #

Daily Writing, 70

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. #

Daily Writing, 66 – Hope

Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness. #

Daily Writing, 65 — Experience is an Arch

I am a part of all that I have met; #

Yet, experience is an arch wherethro’ #

Gleams that untravll’d world whose margin fades #

For ever and for ever when I move. #

Daily Writing, 63

Daily Writing, 61

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. #

Daily Writing, 60 – A Single Candle

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness. #

Daily Writing, 57 – Keys to the Kingdom

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven … #

Daily Writing, 56 – You Will Not Be Made Whole

Daily Writing, 55 – Leisure

It was the hour of four in the afternoon, and already in hillside homesteads the day was nearly done. #

There was everywhere an air of that sweet, old-fashioned leisure which the world has nearly lost. #

It lingered in the slant sunlight that threw shadows across the winding road… #

Daily Writing, 53 & 54

A thought only really lives until it has reached the boundary line of words; it then becomes petrified and dies immediately; yet it is as everlasting as the fossilised animals and plants of former ages. #

Its existence, which is really momentary, may be compared to a crystal the instant it becomes crystallised. #

As soon as a thought has found words it no longer exists in us or is serious in its deepest sense. #

When it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us; just as a child frees itself from its mother when it comes into existence. #

Daily Writing, 51 – Go Thou to Rome

Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise, #

The grave, the city, and the wilderness; #

And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, #

And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress #

The bones of Desolation’s nakedness #

Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead #

Thy footsteps to a slope of green access #

Where, like an infant’s smile, over the dead #

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread … #

Daily Writing, 50 – On Meeting Death Cheerfully

Before I became old I tried to live well; #

now that I am old, I shall try to die well; #

but dying well means dying gladly. #

Daily Writing, 48 – The Infinite has no preferences

“Trust that what brought you here #

Will take you there. #

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour!
#

Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers.
#

Mothers yielding Bibles, contemplating smearing the blood of lamb chops over her doorway.
#

Anything to keep her son alive another day.
#

“Burn old logs. Drink old wine. Read old books. Keep old friends.”
#

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?
#

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.
#

Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness.
#

I am a part of all that I have met;
#

Yet, experience is an arch wherethro’
#

Gleams that untravll’d world whose margin fades
#

For ever and for ever when I move.
#

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
#

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.
#

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven …
#

It was the hour of four in the afternoon, and already in hillside homesteads the day was nearly done.
#

There was everywhere an air of that sweet, old-fashioned leisure which the world has nearly lost.
#

It lingered in the slant sunlight that threw shadows across the winding road…
#

A thought only really lives until it has reached the boundary line of words; it then becomes petrified and dies immediately; yet it is as everlasting as the fossilised animals and plants of former ages.
#

Its existence, which is really momentary, may be compared to a crystal the instant it becomes crystallised.
#

As soon as a thought has found words it no longer exists in us or is serious in its deepest sense.
#

When it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us; just as a child frees itself from its mother when it comes into existence.
#

Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise,
#

The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
#

And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
#

And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
#

The bones of Desolation’s nakedness
#

Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
#

Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
#

Where, like an infant’s smile, over the dead
#

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread …
#

Before I became old I tried to live well;
#

now that I am old, I shall try to die well;
#

but dying well means dying gladly.
#

“Trust that what brought you here
#

Will take you there.
#

The Infinite has no preferences.
#

It kisses both the darkness and
#

The light equally.”
#

“Every parent is at some point the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.”
#

Learning without thought is labor lost;
#

thought without learning is perilous.
#