Scribbles on Janusworx

Daily Writing, 77

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 19:09:57 +0530

The new table goes on for miles and miles :)

Thank you mummy! From me and my broken back :)

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.
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Anything to keep her son alive another day.
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— Antonia Perdu

The Personal MBA

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 19:02:03 +0530

There is absolutely nothing I can say about the Personal MBA that hasn’t been said.

I cheat and present Derek Sivers’ notes on the book.

But here’s his point about the book as a whole …

Wow. A masterpiece. This is now the one “START HERE” book I’ll be recommending to everybody interested in business. An amazing overview of everything you need to know. Covers all the basics, minus buzz-words and fluff. Look at my notes for an example, but read the whole book. One of the most inspiring things I’ve read in years.
Want proof? I asked the author to be my coach/mentor afterwards. It’s that good.

My main regret? That the book was on my shelf nearly three years before I picked it up. Talk about lost time.
And as someone who’s helped friends with their MBAs and helped his wife with her DBA, I can absolutely attest that the Personal MBA, does what it claims to do.
It’s world class education for less than 500 bucks.

I’m also a bit jealous and awed. Josh read and synthesised and made notes on so many books and created a smashingly amazing syntopical work. Which is what I do so agonisingly slowly here :P

Short, pithy notes and chapters, keep you engrossed and the book is pretty fast paced and engaging for the enormous breadth of knowledge it seeks to distill within its 500 pages.

Personally biased, I loved the chapters on antifragility, optionality and tinkering. Those are Taleb terms. Josh calls them Resilience, Fail Safes and The Experimental Mindset.

But the whole book is awesome!
It’s my new quake book.

I learnt so much and I know I will learn much more as I revisit it again and again.
I’ll close with two things. The short B. C. Forbes passage (all emphases, mine) that Josh closes the book with, and a short audio introduction below.

Your success depends on you.
Your happiness depends on you.
You have to steer your own course.
You have to shape your own fortune.
You have to educate yourself.
You have to do your own thinking.
You have to live with your own conscience.
Your mind is yours and can be used only by you.
You come into this world alone.
You go to the grave alone.
You are alone with your inner thoughts during the journey between.
You make your own decisions.
You must abide by the consequences of your acts …
You alone can regulate your habits and make or unmake your health. You alone can assimilate things mental and things material …
You have to do your own assimilation all through life.
You can be taught by a teacher, but you have to imbibe the knowledge. He cannot transfuse it into your brain.
You alone can control your mind cells and your brain cells.
You may have spread before you the wisdom of the ages, but unless you assimilate it you derive no benefit from it; no one can force it into your cranium.
You alone can move your own legs.
You alone can move your own arms
You alone can control your own muscles.
You must stand on your feet, physically and metaphorically.
You must take your own steps.
Your parents cannot enter into your skin, take control of your mental and physical machinery, and make something of you.
You cannot fight your son’s battles; that he must do for himself.
You have to be captain of your own destiny.
You have to see through your own eyes.
You have to use your own ears.
You have to master your own faculties.
You have to solve your own problems.
You have to form your own ideals.
You have to create your own ideas.
You must choose your own speech.
You must govern your own tongue.
Your real life is your thoughts.
Your thoughts are your own making.
Your character is your own handiwork.
You alone can select the materials that go into it.
You alone can reject what is not fit to go into it.
You are the creator of your own personality.
You can be disgraced by no man’s hand but your own.
You can be elevated and sustained by no man but yourself.
You have to write your own record.
You have to build your own monument—or dig your own pit. Which are you doing?

Daily Writing, 75

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 19:00:23 +0530

In geometry, a cupola is a solid formed by joining two polygons, one (the base) with twice as many edges as the other, by an alternating band of isosceles triangles and rectangles.

Well … sod that.

In real life, a cupola is sheer poetry!

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.”
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— 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?
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#####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, 72

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:50:45 +0530

David, and Other Assorted Treasures. ¹

Obviously a pun on Layla & other assorted love songs ↩︎

Dear Uber

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:46:54 +0530

Since my emails to you result in this

We’re unable to respond to conversations that have been closed. Please note that your message has not been received by our support team.

And I really need to say something to your reply closing my original issue, this is my post!

Here’s my orginal text to you from within the app

Amount Of Cash Paid To Driver : 500
Share Additional Details : THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT. My driver was very helpful and brought me home in rain and traffic conditions with lots of patience. He was however running low on gas and was getting slightly apprehensive. I on my own accord offered my directions to a gas station, once he dropped me off and willingly gave him Rs. 500 since he was low on cash. (I have also paid for the trip via my credit card) So if you can adjust that for me, please do. Else, I’ll just consider it my good deed for the day. Regards, Mario Jason Braganza
Sent by Jason B. on Friday, July 20, 2018 at 3:42:12 AM

And this was your reply, which somehow ticks me off when you deign to tell me

NO RESPONSE NEEDED

Thanks for writing in Jason,

I reviewed your account and can see that your chosen payment method was your VISA XXXX. As a one-time exception, I’ve added INR 500 Uber credits to your account. You can see them under the payments section of your app. Please note that there is no need for you to pay in cash to the driver partner on a non-cash trip. The same is expected when you request rides for your family, friends etc. The trip fare is inclusive of tolls/parking fee and any other charges if applicable.

To avoid similar issues in the future, always make sure that you don’t pay with cash if you’ve already selected another form of payment.

We appreciate your understanding.

Well, you see that’s what ticks me off.
You decide something is one thing despite me expressly telling you it’s the other. And then you presume to lecture me on what I should so.
So you see, I do need to reply.
And since I cannot reply to that mail, I’ll post it here on my blog for posterity.

> To avoid similar issues in the future
Helping people and being human is not something I wish to avoid.

The driver was helpful and young and apprehensive.
He went out of his way to reach me home safe. I helped him back without his asking me to.
If your drivers can do so much, is your back-office so loathe to employ humans and look at exceptions and deal with them?

If you can help me, well and good.
If not, don’t.

> As a one-time exception
While I am thankful for the refund, I don’t need your charity or condescension.
I managed to travel before Uber was around and I’m quite sure I’ll be able to, even now.

Regards,
Mario Jason Braganza
PS
Oh! and NO RESPONSE NEEDED

Like Seth Godin points out in a post he’s just published, a day before

The thing is, “garbage in, garbage out” is lazy.

It’s lazy because it puts all the onus on the user or the environment. It lets the device off the hook, and puts the focus on the system, which, the device creator points out, is out of his control.

It’s one thing to make a sports car that runs beautifully on smooth roads, perfect tires and premium gas, but it’s a triumph of engineering to make one that runs beautifully all the time.

It’s one thing to organize the DMV so it works well when every person reads all the instructions, fills out the forms perfectly and patiently waits their turn, but it’s a generous act of customer service and organization when the system is resilient enough to work with actual human beings.

The extraordinary teacher adds value to every student, no matter what their home is like. She sees possibility and refuses to settle or blame the inputs. Isn’t that the way we’d like every professional to see the world?

The better mantra is, “garbage in, gorgeous out.”

That’s what we hired you for.

(updated later same day to include a reference to Seth’s post)

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.
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— Og Mandino

Daily Writing, 68 – Biga

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:42:37 +0530

The Biga, Vatican Museum by Francesco Antonio Franzoni

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.
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— 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;
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Yet, experience is an arch wherethro’
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Gleams that untravll’d world whose margin fades
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For ever and for ever when I move.
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— Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses, 18–21.

Daily Writing, 64 — Constantine

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:34:28 +0530

Constantine, by Bernini
This is art!

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, 62

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:31:19 +0530

Along St. Peter’s Square

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.
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— 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.
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— Anne Frank

Daily Writing, 59 – Have I Told You Lately?

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:26:14 +0530

Have I told you lately, that I love you?

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.
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There was everywhere an air of that sweet, old-fashioned leisure which the world has nearly lost.
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It lingered in the slant sunlight that threw shadows across the winding road…
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— 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.
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Its existence, which is really momentary, may be compared to a crystal the instant it becomes crystallised.
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As soon as a thought has found words it no longer exists in us or is serious in its deepest sense.
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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.
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— Arthur Schopenhauer

Daily Writing, 52 – Bridge of Angels

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:09:39 +0530

The Bridge of Angels (Ponte Sant’Angelo), leading to the Castel Sant’Angelo (Hadrian’s Castle)

It took me a half an hour to slowly traverse it :)
It was that beautiful.

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,
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The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
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And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
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And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
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The bones of Desolation’s nakedness
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Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
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Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
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Where, like an infant’s smile, over the dead
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A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread …
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— 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;
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now that I am old, I shall try to die well;
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but dying well means dying gladly.
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— 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
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Will take you there.
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The Infinite has no preferences.
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It kisses both the darkness and
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The light equally.”
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— 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;
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thought without learning is perilous.
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— 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, 43 – How to Pick a Career

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:25:45 +0530

I’ve written about the critical distinction between “reasoning from first principles” and “reasoning by analogy”—or what I called being a “chef” vs. being a “cook.”

The idea is that reasoning from first principles is reasoning like a scientist. You take core facts and observations and use them to puzzle together a conclusion, kind of like a chef playing around with raw ingredients to try to make them into something good. By doing this puzzling, a chef eventually writes a new recipe. The other kind of reasoning—reasoning by analogy—happens when you look at the way things are already done and you essentially copy it, with maybe a little personal tweak here and there—kind of like a cook following an already written recipe.

For any particular part of your life that involves reasoning and decision making, wherever you happen to be on the spectrum, your reasoning process can usually be boiled down to fundamentally chef-like or fundamentally cook-like.
Creating vs. copying.
Originality vs. conformity.

Being a chef takes a tremendous amount of time and energy—which makes sense, because you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, you’re trying to invent it for the first time. Puzzling your way to a conclusion feels like navigating a mysterious forest while blindfolded and always involves a whole lot of failure, in the form of trial and error.
Being a cook is far easier and more straightforward and less icky. In most situations, being a chef is a terrible waste of time, and comes with a high opportunity cost, since time on Earth is immensely scarce.
Throughout my life, I’ve looked around at people who seem kind of like me and I’ve bought a bunch of clothes that look like what they wear. And this makes sense—because clothes aren’t important to me, and they’re not how I choose to express my individuality. So in my case, fashion is a perfect part of life to use a reasoning shortcut and be a cook.

But, when you subtract childhood (~175,000 hours) and the portion of your adult life you’ll spend sleeping, eating, exercising, and otherwise taking care of the human pet you live in, along with errands and general life upkeep (~325,000 hours), you’re left with 250,000 “meaningful adult hours.” So a typical career will take up somewhere between 20% and 60% of your meaningful adult time—not something to be a cook about.

It’s a regular length Tim Urban article
(This means it’s looong … booklet sized)
And it’s practical.
And humourous.
And absolutely smashing.
And packed with wisdom.
Go, read.

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, 40

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:21:56 +0530

Busy day today, so slightly cheating and pointing you to to this.

Daily Writing, 39

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:20:49 +0530

I’m in a funk.
And struggling mightily to get out.

Daily Writing 36, 37, 38

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:18:31 +0530

Rebuiding stuff and writing for friends took up all of the last three days.

So sorry, nothing here.

But Daily Writing definitely got done.

Speaking of which, I’m experimenting with Static Site Generators.

Janusworx is now a Nikola powered blog, because I wanted something simple.

Daily Writing 36 – Crash

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:16:56 +0530

The machine’s crashed. So nothing today!

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 34 – Nostalgia

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:27:25 +0530

But of a funny kind.

As I watch Poirot, I seem to have a strange longing for that period.
The 20s to the 50s.

I love the art of the age, the music, the food …

Everything seemed so … simpler, yet more elegant then.

Writing Day 33 - Akimbo

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:25:07 +0530

I’ve been raving to my friends about Akimbo and I’m surprised I haven’t written about it here.
It’s one of the reasons, I’m glad I’m alive at a time like this.
There’s no way without modern technology, I could learn from a master like Seth Godin for free!

Akimbo is Seth’s latest project and it’s podcast on all things Seth.
To me, it’s my real life MBA.
They’re weekly, punchy, 20 minute episodes on a topic.

Last weeks episode about Genius was genius.

This week was all about The Long Term.
Ponzi schemes, Bitcoin ponzi ICOs, Mr. Ponzi himself, Whales, Hippos, Fedex, Olive trees, Starbucks and even Superman make an appearance.

Here are a few scambled notes …

Emergencies feel like a matter of life or death
Every culture in every corner of the globe has adopted the mindset that tomorrow is too late!
1. We’re impatient and want a quick return on our effort
2. We want proof. We’re insecure that our effort will pay off
3. We want excitement!
4. All three of these create a ratchet, that quickens things up drastically (and on a personal note, makes things overwhelming)
Human beings are really shitty at the long run
If you want prople to take action, you gotta compress it forward.
If you want to change the behaviour of a group of people, make it all about the now. Make it urgent, not important.
- Make it painful and expensive in the moment, if you want to stop them doing something (e.g. hefty taxes of cigarettes)
- Make it lucrative and fun when you want them to pay attention.
Stuff that matters, Mother Nature, everything actually takes a looooooong time.
We need to figure out how to build resilient organisations with a mission that goes out further than a week
- Our mission statement can’t be about market share
- But about the work that matters
Every one of us is capable of doing it
There’s a significant advantage to be willing to take a long time, to inexorably evolve bit by bit, day by day, to deal with the Long Run.
We are capable of of building organizations and companies like this.
You could use emergencies to our advantage, create positive ratchets.
Drip by drip, day by day, we change the culture.

Don’t forget to catch the show notes for each episode. They’re delightful.
And yes, go subscribe!

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 31 – Fire Pole!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:21:46 +0530

One of my biggest goals in life is to become as good as Randall Munroe, at explaining stuff, in such a warm engaging manner, by telling the awesomest stories!

THIS IS AWESOME!

Writing Day 30 – Experience as a Moat

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:19:57 +0530

I get both optimistic and a little lost and hopeless now a days.

What if I never do what I’m aiming to?
What if I can’t catch up with the young ones of DGPLUG?
What if the newer ones pass me right by as an old fogey?

And somewhile ago, I’d read this. And this.

And that got me thinking.

I’ve been working for 20 years now.
And when it comes to stuff I know, I know stuff.
It’ll take any johnny-come-lately tonnes of effort (not to mention, how many hours of their life) to know what I know.

And that got me thinking further.

Not everyone is an autodidact (like cough yours truly cough)
Not everyone loves to put in the work.

And that’s the meta skill I’m building right now.
To show up every day. To do the work.

If I do that, I will pick up skills.
And they will accrete.

And I will have my moat again.

Come to think of it, I have two moats now.

My experience (what I have and what I’m buiding)
My love of learning.

And that I think, will be the wind in my sails …

Writing Day 29 – Conspiracy

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:17:44 +0530

Started: 2018-03-18
Finished: 2018-03-19

I think most of my writing about books will be just short stabs like this.
Or I’ll never get to anything in time.

I was supposed to start with Perennial Seller and then this popped up and looked like less intensive, so I picked it up first.

Well, it’s an awesome, racy read.
And something only Ryan Holiday could have done justice to.
He writes almost objectively, never hiding his biases.

Sometime in late 2007, Gawker publication Valleywag, outed Peter Thiel as gay.
And nearly ten years and ten million dollars later, Peter Thiel burned Gawker Media to the ground by secretly backing another Gawker victim with his case against Gawker in court.

So what happened in between?
Well, that’s what the book is about.

The sheer amount of hopelessness, hubris, desspair, planning, plotting, conspiracy in the whole book is almost perversely delightful.

I don’t agree with Thiel on most of what he does. (Palantir … Trump … )
But when I put myself into his shoes, what would I have done, if I was violated and I had the means to strike back?
I know that feeling of despair when I have been wronged, and yet I couldn’t do anything about it
I would have done exactly what he did.

And while the book is about conspiracy, the part that I identified the most with, was the fact that Peter was the only one with the balls to call Gawker’s bluff.¹
Gawker upset a lot of rich folk and large companies.
Yet, it was only Peter who did something about it.

And I identify with it, because I did exactly that after nearly 4 years of being bullied and blackmailed in high school.
Reading this brought back memories …
Driving an enemy into the ground, so completely that they’ll never do harm again, is exhilirating.
I’ve never let myself be helpless ever again.

And while I’ve taken Marcus Aurelius’ exhortation² to heart, there is also a bit of truth to this quote from the book …

I couldn’t stand it. I still can’t stand it.
I can’t stand the way things are. I cannot tolerate this age.
What is more, I won’t.
That was my discovery: that I didn’t have to.
—Walker Percy, Lancelot

And the fact that revenge is a dish best served cold. ↩︎
The best revenge, is not to be like that ↩︎

Writing Day 28 – This is Broken

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:16:34 +0530

I don’t how even after following Seth for so many years and manually scouring the net for everything the man has done and written, I only came across This is Broken¹ a couple of days ago.

If you are as big a Seth Godin fan as I, this is such an awesome resource to a huge amount of Seth’s work.

Go, read.

The name obviously, being an homage to this famous talk. ↩︎

Writing Day 27 – Time & Money

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:13:49 +0530

One of Seth’s pithy posts.

Quoted here in it’s entirety for me to remember

The difference between time and money
#

You can’t save up time. You can’t refuse to spend it. You can’t set it aside.

Either you’re spending your time.

Or your time is spending you.

Writing Day 26 – On Writing Days

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:09:48 +0530

I started writing regularly 26 days ago.

I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I did know I wanted to build a practice of sticking to things; something I feel I’m sorely lacking in, as each new “ooh, shiny!” flits across my field of vision.

And I know I want to build something like this!

Nearly a month in, I think I’m barely scratching the surface.
But it definitely isn’t as bad as it was when I started.
And it definitely isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.
It’s beginning to feel like I can do this, but there is still quite a ways to go.

I’ve definitely felt like giving up tonnes of times.
But I’ve read that even when I don’t feel like it, I ought to just do it.
Do the bare minimum¹. Don’t break the chain.

I might decide to drop the tag next year², but I fervently hope, this leads to writing being as much as part of me, as reading is.

And I hope it leads me to something like this.

I haven’t missed a day in many, many years—the discipline of sharing something daily is priceless. Sometimes there are typos. I hope that they’re rare and I try to fix them.

Over time, the blog adds up. People remember a blog post a year after I wrote it. Or they begin a practice, take an action, make a connection, something that grows over time. The blog resonates with people in so many fields, it’s thrilling to see how it can provoke positive action.

It’s true that I’d write this blog even if no one read it, but I want to thank you for reading it, for being here day after day. It’s more fun that way. There are more than a million subscribers, and, best I can tell, people read this in nearly every country in the world.

Most posts now, certainly feel like it. ↩︎
The aim, now is to have 365 posts tagged, daily-writing. ↩︎

Strong!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:07:50 +0530

The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places.
#

— Ernest Hemingway

Writing Day 24 – Why I Love My Insights

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:06:21 +0530

I’ve come across several a-has in life all on my ownsome.

I struggled with credit cards and debt and realised much of what were Dave Ramsey’s baby steps and later Taleb’s thoughts on optionality all on my own.

When I read about them later, it was a huge boost of Hell Yeah!

While I do realise that life is to short to learn by experience, and that most of my “original” thoughts will have been thought of long before I ever did, it’s such a high to arrive at an insight all on my ownsome.

Figuring out something by experience or by reason is fun :)

It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise.
— William Deresiewicz

Writing Day 23 – On the Need for Mental Rigour

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 16:03:44 +0530

I’ve been learning Maths and daydreaming about careers in Mathematics
I loved the idea of being a pure Mathematician and then realised that path was not for me. My head hurts when I focus on my Maths work :P

But then it struck me how much of Maths & Science was done by people in their spare time, by tinkering and thinking long and hard and with focus on or about something.
So many folks had day jobs that had little to nothing to do with their work and the accomplishments they were known for.

Einsteing was technical assistant examiner at the Swiss Patent Office.
Newton was Master of Coin.
Fermat was a lawyer.
Descartes was a soldier and then lived off investments
Mendel was a priest
Hooke was an architect
Da Vinci was forever doing stuff for various dukes and Popes and it’s a wonder, he found time for Maths and all the other revolutionary stuff he penned down.

Which then led me to thinking … they must have worked in their spare time to do this. It must have tested their will. And it must have been hard.

“I have used the involuntary house arrest around Easter to solve the equation”
#

— Schrödinger, on the degree of concentration he needed in order to solve an equation relating to Einstein’s general relativity

Which led me to wonder …
What kept them going?
They must have has some quality that contributed to these towering feats of mental acuity.

And then it struck me, what Cal Newport was banging on about with his idea of Deep Work.

Theirs was an age of Willpower!
They were masters of the skill.
That was my secondary observation from the book.

“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.”
#

— Charles Darwin

Forget the geniuses, even amongst Freud’s ordinary patients

The Victorian middle-class citizens … had intensely strong wills, making it difficult for therapists to break through their ironclad defenses and their sense of what was right and wrong.

So I’m off, to build willpower, like Calvin does. (as did his old original)

P.S.
Orthogonally related: Just ran into this post on Shane’s blog.

Scribbles on Janusworx

Daily Writing, 77

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. #

The Personal MBA

Daily Writing, 75

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, 72

Dear Uber

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, 68 – Biga

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, 64 — Constantine

Daily Writing, 63

Daily Writing, 62

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, 59 – Have I Told You Lately?

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, 52 – Bridge of Angels

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. #

The Infinite has no preferences. #

It kisses both the darkness and #

The light equally.” #

Daily Writing, 47 – Parents & Hope

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

Daily Writing, 46

Learning without thought is labor lost; #

thought without learning is perilous. #

Daily Writing, 45 – You Can Do What You Want

Daily Writing, 44 – Dark Days

Daily Writing, 43 – How to Pick a Career

Daily Writing, 42

Daily Writing, 41

Daily Writing, 40

Daily Writing, 39

Daily Writing 36, 37, 38

Daily Writing 36 – Crash

Daily Writing 35 – Make Art!

Writing Day 34 – Nostalgia

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.
#

The difference between time and money
#

The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places.
#

“I have used the involuntary house arrest around Easter to solve the equation”
#

“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.”
#