Earth, early to the party

Eric Johnson

This is fascinating:

Earth came early to the party in the evolving universe. According to a new theoretical study, when our solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed. And, the party won’t be over when the sun burns out in another 6 billion years. The bulk of those planets – 92 percent – have yet to be born.

As old as the universe is—more than 13 billion years old—planets like ours are among the first of their kind. There are many, many more to come in the life of the universe.

How surreal to be an Earthling. Just ponder the scale of space and time and marvel at your place in it.

A billion years from now there may be no one here to discover if there’s anyone or anything else getting started out there on some young planet that may not even exist yet.

It’s good to be here now. It’s good to be anywhere at all.

Sunday night Stoic: When you wake up in the morning

Eric Johnson

Meditations 2.1:

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.”

New Year’s Eve is 11 weeks from today

Eric Johnson

Holy smokes, right?

We are 41 weeks into 2015. There are only ten weeks till Christmas Eve.

This year is showing its age. But what do I have to show for this year?

There’s still time to make a dent in 2015, to do something worth remembering the year for.

“2015 was the year I __________________________!”

Our days are numbered. We’ve got 77 days left to make something remarkable happen before 2016 begins.

Here’s a chance to establish—or resuscitate—some habits and craft systems that make a difference. 

How do I want to feel about this year as I’m counting down the seconds on New Year’s Eve?

Beat the rush on new year resolutions and get busy making some end-of-year magic instead. Finish strong. 

You are the creative type

Eric Johnson

When you say “creative people”, it’s redundant. –Elizabeth Gilbert

I listened to the TED Radio Hour podcast today and this episode, The Source of Creativity. It features Sting and Sir Ken Robinson and the author Elizabeth Gilbert all discussing the mystery and magic of the creative process. 

Gilbert’s reminder that everyone is creative was particularly striking. 

It’s tempting to assume only a select few are gifted with creative talents. And maybe that’s your excuse for not creating. 

But if you’re alive and reading this, you, too, are filled with unique and infinite creative potential. 

You’ve just got to make the effort to express yourself, to uncork that potential, to craft it into something tangible. 

This effort will encounter a lot of resistance and will require courage and persistence. 

Most aren’t willing to pay the price or to show up often enough to summon the muse. 

But don’t say you are not a creative person. 

The best competition

Eric Johnson

The best competition I have is against myself to become better. –Coach John Wooden

Wooden is THE icon of what a coach could be. Twelve national championships came from his selfless focus on bringing out the best in each of his players. 

He said he never talked to his team about winning. He only wanted them to give their best effort. If they did and still fell short on the scoreboard, he didn’t consider that a failure. 

Conversely, a poor effort that still resulted in a win was not a cause for celebration. 

You can’t control the opposing players. You can only control your own effort and attitude. 

You can’t control the circumstances of your daily life. But your response to the circumstances is all you’ve got, and it’s everything. 

Focus on what is in your power. Do your best. And accept what comes. 

You are someone, somewhere rather than no one, nowhere

Eric Johnson

David Cain, in the most recent post on his consistently insightful blog, Raptitude, discusses the malleable nature of reality and the perspective you can cultivate that your life is always just beginning, like a movie scene coming to life from black:

When you can look at any moment as though it’s the first moment, if you can really see your surroundings as the opening frame in a story, the world gains a certain playfulness. Suddenly your problems seem more interesting than annoying, the way another person’s problems always seem easier to solve than your own. It’s almost impossible to be impatient with others, because it’s fascinating that they’re even there. You still care about outcomes, but it’s far easier to relax around the possibilities. Any uptightness about making things go a certain way seems a bit silly, because it already seems unlikely that anything is even happening, and that you’re at the helm.

This magic only happens in a vivid awareness of the present moment.

Usually, we are numbly going through the motions, unaware that the moment we are living through is this dynamic, unique, priceless bit of stranger-than-fiction reality.

You are part of something. You are somewhere rather than nowhere.

You just have to wake up regularly and see that your story is beginning anew each moment.

Cain closes with this:

In other words, being alive seems like no big deal, until you can imagine, for a moment, what it means not to be alive: no experience, and no story. When you can see the present moment as though the camera has just started rolling, you get a hint of just how rich it is, and has always been.

Sunday night Stoic: Count each separate day as a separate life

Eric Johnson

“One who daily puts the finishing touches to his life is never in want of time…. begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.” –Seneca

Aiming to have a good life is noble, but overwhelming in its scope. 

Nothing can be done about your past, and the future rolls up to meet you filled with possibilities and mystery and, most often, worries, most of which, of course, are mere phantoms.

But if you live your life in day-sized measures, excellence is manageable. 

Aim to make tomorrow—just tomorrow—as excellent as you can, to be as awesome as you can be for just one day. 

Take stock as you go to bed. Don’t be discouraged if you’re disappointed in yourself. Just observe and learn and put the finishing touches on the day. And then start over the next day, and the next, and the next.

Be the artist of your days. Craft your life one day at a time.

My current work soundtrack: Pianist James Rhodes’s Inside Tracks

Eric Johnson1 Comment

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This new album, a collection of pianist James Rhodes’s favorites from previous recordings, has been my work soundtrack this week.

I don’t typically work with music on, but this music is perfect company. It’s just the piano. No orchestra. No lyrics. And it’s music from some of the greatest composers ever, performed by a dynamic talent.

Here is Rhodes’s explanation of his song choices for this collection:

“For this compilation (of my personal recordings from the last six years) I wanted to carry on in that vein and so I’ve made it a mix tape—these are the pieces that come up in my head unwarranted at 4am to get me through another rotten night of insomnia. These are the ones that always give me hope and a reason to hang on in there—because if music like this can exist then there is simply no question that the good outweighs the bad. They are my inside tracks.”

This album is a great introduction to Rhodes. If you need some music in your life, give this a chance.

Kickstart your cooking skills with the Misen chef’s knife

Eric Johnson

20150921-misen-knife-review-1

The most important tool everyone needs in their kitchen is a good chef’s knife.

ToolsandToys.net linked to Kenji Lopez-Alt’s review of the Misen knife which is a Kickstarter project. Kenji is the mastermind behind one of the best cooking tips and recipe sites online, SeriousEats.com. Kenji knows kitchen knives, and he raves about this new knife and its remarkable price:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to call it: This is the holy grail of inexpensive chef’s knives. Incredible quality and design, high-end materials, perfect balance, and a razor-sharp edge.

Most quality chef’s knives are well over $100. This Kickstarter Misen knife matches up well with high-end knives, but only costs $60.

From Kenji’s review:

That’s an incredible deal. Yes, there are cheaper knives out there, like the Forschner Victorinox Fibrox knives that Cook’s Illustrated flogs so often, but hold these two knives side by side and it makes the Forschner, with its stamped blade, plastic handle, poor balance, and lack of solid riveting, feel like a baby’s toy. I’ve held a lot of knives in my time across all ranges of the price spectrum and I’ve never held a knife that had the type of value this one is offering.

I’ve got that $35 Forschner, and it does a fine enough job. But every time I use it I can tell that it’s a “budget” knife. The metal is flimsy, and it just doesn’t feel solid in my hand.

I’m in on this Kickstarter. Ordered. And the Kickstarter has already met its goal and then some, so this knife will be produced.

If you don’t have a quality chef’s knife, you need one. And for this price and for this quality, you can’t go wrong. There are 16 days left to get in on the Kickstarter project for this excellent knife that will likely be your primary kitchen tool for years to come.

Then go check out Kenji’s knife skill tutorials so you’ll know what your doing.

Sunday morning Stoic: Life is neither good nor bad

Eric Johnson

“Life is neither good nor bad; it is the space for both good and bad.” –Seneca

Life is the canvas. You are the artist.

Life is the blank page. You are the author.

Life is the stage. You get to perform on it.

You create yourself in response to whatever comes. 

There is much that you have no control over. Unburden yourself from trying to control what is not yours to control.

But you can craft your response to whatever good or bad presents itself to you in the tiny and vast space of your life.

Find the thing you do for the joy of the thing itself

Eric Johnson1 Comment

There was a common theme in two things I read today. 

First, I read this Jon Westenberg post on Medium that included a striking insight about work:

“Have you ever watched one of those reality TV singing competitions? You’ve probably seen a hundred young people, eyes shining, clutching microphones and talking about their dreams. They’ll explain that ever since they were kids, they wanted to be singers.

They hardly ever say they wanted to sing. When it comes down to it, half the time it’s because actually singing isn’t the end goal. They want the trappings and lifestyle and the breaks of being a singer.

If the act of singing was really their end goal, they wouldn’t be on a reality TV show. They’d be out there every night singing anywhere they could, writing songs, starting bands, recording music.

The same is true for anything you could make. Do you want to make X, or do you want to be the person who made X? Because if you don’t care about the act of making something, and if you don’t want to get out there every day and try to make something, you might as well quit.

You want people to care?

They should care about your work. Not you.”

And then I read this today at lunch after finally getting started on Anne Lamott’s highly regarded book on writing, Bird By Bird:

“Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.”

Find the thing you do for the joy of the thing itself, not for any extrinsic reward attached to the thing. Go in the direction of the things that give you intrinsic rewards. 

I keep coming back to this profound, potentially life changing passage from Anthony De Mello’s The Way to Love:

“You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself. Think of something that you love to do for itself, whether it succeeds or not, whether you are praised for it or not, whether you are loved and rewarded for it or not, whether people know about it and are grateful to you for it or not. How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love.”

This advice might not lead you to any paying gigs or a dream career. But you still should find those things that make you come alive without any attachment to external rewards. Even if it’s only a hobby or a side hustle, get busy making something or doing something that is simply a delight to you, where the process is an end in itself—where the journey is the reward.

Striving and struggling

Eric Johnson

If you don’t have a direction, a lofty aim, that challenges you and brings out your best, do something about that. 

Sunday morning Stoic: Make your exit with grace

Eric Johnson

Meditations 12.36:

“You’ve lived as a citizen in a great city. Five years or a hundred—what’s the difference? The laws make no distinction.And to be sent away from it, not by a tyrant or a dishonest judge, but by Nature, who first invited you in—why is that so terrible?

Like the impresario ringing down the curtain on an actor:

“But I’ve only gotten through three acts …!”

Yes. This will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine.

So make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.”

These are the last lines, appropriately, of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, his private journal that has become my most frequently read book.

It’s the book I give away most often now, too. When I give it away I wonder if others will find the delight in it that I do. It was written by a Roman emperor, of all people, and has no plot or narrative arc or even logical connections between paragraphs.

But I’ve received genuinely enthusiastic responses from some who seemed surprised to have been so taken with this ancient and slightly odd book of wisdom.

A young friend recently sent me a photo of her copy of Meditations on the beach with her and let me know she was on her third reading of it in just a couple of months.

Another friend sent me a thank you note that said reading it had been a source of encouragement during a challenging time in her life.

Your mileage may vary. There are portions that read like gibberish. But I regularly come across simply stated but profound insights that connect instantly and shine a light on reality and common sense in ways I’ve rarely seen.

I will continue, for now, to dip into it weekly and start back over at the beginning when I make it to that final line again.

Weekend reading: Offscreen Magazine, #12

Eric Johnson

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This is my only magazine subscription.

It’s not available in a digital version.

This is it. Paper and ink.

It’s a delight to hold and to look through and to smell.

As powerful as the internet is for the spread of ideas, I’m sure that most of what makes a splash online now won’t have much of a shelf life. Because, well, you can’t put it on a shelf.

My kids won’t grow up with nostalgia for a blog post they read once or keep a favorite old viral video on a loop in their living rooms.

Tangible things will endure, though. Especially beautiful ones that spark joy.

Even this delightful little magazine reminds me of the joy of great things.

I keep fretting over the best way to organize the thousands of digital photos I have.

The solution, though, is to print them, to make the best ones into photo books that will someday grace the shelves of my future grandchildren’s homes.

Things are just things. But there is real beauty in the grace of great things, offscreen, in your hands and literally in your life.