I have always had a fondness in my heart for my experience at St. Mary’s. When people ask about school, I tell them that St.Mary’s is the best part of Texas A&M. It’s hard to explain what it means to have gone through there and to relate how it changed me.
This video does it well. The guy speaking in the video, he could be any one of us who went there.
(Video reposted from Mary’s Aggies, a blog run by staff of St.Mary’s)
As Paul Petrunia from Archinect put it, the world is a little less interesting now that Steve Jobs has passed away. I think that is the best way to put it. I won’t try to compose some penetratingly insightful quote about a man I know little about.
After watching a video about events taking place around Apple stores, people leaving flowers and notes outside Apple stores and outside is house it made me wonder. These people probably have seen his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech on YouTube, daily use a product designed by a company he ran, or maybe even watched a video of him unveiling the iPhone or iPad. But have any of these people ever spoken with Jobs? Have they tossed a frisbee on a hot summer afternoon with him? Have they spent an evening drinking beer and talking about religion and politics? Likely not. So how and why were so many people moved by his passing when they had no personal contact with him? Why is he so fascinating and influential?
One word. Clarity.
Not clarity of design intent, or of market knowledge. That stuff seems easy to post rationalize into a cherry picture when you look at the past. He may have had it, he may not. I don’t to know. But what is clear from his commencement speech is that he had clarity about life and death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. – Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 (emphasis mine)
When you have a certain level of clarity about death, and in turn about life, the only way to live is to be hungry and foolish.
Also known as lists and calendars.
Each has its advantages and disadvantages. I’ll let you decide what those are. But I will say that you need to be in control of the decision to write down a “to-do” item and either set aside time in the future to make it happen, or to merely write it down.
Hint: here is my bias. For me a to do list is just a bunch of stuff that has yet to make it onto a calendar. Note taking and to-do list making has its place, but odds are that illegible ink scribble should be calendared.
Other people give you deadlines, so why not give yourself some? Calendaring also a good way to discriminate between what you are actually doing and what you want to do. You calendar it, and when the time comes you have either done it nor not. A list of aspirations becomes tomorrow afternoons plans.
Here is the real test. When you finish this post in a few seconds, do you go and write “give to-do list items a time and date” on your to-do list, or do you calendar a time to calendar?
In anticipation of Dean Sara Whiting’s address today (my first day of class at the Rice School of Architecture) ,here is her spring 2010 address to the school. It’s only a five minute video. Give it a watch.
Maybe I’ll type out the speech so you can read it, but until that day comes enjoy the video.
RT @joshneuroth: OH "When you say yes to something, you're instantly saying no to tons of other stuff." #creativemornings—
(@johnmaeda) July 29, 2011
This is an often forgotten truth we must all remember.
I wish more companies took this approach to advertising. Find your story, and tell it like a real human being. This ad just works. This post is proof.
The most striking like in this post is easily the last one.
I haven’t now, nor will I ever, tell someone who wants to retain my services to piss off because they don’t need what they want. That, my friends, is not my job.
Bob goes on to say the following…
I’ll help you pick out a front door, I’ll help you design a trellis in your backyard, and yes – I will design a 10,000 square foot house that 2 people will live in – because that is what I do. I am an architect and I design houses. (Emphasis mine. Bold line is the last one in the post)
What is your job? Your job Is what you get paid for. Now, you may have some set of lofty beliefs that underpin your reasons for doing the “work” you do, but you dont get paid for simply having your elitist ideals. You get paid for implementing them. So if you feel deeply and strongly enough about something, be good enough at it that someone will pay you their hard earned money for whatever it is that you do.
It is worth noting that a large number of people who are exceptionally successful at their “job”, “work”, or whatever you call it have a clear, fundamental thesis that fuels them and their work. The works conceptual cohesion is formed by these very things they don’t get paid a penny for believing… But at the same time without this cohesion, the very work they do (and get paid for) would fall to pieces and likely run the risk of losing focus and appearing random.
So we have two elements here: the work, and the thesis.
Work with no thesis loses focus, quality, meaning, and ultimately value. Thesis without work is not implemented, and as such has no agency for change or making profit.
I like the thesis. The reason for being. With out it I go stir crazy. For those that are lucky, line between your “work” and everything else will be blurred so much that it almost disappears. But, whatever you do, don’t get confused about how you make money. It’s not by simply holding a belief, it’s by doing… And don’t get confused about how you “do” well. It’s by having a solid thesis.
I offer you the following three pieces of evidence:
In a blog post on svn Jason Fried writes about a writing class he would love to teach some day. He was asked during a Q&A session about his take on the value of a university education, and after giving his answer “great socially, not realistic academically”, he says the following about a course he would like to teach:
It would be a writing course. Every assignment would be delivered in five versions: A three page version, a one page version, a three paragraph version, a one paragraph version, and a one sentence version.
I don’t care about the topic. I care about the editing. I care about the constant refinement and compression. I care about taking three pages and turning it one page. Then from one page into three paragraphs. Then from three paragraphs into one paragraph. And finally, from one paragraph into one perfectly distilled sentence.
In a similar blog post by Matt Mullenweg, Matt muses about his dream job if he weren’t making out like a bandit with Automatic, WordPress, etc. what he would be doing. He would start a bank. Boring eh? Well… not really. He says the following in the post…
There are very few people who really love their bank. We’ve all dealt with overage fees that stack up, brain-dead fine print, and a general malaise. There’s also a unique opportunity in that mainstream contempt for financial institutions has never been higher, while at the same time there is an incredible amount of government backing that essentially makes it a no-risk environment. People are hungry just for anything different, something contrarian. A David to the Goliath banking industry.
The name of my bank would be something supremely boring, like SafeBank. The idea behind it is that bad behaviour in the banking world has been largely inevitable because their compensation structures incented people to do overly risky things. SafeBank would maintain a reserve level 2-3x higher than Fed requirements and any other bank. SafeBank would have no bonuses. Critics would say this would make it impossible to attract top-shelf talent. Every time the bank gets attacked we’d turn it into an advertising opportunity to emphasize why we’re different. “We can’t attract top-shelf talent? We take your money and put it in a vault. We don’t need the million-dollar bonus geniuses on Wall Street to do that. SafeBank. Bank, safe.”
Matt Warner writes in a blog post for the National Catholic Register about how the most recent redesign of the Vatican’s website (www.vatican.va) is frustrating at best.
I’m quite sure I’m missing something.
I know they have unique challenges that no other website in the world has – technically, culturally and theologically. I want to be charitable. I just don’t get it. You can view it here: Vatican.va
They are guilty of at least 2 of the 7 deadly sins of parish website design (which also apply to them) and a long list of venial ones.
I don’t want to be too critical as I’m sure they have further plans and this is just a small, first step. It just seems like a step in the wrong direction to me. But maybe that’s just me….
We are just missing so many opportunities and I’m anxious to see the vatican website start to embrace them. It’s exciting that they are beginning to do that. I just hope it continues and in the right direction. I got mad love for them.
It all three blog posts the request and the need is clear. The need is for greater clarity. Greater clarity in writing, greater clarity in banking policies and tools, and greater clarity of purpose in ones online presentation of themselves.
When your going to school, working on your next project, and trying to make a difference try your very best to focus on clarity. Can you tell me what your purpose is in one sentence? If not then you’ve got some work to do.
You wake up and check your phone. Emails, tweets, instagram likes and comments, facebook updates, oh and those archaic sms text messages. Your a bit late so you hurriedly shower, skip the granola breakfast bar, grab the first shirt in your closet even thought its not your favorite, grab your keys and your out the door.
The rest of the day is a blur of work, and come home you consume endless amounts of stuff in the form of tv, movies, games, and apps and suddenly realize your a year older than you were yesterday. You just fell asleep, floated down the river and were awakened by your feet scraping against a low lying tree branch. Wake up.
I’ve got gtd figured out. It’s really simple. Here’s what you do…
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” - Henry David Thoreau
I would also extend this remark to include free in addition to rich. “A man is free in proportion…” [Note: God would not apply to the quoted sentence as He is a person and not a thing. The quote could be re-read or completed as "You are free in proportion to how much you can afford to let things alone, and let God be before yourself."]
Unless you can’t tell, I’ve on a Thoreau quoting kick as of late. So sue me. He is about as endlessly interesting and quotable as a man can get.
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” - Henry David Thoreau
“Unless you can begin with an interesting problem, it is unlikely you will end up with an interesting solution.” – Bob Gill
That was the line from a cunchgear post that got me to immediately open up a new tab in my browser window and begin writing this post. In the preceding lines the writer from crunch gear mulls over the possibility that our kids, his in particular, and by extension my own, will have a similar fondness, or any discernible level of fondness at all for books. The objects themselves, not necessarily the content.
I would say that the object that is a book is quite possibly one of my most very favorite things that I own or have encountered in life. I don’t expect this to change anytime soon, thought I expect that there will be plenty more that will gain my instant and complete attention. New gadgets, technologies, digital this and that all over the place. But then I will return to the unassuming and silent friend that has never piped up and annoyingly asked me when I will give him the time he deserves. When I crack open the pages he would likely just smile and settle in as if I had never left, or perhaps only stepped out for lunch.
I think what attracts me to books is in the same line of experiences that attracts me to mankind in the most general sense. What makes me feel empathy for someone suffering, what makes me long for a full day of working outside and retiring exhausted and dirty, what makes want to play my guitar even thought I play if far less often that I aught to, what makes sitting outside around a fire with the few of your very best friends and family often saying nothing and absorbing the smell of freshly cut grass, spent fireworks, mid summer, or late autumn.
It’s the real corporal experience. That elusive other that makes you glad your human and that you can experience it so deep and richly in that moment. I am often an early adopter of new gadgets, new web technology, new digital what-evers. I am the one who is permanently tethered to the future and at times it feels like the only thing that can satiate is to go father and farther into the digital beyond. But then I am reminded that all it takes is to return to an old unassuming friend.
This morning I woke up and my wife was ironing clothes in the living room. So I did what every good husband who loves his wife does; I rolled over, grabbed my cell phone and proceeded to text her “I love you!!”. As soon as I did this, I thought of a tweet a old friend of mine sent out yesterday that read
As much as I love them, I'm convinced that cell phones have eroded away a special part of us that made us human.—
Chris King (@ArtificialChris) June 03, 2011
and instantly I yelled out to her “I LOVE YOU” and went in the living room and gave her a kiss. Don’t get me wrong, texting is great and it keeps me in touch with friends and family that I would otherwise not contact much. But if you can go over to someone and say it to their face, do it. Shake their hand, give them a kiss, slap them, whatever.
Books keep me corporeal, they keep me using my body, they keep me real and honest. No copy and paste. Delete. Backup. Reboot.
I hope my kids care as much about books as I do, even if books take a different form. I hope that they can have a constant reminder that we are human and to experience that in all its many varied ways is a beautiful thing.
(I realize the irony in the fact that this homage to books is in blog form, and if before reading this sentence you did also, you probably were able to do so because you read books. Bravo to you. Now go back to your destroyed tree and soak it up, paper-cuts and all.)
(edit: I was about to go back and re-read this post to correct any errors in composition, grammar, etc. but I decided to simply let my humanity show, so if there are errors, great. Thats just proof I’m human. If not, then I may in fact be a robot.)
“Everything we do coming out of the Mass is getting ready to go back into it.” – Fr. David Konderla (modified)
Originally posted here.
“People don’t need employees, they need partners.” – Andrew Burleson
For the brief version of this post, just take a few minutes and ponder on the graphic below. (click on the image to see it full size)
We have all heard biblical stories of creation. But it is always nice to gain a bit of perspective from time to time. I imagine when I was first introduced to the idea that God created everything, I simply projected something like my Bolivar Peninsula sandcastle building excursions onto the event in question, and I thought “It must have been like this but bigger.”
We know that creation went something like this
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Then the creation narrative continues onto light, plants, animals, and eventually to Man. But let’s back up a bit. It appears that in about 10 words the entirety of spacial existence was brought into being. In about 3 scoops of sand, my castle likewise, came into being with a thud. Same thing, just on a different scale. Right? Bigger. More complex. But effectively just bigger. (Whether I was right or wrong isn’t really the issue. Right now the sheer scale of eternity is all am concerned with… like that is a small thing to be concerned with.)
The rest of the Book of Genesis is much more entertaining by todays Hollywood standards, with your requisite set of lies, betrayal, death being introduced into the world, massive global destruction, sojourning through foreign lands, and one of histories greatest hero’s being called by God to save His people from themselves. If someone approached Spielberg, Scorsese, or the Cohen Brothers with two scripts, the latter would almost surely win every time.
So creation, this one is for you. You are by no means the small guy in the corner that everyone at the party passes over on the way to the keg, but I do believe that at times you’re given a little less credit that you deserve. So here’s to you creation. We who read this, raise our digital glasses filled with foaming 1′s and 0′s to you. You show us that we are so very small, and for that I thank you. You fill us with awe and wonder as we attempt to comprehend the expansive extents of existence. Most importantly, you draw us out of ourselves and direct us toward the desire of our hearts, towards the Creator of the Universe.
So Creation, This one is for you.
- Cheers
(Also, this was emailed to me by a friend. If you know who I can attribute this creation to, please let me know in the comments. I’m all about giving proper attribution where it is due.)
-EDIT-
(I would like to attribute this creation to the one and only Creator. The God of the Universe. The graphic creator is however still at large, so any leads are greatly welcomed. Sandcastle via)
This blog post is part of the LetsBlogOff series where a group of people blog on the same topic. The premise: “What is the difference between fact and truth?”
Truly, truly, I say to you; here is the truth about facts.
Don’t agree? Let me know why in the comments.
“Sure we all want to live life and be free, but let me ask you this… is a fish more free in or out of the water?” - Dr. Scott Hahn
