What more could you ask for?

I was reading my last post, and it struck me that my 'list' might sound like boasting. It isn't. All I am saying is that through great luck and some effort, I was able to accomplish what so many at my age are still striving for. It isn't that I am ungrateful.

That's not it at all. I am very lucky. I was born in a great country, into a great family. Despite, or perhaps because, of choices I have made, things have turned out this way. I just want to find out why.

It isn't due to dissatisfaction, or boredom, or greed. I have tasted richness and depth and, though rarely, transcendence. I have traveled to some pretty amazing places, accomplished some cool things, eaten some weird food, and met some interesting people. Compared to my day to day life though, all of those things pale in importance.

I am not about to start filling my life with additional goals that serve no purpose besides spending what ever time and disposable income I have left. Having reached this amazing point in my life, I am asking myself what it is all for. What is the purpose of all of this?

I have been lightly reading philosophy, especially Stoicism, and I am well versed in Christian thought. I have read and toyed with atheism. I have had the briefest introduction to eastern religion and philosophy, though what I have learned appears interesting. Though they appear to have much in common, they approach the goal of life in different ways.

A brief overview seems to produce one of five possible answers to my quest.

1. Asking 'What is the purpose of life?' is a false question. It is like asking 'what is the scent of blue?' It sounds like a question grammatically, but logically it is senseless. There is no purpose. Despite our advances in technology, "the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
2. The key purpose in life is to enrich and protect those things that are important to me. It is to find out what I love and am passionate about, and experience as much of that as possible. Find and embrace beauty and pleasure, avoid pain.
3. Make myself a better person, aiming at the excellence that I was born with. Learn more, get stronger, think more clearly. Study, exercise, write, produce beautiful things for the sheer joy of it.
4. Be useful. Make this world a better place for having been in it. Give my children what I didn't have. Help the poor. Work towards social justice.
5. Prepare myself for the world to come, for my next life, for the hereafter. Cleanse myself of sin/illusion/karma to join with the divine. Get my soul ready for the next great adventure, after I die. 

I will explore these five approaches to finding meaning in my life, likely with frequent sidebars into other topics as they present themselves.

The Truth about Intentionality

Most of my day was consumed with Oak Leaves. Since I was sick anyway, I thought I might at least make a productive day of it. So today I chose to work on Oak Leaves. As I only received the final files tonight, completion some time tomorrow will be acceptable.

I spent a few minutes chatting with Brett Wheat-Simms about the Words of the Ancient Wise blog, and my goals for the year. I also received my evaluation back from Erik for my first Sellars assignment. All in all, it was very positive. He has also asked me to help him set up a mechanism to discuss common Fallacies. Should be very interesting.


At around 8pm the ADF chat started and we discussed, in some depth, the concepts of Kindred. It was interesting, and I am thinking of reintroducing some kind of joint vespers idea with Pam. We have been asked to sing some samples of Taize on the Thursday video chat.

I think that maybe that is the essence of productivity. Always be actively engaged in something. Sunday's reading on the Words of the Ancient Wise brought this to mind:

NOT to be slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions, nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation, nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or, furiously to launch out as it were, nor ever to want employment.

MARCUS AURELIUS. MEDITATIONS. Book viii. 19.

It reminds me also of Franklin's Virtue of Industry:  "Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."

Never fall to the default, but rather choose your next activity. This is what is really important. Am I really doing something I intended to do, or just something I fell into. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out this virtue of Industry (what ADF calls Fertility). I even wrote a complete Meditation on it. It bears re-reading.

Season Finale

With the end of the weekend came the end of the holiday season. The tree is down, the decorations are ready to go back into storage, mom-in-law is on the bus back to Peterborough. The big dinners and get togethers are done, and it is time to get back to work. This is the year in which things are going to get DONE! So out with the old procrastination, and it with the new 'Damn the Torpedoes! Full speed ahead.'

It seems that so often we procrastinators are so afraid of making the wrong decision, so afraid of wasting precious time and resources going down the wrong path, that we are frozen in indecision, and thus end up wasting the time and resources anyway. And what is worse, we have consoled ourselves with this waste (for we are fully aware of it!) by telling ourselves that at least the energy wasn't spent on the wrong things, thus promoting the wrong results. By holding ourselves back , we are arrogant in our superiority that we are somehow better than the adventurers and risk takers, by pointing out those who try and fail. We have adopted the Homer Simpson attitude towards life, "If at first you don't succeed, don't try!"

Well to hells with that. I am 44 this year, and what success I have is due to the risks I have taken. Asking the woman of my dreams to marry me on our first date. (She said yes BTW) Picking up and moving to Cornwall, during a recession. (Where I found my teaching carreer) Moving out of Cornwall into our house, a month or so after it became available. (And buying the house of my Grandparents). So this year, I am going to finish everything I have started, because it needs finishing.

So happy New Years, and let's get to work.

The Examined Life

It's interesting to me how an idea can catch fire. Once it sparks something, a really good idea can run like a flame through the rest of your life.

This is what happened yesterday. Pam and I had decided that this was a 'reset' day. With all of the craziness that has been hitting us time and time again over the last several months, we have hardly had time to catch our breaths, let alone maintain any kind of sensible life.

So yesterday we sat down together and started talking about how to get our lives under control. We fell back to the Fly Lady model for keeping the house, which let us back to the Sidetracked Home Executive (SHE) system. Pam then mentioned that the whole system used to be based on an index card system. PING!

The Hipster PDA is index cards! This led to Getting Things Done using the Hipter. A couple of shopping trips later, and we have hundreds of blank and coloured index cards, boxes and tabs. We are labelling and printing like madmen (and madwomen!) and the system starts to take shape.

As part of this system, we included our routines (5 daily sets of tasks). Included in these tasks are all of the things we need to do in order to keep this train on the rails without running off. We even had a study time together this morning (it is part of the Getting Ready routine.)

Ok Back into it.

Pam has encouraged me to keep this up. It only takes a few minutes so here I go.

Not much new except chaos. The whole GTD thing has completely gone out the window. I have been so frakking busy, and having a hard time staying focussed on top of that.

My space has been invaded, and work feels out of control as well. I need a break, but when I get a break, I seem to waste the time. FOCUS!

I want to just shake my head. Got to get it together and make it work. Perhaps moving to the Palm again will eliminate the creaping list problem. I could switch to notebooks at work instead of the planner.

My Palm is broken though, so the alarms dont sound anymore. I wonder if it would be worth rebuying a plain old Tungsten E2.

I will have to see.