Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I’m pretending that I graduated from college, so I can figure out which one, if any, among these twenty-one tips for college grads I actually followed.
I followed 5, because I liked my job…9 was a non-issue because I never went to a job interview without landing the job…I followed 12 until the day I met her (wife #1). You could say I followed 15 because I didn’t buy any furniture. Number 20 came naturally. The common theme is that where I followed these rules, I was being a cheapass.
I was perhaps a little bit intoxicated with my success. The rules I broke, I don’t know if they would have made that big of a difference. My huge mistakes had to do with living a double-life, now that I look back on it, coupled with a lack of interest in refining my skills at judging people. Friends in low places, you might say.
There is something else that comes to mind, that is even more important. Difficult to explain in one rule. Except — there is something about forming a five year plan. With the benefit of hindsight, I would propose a corollary to that: Look at your life today, try to figure out if you would have been willing to make a plan five years ago, that would culminate where you are now. If the answer to that is no, then it’s a red flag because it indicates if you have some kind of control over your life, you’re not exercising it. And that’s a very productive alarm to sound, because there’ll be a lot of times where everything else seems to be rosy, but you’re still riding for a fall and might not know it.
Neither of those cover where exactly I needed to do most of my learning. If I had to express that in one rule, it would be: People don’t communicate. For the most part, people achieve syndication and harmony by agreeing about the important things through pre-selection — refusing to associate with those who might think differently. These words they jot down and read, these sounds they make with their voice boxes when others pretend to listen…that is mostly for show. When you see a guy telling somebody else something, that somebody-else will nearly always have known just as much before he got “told,” as he did afterward. Out of a hundred rituals ostensibly engaged for the purpose of exchanging ideas, maybe one idea will be exchanged one time, if that. People telling you things in person, for the most part are telling you what they’ve anticipated they need to tell you to get you to go away. And you’d better believe if they’re telling it to you on the phone, it’s really what they think will be the most likely thing to get you off the phone. Promises, truth, illustrations of breakdown-of-responsibility…that isn’t what these things really are, even though they might look like that. They’re verbal concoctions calculated to make you disappear. People who are given instructions proceed to do whatever they were going to do without the instructions. The only exception seems to be when the instructions have something to do with keeping a livelihood.
As for people giving instructions, you’re on safe ground presuming they give the instructions for the purpose of being seen giving instructions. Ditto for people asking questions; they want to be seen asking the questions and don’t really want to know anything they don’t already know.
Gawd, what I’d give for someone to have clued me on on that in my twenties.
That, and the things I know about people that nobody told me when I was a child, should just about get you prepped and ready to go.
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I have found that if you try to figure out the truth in what people are saying first, rather than what’s wrong with what they’re saying. Usually people are trying to express some “truth” they’ve learned or think they’ve learned. Few statements of wisdom are absolute, no matter how much truth they contain.
Not that you shouldn’t also take note of what’s wrong of what they’re saying and what makes you think it’s wrong.
That’s where communication really starts to take place. Especially if you’re both doing it.
- philmon | 06/23/2008 @ 23:29