Author: MAÔ

It’s important to understand where we derive our value from – our own sense of self-worth.

If we derive our self-worth from others, we’ll constantly be in a state of trying to please them. If our valuations are external, we’ll only be disappointed. We’ll be fighting a losing battle. Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill.

Our self-worth is a factor in how much belief we can place in our own self. How much good we think that we can bring to the world.

Self-worth has to come from within. If we believe in ourself, then we’re able to be confident in the benefit we provide to the world.

So, then, developing it must also be an inward process. Self-worth in understanding that you matter.

You are not your limitations. You are more than that.

You are not your stuff, your wealth, your debt, your past.

You are you, now, in this present moment. You have the opportunity to invent yourself, and reinvent yourself, over and over again.

Like many advances in the technology age, artists too art finding ways to produce content and distribute it online. Patreon founder Jack Conte talks about it at TED.

As new technologies progress and more of the ways in which we do things change, the artists in the world will continually innovate – making use of these new technologies and shining light into world.

People say things to get elected. It doesn’t necessarily translate into action once they’re elected. Sure, you do have the option to vote them out if they fail to live up to their campaign promises.

But we are electing representatives who will carry our concerns for a time. We hope that, during that time, we will be represented.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton

Unlike the recent “recent items” I’ve been sharing, this is a collection of links that I’ve been saving up – ether on my phone, in my reading list, or shared stories that didn’t fit in the overall order of everything else. So, in no particular order, a glimpse at some of the things that I’ve taken to checking out.

Tsundoku: The Japanese word for buying books that you don’t read. The systematic investigation into the word itself by the author of this post shows how much thought can go into etymological research.

Artemest: A new website brings old-world Italian craftsmanship right to your door.” Just a happenstance of coming across these furniture pieces. Nothing I’m going to buy, however the work that goes into such crafting is something that should be appreciated, especially in this day and age when everything is likely to break down. “Artemest was born to arouse and celebrate a desire for beauty in our everyday lives.”

I honestly couldn’t tell you when I was first introduced to parkour. This New Yorker article from 2007 chronicles the early ups and downs of the activity. Parkour is a form of free-running with jumping over obstacles in uniquely athletic ways. 

The audiobook market is overall dominated by Audible. Despite the Amazon property’s ubiquity, there’s a question whether DRM is in the best interest for writers.

When I was young, I was accidentally discouraged from drawing. Mostly because I had no talent, but we’ll gloss over all of that. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I started really appreciating modern art, in all its uniqueness and (non-traditional) interpretations. Paul Klee was sort of a gift from someone, and I saw these interesting linear representations of concepts and it was delightful. Here are some thoughts on creativity from the artist, curated by Maria Popova of Brain Pickings. 

SXSW takes its festival online for 2021, and it could be just the tip of the iceberg for next year’s event offerings.

Booker Prize short list was announced a little over a week ago. The Booker Prize is a literary award awarded to the “best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.”

Every now and then I’ll come across the same thing (story, image, name or character, etc.) several times at once in different iterations. This time it was a simple throwaway (or so I thought, because the material was in a light-hearted Japanese story I was reading), but had I been of East Asian origin, I may have been familiar with it. In the story, one of the protagonists was struck by infatuation over a young woman. He claimed that he could find her by following the “red sting of love that connected their fingers”. It wasn’t until I saw this in another story out of Japan that I realized it must be referencing something. 

In fact, the tale is familiar to those in China, Korea, and Japan. It is a tale of the Red Thread of Fate. Here is one such tale.

Walking home one night, a young boy sees an old man standing beneath the moonlight. After talking to the stranger, it was revealed that he was Yuè Xià Lâorén, the moon god of matchmaking and marriage.  The man explains to the boy that he is attached to his destined wife by a red thread. Yue Xia Lao shows the boy the young girl who is destined to be his wife. Being young and having no interest in having a wife, the young boy picks up a rock and throws it at the girl, running away. Many years later, when the boy has grown into a young man, his parents arrange a wedding for him. On the night of his wedding, his wife waits for him in their bedroom, with the traditional veil covering her face. Raising it, the man is delighted to find that his wife is one of the great beauties of his village. However, she wears an adornment on her eyebrow. He asks her why she wears it and she responds that when she was a young girl, a boy threw a rock at her that struck her, leaving a scar on her eyebrow. She self-consciously wears the adornment to cover it up. The woman is, in fact, the same young girl connected to the man by the red thread shown to him by Yue Xia Lao back in his childhood, showing that they were connected by the red thread of fate.

Choice capital is a real thing, and we only have so much mental power to engage in effective decision-making each day.

Learning how to make better choices is a matter of allocating choice capital to the important matters and systemizing the rest to a process that requires little if any effort on our part. We can do this through routines, scheduling and planning, and limiting the number of superfluous decisions we must make throughout the day.

For instance, setting up your weekly wardrobe in advance, so that you don’t dig in and out of the dresser or closet looking for things that match. Even better, wear the same clothing items per day of the week. i.e. the Monday outfit, Tuesday outfit, and so on. Or best (potentially not from a fashion standpoint, but certainly from a choice capital one), have all of the same clothing items. Jeans and black turtleneck for instance, if you’re Steve Jobs. Then just wear a clean set every day.

Meal planning for the week as well, so that you don’t waste that precious pre-dinner time trying to decide what to cook, or splurging on take-out or fast food to get your fix.

Many of us have an abundance of extra time right now, not going out and engaging in the activities that we would usually do. If viewed as an opportunity to make changes to how we manage our home lives, this would be a perfect time to streamline some of those decisions that are constant drains on our choice capital.

I’ll go through phases of digital separation, which I enjoy for various reasons. If I’m on top of blogging, I can have a week’s worth of posts done in two days, schedule them to go, and forget about signing back on. Someday I’ll take every post idea I have scribbled in notebooks, compile them onto a master list, and just write one post (or more) for each until I’m done.

That said, there are plenty of other things that keep me connected. My daily practice of language learning. I use the duolingo app, as well as physical books, so I could miss a day. But the streak system is something the app uses to keep you engaged.

Email, television, eReader – it all adds up.

A few years back I read Pedram Shojai’s The Urban Monk, and in it he suggested doing a one day a week digital detox. Also, if I recall correctly, he didn’t speak on Sundays to further work on his mindfulness.

Google “unplugging” and you’ll come up with a number of articles, such as The Pointlessness of Unplugging, Unplugging Isn’t Easy Now, and by 2026 It’ll Be Even Tougher, and The Benefits of Unplugging from Electronics.

Of course, during the past six months it’s been easier than ever to be glued to our devices. Following the news, working from home, virtual schooling, and the list goes on. No matter how easy having these devices have made certain aspects of our life, it’s important to remember that there is a cost to their convenience. Don’t forget to get out and smell the roses every now and then. Listen to the bird song, or enjoy some sunshine and a good book.

There’s a whole world out there beyond the screens.