morning boy's letters on serious matters and commentary on funny things aplenty
Yesterday, I talked about HABIT EXTENSION.
Extension is strangely and naturally viewed as an addition at/to the end.
But extension can be on any side in a 3D world. And a 3D world that can be sliced and moved anyway, extension can even be implemented by placing some more blocks in between any of the blocks.
Prefix, Suffix, Interfix.
Quote me on that. Interfix. I like that.
Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.
Something?
I tried sending newsletters for the first time, a couple of days back.
What happened?
It looks like I did not conform to a certain template that makes my newsletter non-spam!
Yes, you have to conform, only then Shri Gmail will allow your precious words to reach the legit inbox. Otherwise, you and your words are destined for spambox.
I said to myself let me learn how to send newsletters.
And I set a few things to send newsletters using Zoho Campaigns.
I also subscribed to certain Reddit topics concerning newsletters.
What do I find? To pass through the filters of a service like Gmail, newsletter itself has to conform to so many conditions, has to follow a certain template.
You are in a battle of intentions.
You have spammy intentions, says Gmail.
No, I don’t, I say.
No, you surely do, and I’ll keep you out right from the first (news)letter. You spammer! I curse you now; the destiny of your (news)letters is the spam-box. To spam you go!
HABIT EXTENSION
There you go. I have revealed it as it got revealed to me. In short, in just a few moments.
I got this.
There is this popular expression WORKFLOW. I liken it to Business Processes. Correct me if they are different.
Repetition of WORKFLOW makes or breaks your chances of mastering the workflow; that phenomenon in which you are moving satisfactorily and elegantly into and out of your work. Demands consciousness (Jaynesian sort), or conscious attention, at least till you get a hang of stuff in the initial few repetitions.
And then we all know what’s HABIT. Seen simply, it is a mastery of certain ways of doing and thinking, supposedly not so sophisticated as what constitutes WORKFLOW.
Let me cut this short.
List all your habits.
And list the end points of your habits, the last movement, the punctuation where the habit is treated to be over.
And then consciously, deliberately, add a move that extends the habit; it is like adding a phrase, a clause or extending a sentence with some more words using commas.
See how it gives a different shape to your routine, even to your WORKFLOW.
See how such experiments take you close to that elegance only a master can exhibit.
I call this HABIT EXTENSION. Note that down.
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
Often. No. Many times. But all that feels alienating now.
A few nights back, in succession, I dreamt of tunes. Musical dreams. Unique ones. I remembered one upon waking. And played it on my tongue for Juhi, for the fear that I would forget.
And forget I surely did. What I played, the short bit, was song-worthy. My assessment of course.
Dream of tunes!
Both carry names: containers and contents.
And when we talk, we use these names so spontaneously.
For examples, take the expression ‘quality’. Is it a container? Is it content? Am I asking weird questions?
Well, the question isn’t weird if we remind ourselves that the words that we speak ‘carry’ meanings. Can I say then that ‘carry’ implies some ‘container’, and if there’s a container there’s a possibility that there is ‘content’?
Back to the expression ‘quality’. What is your sense, is it a container?
To me it feels like a container.
So, when we look at a thing and comment, “I am not convinced about the quality”, what do we mean? Just using the word ‘quality’ may not be sufficient. Your companion may get some idea or no idea of what you’ve talked about.
‘Quality’ could mean durability, fulfilling the purpose for which you are looking at the thing, aesthetics, smoothness, etc. You get the idea?
‘Quality’ the word in itself feels vague, even though it carries meaning. Empty container.
Wealth, we often say.
What leads to health?
Burgers, Clothes, Open Spaces, Play Grounds, Mud, Buildings, Roads, Books, Children, Movements, Moves…
Wealth leads to health?
Indian schools are time suckers. The entire education system probably is.
They have a hard time promoting ‘reading’ among the kids. And on top of that, they do not leave much time for the kids to develop any sort of reading habit.
2 situations below:
Schools + Incompetent Teachers + Mobile Phones + Tuition Classes
Poor Schools + Poor Towns + Poor Villages + Poor Teachers
In my search for good books, I’ve come across book titles like these:
You Are Born Funny Or The Funniness Gene
I’ve made that title up actually. But I guess you get the drift. These are titles with effectively two titles or names for the book. ‘Or’ does that job.
I’ve been thinking about giving a name or label to my kind of pants which I want to market and sell some time soon. And I boarded the ‘or’ naming train today morning. Here’s the result:
Aircan Or Soni’s Chinos Or Type 475 Or…
I love this sort of naming.
I know I know what I’ve triggered here. A barrel full of questions!
What would you actually write on the label since the space is tiny?
What would be the domain name if you name your pants misusing the facility of ‘or’?
What would want the potential customers to remember?
What would you write on the social media posters? And in the social media posts?
O God, it’s not a book, they are pants! Why are you doing this!
What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year?
No no no no no!
I am not going to list these events. Listing is a necessity and a pain, all the same. And then the horror of recounting positive events!
I discovered Richard J Murphy on Youtube. And I happily watched 2 of his videos today. And he is so so so good in explaining a lot of things.
Watching good videos is a positive event?
Do check him out.
“We exist in shapes!”
One could even write that “we exist in space”. Plural? “We exist in spaces.”
What’s the difference?
Difference between mood, temperament, feelings, emotion?
Insane answers available on the web. Horror!
And all the while I have been reading and uttering these words without any serious thought.
Anger, is that a feeling or an emotion?
Wow, I can’t distinguish between these!
I took these for granted. Or rather was so confident of understanding these. Curveball!
Searching
Matching
Sampling
Matching
Sampling
Matching
Sampling
Using
What are your feelings about eating meat?
Feelings are typically unpleasant.
But lions also eat meat. They do the killing themselves. They are the gods for their prey, in a way. Sometimes, gods fail but they succeed on enough number of occasions. So yeah, they do the killing.
Typically human meaters do not do the killing. It was a skill once well-spread. Now much less so.
I read somewhere that because of the fashion of meating there are places that have become lakes of pig-shit and humans have slipped into these lakes and drowned and died too.
Current? This moment? These 15 minutes?
People who encourage me through their efforts in pursuing my ideas, my curiosities?
My current most favorite people are those who made such a thing and made it possible for me to buy.
Amazing!
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