morning boy's letters on serious matters and commentary on funny things aplenty
Some meaning that was attributed to the word PASSION moved to the word EMOTION.
I am not sure how deliberately and consciously we look at such movements of meanings.
New meanings also get created and get attributed to the same words which did not mean those things at all.
Crazy!
Human beings’ search for the inarticulable among words creates more words and yet more words, theories and yet more theories.
Some help, many don’t.
It might appear upon plenty of digging that certain words got created out of a need for change, more than anything else, more than accuracy or precision.
It’s always this thing in my case. And it is not the last thing because it is a repetitive thing, almost every morning. So, I repeat the last thing I might say.
Browsing titles of books triggered by certain words. Sampling. And reading. In between, writing here.
I mean Facebook Feed Extractor.
I want something like that to analyze the feed that I am scrolling. Would open a bit the tightly shut algorithmic blackbox that influences the way I use my time.
Would you want one? Is there already one available?
Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?
I don’t picture, but I do not think if I had pictured one year back I would have pictured this.
But you see pictures can intersect. So writing the way I am doing, I would surely have pictured if I had pictured.
Am tempted to explore the INBOX WORLD.
Is that a good name? INBOX WORLD. What do you make of it?
Where does data reside? In a database?
Want to move data? Move the database. How?
Portability? Publishing templates like blogs can often be ported; I haven’t tried it but I can imagine coz the template is simple enough generally. And yet, there could be problems.
Can you withdraw all your data? And keep where?
Skills or Lessons? Skills and Lessons?
I’ve been trying to develop my skills of digging, burrowing and sliding into the rabbit hole of newsletters. I have taken some steps. Lesson is, the variety in software is no less than variety in fashion-wear.
Also I’ve been trying to develop the skill of staying away from scrolling on my mobile phone, especially the Youtube feed. Made some headway there.
There’s more but tell you what, at this moment, writing the journey of my skill-development is quite boring. Walking the path is not so boring.
What cities do you want to visit?
I want to visit every such city that houses my friends who want to walk me through their cities and talk me through some long peculiarities…
Couple of days back I wrote about HABIT EXTENSION.
What constitutes a habit?
Movements and whatever is between movements. I relish the pauses between movements but then here I am referring to movements more so.
I want to liken Movement to Action. And interchangeably use these words. Though I understand that Action sounds seriouser and heavier than Movement. In other ways, political especially or cause-driven, Movement feels heavier than Action.
Habitual Movement Extension. You are extending habitual movements when you say you are extending a habit.
Habitual Action Extension… Hmm…
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?
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