We Tell Ourselves Stories
I don’t usually do this, but what can it hurt? Six resolutions for 2017:
- Return to blogging (after an epic hiatus).
- Begin learning Adobe Photoshop and learn more about Adobe Lightroom.
- Take more pictures, use what you learned in (2) and tell people about it.
- Explore more vegetarian and vegan recipes and foods.
- Engage more on social media and share what you know; in other words: connect.
- Question everything and ask your questions out loud.
One down, five to go….
From The White Album by Joan Didion:
We tell ourselves stories in order to live…. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely … by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the “ideas” with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual existence.
Or at least we do for a while….
Here’s to a time of greater focus and clarity, and with it: simplicity.
Happy New Year!
“Think Different”
Here’s to the crazy ones,
The misfits, the rebels,
The troublemakers,
The round pegs in the square holes,
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them,
Glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world
Are the ones who do. – Steve Jobs, from the video below:
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart…
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition…. Everything else is secondary.”
Steve Jobs, from: “You’ve got to find what you love”
Source: Remembering Steve Jobs by Jason Kottke.
Couple of Guys, Middle of Nowhere
Just saw this commercial for Google Chrome and Angry Birds on television:
“It’s a simple metric….”
“Are you angry, Peter? You look angry….”
I use Google Chrome (beta) almost exclusively and have since shortly after it was launched. It’s come a long way, especially in the last year. I rarely use IE or Firefox anymore, and even then just to do a browser check when I’m toying with web page changes.
I played Angry Birds once on my iPhone … for about five hours. Then I removed it.
Not that is wasn’t fun … it WAS fun … but the time I spent with it seemed to qualify as “lost time” ….
“Games of that sort are designed to grab your attention…. But apart from a few isolated images, or a little thrill of achievement when you scored points, you come away with no memories. It is as though a black hole had swallowed up this piece of your life.” – Stefan Klein, The Secret Pulse of Time