I learned that the human body has essentially two types of nervous system - one for sensing the outside and one for sensing what’s going on inside. Our sense of consciousness is, oversimplified, the integration of the two. The system responsible for sensing how life is going within our bodies — the system that tells us we’re thirsty, hungry, feeling nauseated, in pain — has tons of redundancy built into it. That system isn’t myelinated, it doesn’t have a protective sheath around it, and it integrates directly with our brain. It’s highly inefficient. You could lose your sense of sight and still survive and thrive. If you lose your ability to sense your body’s internal happenings, you could not. (again, oversimplified). Something so important must have tons of redundancy. Something so important can’t be easy to break. Systems that are inefficient aren’t easy to break.So here’s a question… how inefficient are the most important systems in your life?

The experience of “brain dead.”Thoughts that look like vague and hazy memories from a past life.A desire to produce, but no useful ideas to write about.A light and pain free tension in the front and side of my head. I hear every breath through my noise as if it was amplified 100 times.

A production function is an engineering and economics concept. It’s the maximum output that can be achieved from given inputs. The concept can be a metaphor for how think of our productivity. If you need to understand another person’s production function (e.g for an interview), consider asking: What ideas and work have you produced at your last job? What practices and traits do you attribute to your productivity? What’s your comparative advantage relative to your peers? Your goal is to learn the interviewee’s awareness of their productivity and how they engineer their life for maximum productivity. Why would you do this? The person who ships more work gets more feedback about their work. A person’s ability to delivery high quality work may be correlated to the amount of critique they receive.

How much do you obsess over that ability you have to be ultra productive? Do you know what that ability is?We all have a natural proclivity for doing some thing. An action that brings us the greatest joy or engagement. I stopped for a second to think about what mine might be. Perhaps it’s the ability to motivate, organize, and engage other humans? Maybe it’s something else.

I love this line from Verlyn Klinkenborg’s “Several short sentences about writing.” What you notice has no meaning.Be sure to assign it none.It doesn’t represent or symbolizeOr belong to some world theory or allegory of perception. Don’t put words to it.And don’t collect it. Let it slip away.Be patient for the next thing you notice.I stopped to be still and notice. I felt amazingly calm and refreshed for the several short seconds.

Do you realize how easy it is for you to turn off people you find offensive? There’s value in surrounding yourself with people and things that bring you joy and make you wiser.There’s also utility in trying to understand the worldview of someone with the most offensive ideas.

My dad sat on a cheer, stared outside, and told me that he had to cut his beard.

Me: “Dad, how long is your beard?” Dad: “a few inches…”

Dad doesn’t have a beard, but he believes he has one.I am not bothered by my dad — I expect this behavior from him.

I am in awe at our brains — how powerful they are that someone could perceive a beard where none existed.

Being kind to other humans.Not being overly attached to perceptions.Questioning appearances and looking beyond the surface for truth — discovering the nature of nature.Appreciating life as it is now.

If you are old enough, you can remember learning patience, compromise, and how to create alliances and enemies through your control of the television remote control.You can remember what it means to beg your television partner to stop channel surfing and stay on one program for a bit. You can remember telling people to wait five minutes for your show to finish before you switch for another show. You remember having to influence other watchers that your programming choices serve them better. Have we lost what it means to control the remote?

I wrote this in 2019. Excerpt below:Your ability to be the most effective individual relies on your ability to balance information from the past (how things were), the present (things as they are now), and the future (things as we want them to be). Too often we abuse this ability and, like Marty McFly, get stuck in the past, the future, and search endlessly to come back to the present.  Thanks Dr. Mike for the inspiration.