Pixelate Your Life

I’ve come to believe that piling up as many DOTS as possible is the essence of a productive, prosperous and fulfilling life.  By “DOTS”, I mean any or all of the following: Knowledge, skills, experience, data, wisdom, understanding, connections, associations/affiliations, core values, principles and benchmark accomplishments. *  Some “DOTS” carry more weight than others.  But the true value of having as many meaningful DOTS in the matrix as possible is the productive connections they engender and the multi-dimensional possibilities they evoke in the dynamically unfolding pilgrimage we call “LIFE”. 

The more DOTS we have, the more “Pixilated” our palette of possibilities becomes, and the more vivid our Connect-the-DOTS VISION of our “place in the world” and our most propitious path to the future becomes.  

Motivational gurus and purveyors of self-help advice place a heavy emphasis on getting the VISION and PURPOSE and PASSION on the docket before we mainstream our efforts.  It’s great strategic advice.  But, without a critical mass of DOTS or “pixels” in the hopper, it’s not all that easy to carve out a sustainable, life-driving VISION, PURPOSE or PASSION.   And it’s especially difficult when 1) there are so many ungated/unrated choices from which to choose; 2) there are so many distractions and competing indulgences to navigate through and around; and 3) life in the “NOW” isn’t really all that compelling a driving force.  (Who among us doesn’t know where our next meal is going to come from or can’t “borrow” enough to get through the next week?  Besides, tomorrow is bound to be a better day, eh?, and we simply have to wait it out!) 

So, the accumulation of as many meaningful DOTS and “pixelations” as possible – emphasis on “meaningful” – remains the most critical element in “ramping life UP”.  

In his book “Living Without a Goal”, James Ogilvy asks the question: Why do we always have to be “going somewhere”?  Why do we think we have to “enslave” ourselves to Grand Goals for which we are never done preparing?  “So the present becomes tedious, a time of preparing.  You grow impatient with the pace of this present.  You resolve to work harder, to hasten the arrival of your future Goal.”  [We’ll take this question up later.]

In the book “Train Your Brain for Success” [John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ (2012) p. 181], Roger Seip introduces the Greek word, skopos.  Skopos is the root word for our modern word “scope”, meaning everything you can see or comprehend in a panoramic view of your personal universe.  But more than “seeing”, it has a kind of energized “belonging” or “owning” context.  “When you get a skopos, your feet move towards it.  When you get a skopos, your hands move toward it.  And then, eventually, you don’t have to push yourself [or be pushed] anymore, because your skopos vision drags you into it and pulls you along.” 

This reflection is reminiscent of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Finding Flow”.  Thus, a skopos … “primed” by all the DOTS and pixelations we’ve accumulated … “floats our boat” toward the Destiny we will ultimately come to inhabit. 

“Flow” has directionality.  And “where we’re going” is not about STUFF!  It’s more about BEING “IN TUNE” WITH THE UNIVERSE – more particularly, about being consonant with the universe OF YOU.

“Life is not about having a big house, a fancy car, a lot of money, or cool toys.  Life is about moving toward … [your skopos].  It’s not about ‘Did you get there yet?’  It’s about ‘Are you getting there?’”  Roger Seip

“It’s not so much a matter of where we are as it is in which direction we are heading.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes

While a life-driving VISION or a skopos or a worthy object of passion or a compelling driver of enthusiasm may not be all that clear early in the going, piling up DOTS  and increasing the density of “pixelations” with an ADVENTUROUS SPIRIT and EYES WIDE OPEN, will keep “getting us there” … wherever it is we’re supposed to be.  That may become clear only in retrospect.  But it WILL “become” whatever it is to become, as long as we keep “becoming”.  Quartermaster

* Some would include MONEY.  By any account, one would be hard pressed to leave money off the table in a discussion of a “productive, prosperous and fulfilling life” – not as a primary Goal, but as a natural product of judiciously applying everything we’ve got to everything we do.  

Nature Versus Nurture

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/first-children-are-smarter-but-why/280725/

In the study noted in the article above, investigators confirmed the postulation that first-children generally excel beyond the levels achieved by their younger siblings, and they asked “Why?”

A genetic basis for the difference (i.e., where some advantage would be conferred on first-borns by “Nature” … like the first-born gets the best genes) was considered a possible explanation, but there were too many confounding factors to make it a compelling hypothesis.    

After sifting everything down, the largest, most consistent and most compelling differentiation element between first-borns and later siblings was a change in PARENTING. 

“Hotz and Pantano settle close to Theory (6). Parents are more likely to make strict rules (about, e.g., TV-watching) and be intimately involved in the academic performance of their first children, according to survey data. They're also more likely to punish their first child's bad grades. Hotz and Pantano say moms and dads start tough and go soft to establish a "reputation" within their household for being strict—a reputation they hope will trickle down to the younger siblings who will be too respectful to misbehave later on.”

One has to allow that it happens with pets, as well.  The first dog is taken to “obedience school”, given all sorts of in-house and out-house training, given extra “play time”, and taught as many “tricks” as possible while the second dog is left to be “trained” by the first and its main purpose is to be a “companion”.  Besides, who has the time to train TWO dogs? 

An insurance agent in Appalachian Pennsylvania inquired of one of his clients how she had the time to deal with all 12 of her children.  “Well, the first one took 100% of my time and the next 11 couldn’t take any more!”

The question of what comprises GENIUS was taken up by National Geographic in its May 2017 issue.  The unsettling first observation made was that the gallery of geniuses past is almost exclusively populated by white males of European origin.  However, considering the fact that patterns of “culturation” and “nurturation” gave most favorable advantage to males of European origin … never mind that most of that culturation and nurturation came from mothers and wives of the same, one is compelled to factor culturation and nurturation – at least to some significant degree – into the overall formula for the emergence of genius.    NG further observes: “Around age six [girls] start to avoid activities said to be for children who are ‘really, really smart,’ [that’s negative nurturation]”, and asks:  “Can our planet afford to have any great thinkers become discouraged or intimidated and give up?”

Equipping minds is a relatively new enterprise dedicated to intense “brain training” as a vehicle for maximizing human potential.  [ http://equippingminds.com/ ]  With a mission to integrate a tidal wave of new research on brain development and neuroplasticity into learning, EM has demonstrated that a broad portfolio of brain functions, including memory, cognitive processing and IQ, can all be enhanced by intensive “nurturation”. 

So what’s the take-away message here?  If any of the above holds any water at all, then we should become very attentive to the “environment” in which we place our brains.  The bedrock platitude of computer culture is: “Garbage in, garbage out!”  At least we can hold to that guideline.  But brains are much more complicated – and much more malleable – both positively and negatively!   There is increasing evidence that brain capacity in all aspects can be increased by normal growth and development, by experience, by exercise and by education, including high-intensity training.  Conversely, it is conjectured that brain capacity can be decreased or derailed by inattention, by gratuitously indulgent activity (social media, TV, video games, etc.), by drugs and other dependencies, by decadent diet, by lack of exercise, by stress, or by physical or emotional or psychological challenges.    

While a magic formula for the creation of genius has yet to be found, and while current working hypotheses are still only “working hypotheses”, there are enough nuggets of possibility emerging from the fog to suggest that we CAN do and be better than we started out, as well as better than we currently ARE! 

One has to ask, then:  Why would anyone not take the maximum advantage possible of the most positive environmental influences to maximize their ability to excel in the world?  I’m off to the library and to do some genius-level networking, as soon as I water and fertilize the garden.  You come, too!  Quartermaster

Bring It

We occasionally need to take inventory of what we “bring to the table” to advance our personal stake and holdings in the world … to advance the enterprise(s) in which we are engaged … to advance the profession or industry with which we are associated … to advance our community and the world at large?

Here are a few things the world is desperately looking for – things the “IT” in “Bringing IT” might include:

Ideas … experience … energized engagement … sense of Mission / Purpose … affirmations … commitments to contribute … curiosity … creativity … solutions … persistence / perseverance … leadership … stretch goals … specialized hard skills … industry-standard “Soft Skills” … some depth of knowledge (e.g., about things other than video games, Jeopardy, cat videos, entertainers, and baseball statistics) … collaborative attitude … cooperative inclination … Standards of Excellence … exemplary work ethic … portfolio of notable achievements …

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“He was a young man marked for great things,

given his intellect, his work ethic

and his ability to relate to others.”

Michael Benson

President, Eastern Kentucky University

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Intellect we can’t change.  [Oh, but there’s emerging evidence that maybe we CAN!  http://equippingminds.com/ ]  However, “work ethic”, hard and soft skills, “ability to relate to others” and all the rest are things we  CAN improve to a point of excelling. 

If you were to bring to the table ONE ATTRIBUTE or ONE NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT or ONE ENHANCEMENT/ADVANCEMENT OFFERING this week or this month, what would it be? 

What have you got to work with?  Are you using everything you’ve got productively? 

Let’s bring everything we’ve got … and keep getting as much MORE of “IT” as we can muster!   Quartermaster

Burn Baby Burn

We adopted a kitty about 12 years ago that is now in marked decline ... with issues of hyperthyroidism, high blood pressure, a detached retina, arthritis, hypokalemia and kidney problems.  She is on six different medications, four of which are on an alternate delivery schedule twice a day. 

The hyperthyroidism, a “prime contributor” to the whole lot, had caused her to burn extra calories and lose half her weight over a period of six months.  To curb the weight loss, we quadrupled her thyroid meds, but that basically reduced her “quality of life” to merely sleeping 23 hours a day. 

This past week we backed off the thyroid meds, and – amazingly – got our kitty back … almost to her full 4 hours a day!  So we’ve decided to let her live full-out whatever time she’s got left while “burning herself up”, with medications backed off to minimal, behavior-maintenance levels. 

The experience with kitty underscored the fact that very little is permanent in life – especially dealing with life, itself.  And “Quality of Life” is much more important to most of us than our length of days. 

One learns some hard lessons about quality of life and length of days from cancer management, where treatment can, in many cases, at least seem to be “worse than the disease”.  Oncologists constantly ponder the question of whether or not they may be “killing the patient with kindness” by trying to preserve quality of life and not intervening with everything they’ve got so as to minimize side-effects. 

This sort of dance … between living life to the fullest in the present versus preserving what we can for the future … is now playing itself out much faster than we may realize, with major political, economic and social implications.  

The new Republican regime in U.S. political control has clearly declared NOW … and US … and prosperity at any cost … to be primary emphases for at least the next four years. 

Actually, this is not a new theme.  As individual citizens, we’ve been doing it for years.  We like to “LIVE LARGE” … getting OUR piece of the pie while we can, running up debt and paying as few taxes as we can get away with … and “letting the chips fall where they may” … hopefully, as far into the future as we can keep kicking the can down the road … for “somebody else” to pick up the pieces … if there are any pieces left to be picked up at all. 

So we’re rolling back regulations, reducing taxes for the wealthy, running up more debt, burning our fossil fuels, bleaching the corral, poisoning our air and water, over-fishing the seas, reducing wild habitat, opening up national preservation lands to get more fuel, getting rid of entitlements so that citizens can make their own free choices much more freely, etc., to “Make America Great Again” – while we can: 

BURN, BABY, BURN!

A compelling reason for such behavior in the mid-to-late 20^th Century was so that we might remain competitive with other major nations – particularly China and Russia, but also Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico – who were brutally savaging their own natural resources to compete with the U.S. 

And “burning the furniture” to fuel development of a higher quality of life and more profitable and sustainable framework for existence does have occasional merit. 

Richard Arkwright was a poor barber with a Dream and a Destiny to create a machine for carding, drawing, roving and spinning cotton goods.  At great sacrifice to his family, he acquired and applied raw materials for machinery to make his Dream a reality.  He was ridiculed by the townsfolk, toiling into the wee hours of morning seven days a week; his family often suffered for lack of food and clothing while he worked at his “machine”; and “he became so ragged that he could not go abroad in the daytime”.   [Portraits and Principles of the World’s Great Men and Women by William C. King 1897 (reprinted in 2015 by Forgotten Books, p. 216)]    

However, Arkwright eventually succeeded in developing his “machine” and became one of the foremost British inventors and entrepreneurs of the early 18^th Century.   [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Arkwright ]

Fortunately, very few in the 21^st century are compelled to forego such fundamental needs to significantly advance themselves and their families.  Unfortunately, so few feel compelled to advance themselves at all!  (Doesn’t life just keep getting better?) 

“Some day, my ship will surely come in and I will live happily ever after!”

LIKELY NOT!

The COST OF LIVING requires that we burn SOMETHING … time and energy, for sure!  But the highest quality of life – the cost of LIVING WELL – demands that we sacrificially “burn” a lot more – including fantasies, fiction, and a whole lot of “luxuries” – if we’re going to realize sustainable progression in the main. 

Choosing what to burn and what to preserve makes us or breaks us.  Burning our potential and possibilities in order to fuel immediate gratification is a practice destined for ultimate failure, no matter how “good” it might feel in the present. 

“We have to sacrifice ‘Good’ to get ‘Better’.”

Glen Campbell

Following a virtuoso violin performance at Carnegie Hall, an audience member gushed to Fritz Kreisler:

“Mr. Kriesler, I would give my very life to play the way you do!”

[Oh?  And what were you burning while he was honing his craft?]

Point to Ponder

The most indispensible, infinitely minable and non-consumable fuels one can acquire are

KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE.

“Consumable” resources of time and energy required to attain and apply knowledge and experience are well within reach of every person on the planet: Both time and energy can be conscripted from trivial pursuits, and energy can be almost limitlessly renewed and expanded.

Bottom Line: Use your unscheduled time and renewable energy to pile up KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE, and then create the most purposeful conflagration you can muster: BURN, BABY, BURN!  Unlikely Champions do it.  Elite athletes do it.  Astronauts do it.  [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_Stuff_(book) ]  Now YOU do it!  Quartermaster

Photo Attribution

By Fir0002 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons 

Cache On Hand

“Cache or caching  [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache ] refers to: 

·         … a food storing behavior of animals

·         … a collection of artifacts

·         [… a nest of duck’s eggs!]

Computing

·         Cache (computing), a collection of data duplicating original values stored elsewhere on a computer, usually for easier access

·         Cache memory, a small area of fast memory used by the central processing unit

______________________________________________

The question for today is this:  How much CACHE do you, personally, have on hand, and in what DENOMINATION(S)?  

The more operational question is:  How NEGOTIABLE is the CACHE you’ve got?

From birth to death, we are continuously building our CACHE of data, knowledge, information, and understanding of the world, as we encounter it.  Much of that CACHE comes to us through education rather than through experience.  But, with time, we gain experience and take increasing initiative to personalize and expand our cache in specific areas. 

Our CACHE ON HAND is what gives us our negotiability in the world.  We survive, thrive, succeed or fail, depending on what’s in our COH and how we use it.  Here’s the good news:

“Your success is guaranteed!

You will succeed best in the endeavor(s) to which you apply the most time and energy.”

Penny Halfmaster

You may become an EXPERT:

–        Eating junk food

–        Playing video games

–        Watching sports

–        Manipulating the SMART PHONE

–        Surfing the WEB

–        Or doing absolutely nothing …

… which begs the question of what you’re stashing in your CACHE?   What’s incubating in your CACHE? 

As you “Mine the Universe” to hash the stash in your CACHE, it’s important to understand that CACHE is not necessarily permanent or incorruptible.  Trash in your cache can be debilitating.  It can seriously slow down and/or misdirect otherwise productive engagement.  Wishes and Dreams built without the proper CACHE on hand will go wasted.  And non-nutritive, “low-hanging fruit” (like sports and entertainment statistics, video game prowess and social media navigation) takes up critical CACHE capacity that will remain essentially useless in the context of overall advancement. 

So here’s the challenge:  Go for the good stuff – the very BEST stuff you can get!  The certifiable “Blue Chip” holdings.  And stop piling trash in your CACHE!  Make a DASH to put FLASH in your STASH of CACHE!   Quartermaster

Punch List

Every construction project remains unfinished until the completion of a final sign-off “Punch List”: a list of final “finishing” details, as well as a list of mistakes and imperfections (things which fail to conform to the architect’s original specifications) that must be corrected.

Historically (before the invention of the iPad), major construction sites – where it’s easy for paper to get lost – would have the punch list fastened to a wooden post or “Punch Board” in a prominent, centralized location. As each item was completed, a worker responsible for each task would use a nail to “punch” a hole next to each completed item. Only after every item on the punch list was completed or corrected could the job supervisor truly declare, “It is finished.”

Life is like that.  Our “Punch List” of items to be certifiably completed according to specifications embedded in our specific genetic code (i.e., reflecting our true potential), and decreed by the society within which we aspire to gain entitlements and exercise our “inalienable rights”, is quite long. 

On our personal construction site, there are actually TWO “Punch Lists” … one that we administer personally and one administered externally.  The more closely the two lists agree, and the more efficiently the tasks are completed, the more manageable the overall passage tends to be – notwithstanding inherent difficulties of certain items populating the “Punch Lists”. 

A great many items that will eventually appear on the two Punch Lists are irrelevant early on and are not posted on our Personal Punch List until they ARE relevant.  One does not require certification in algebra, for example, for matriculation through kindergarten.  This is the good news and bad news.  While posting only items relevant to the present or near future minimizes undue angst, it gives one an artificially “low-balled” sense of indemnification for anything that may follow.  Consider Robert Fulghum’s assertion:    

“All I Really Need To Know
I Learned In Kindergarten.”

 

Unfortunately, this “Chicken Soup for the Soul” offering doesn’t quite cover the entire waterfront!

 

In fact, the “Need to Know” list is a continuously rolling scroll, and we need to keep getting our “Punch List” punched at every significant intersection of life, else the scroll goes off track. 

 

Some people are compulsive about “Needing to Know” and “roll the scroll” forward as far and as fast as they can to see what’s coming.  Alertness, awareness, planning, preparation and “tooling up” for what’s coming gives one a decided advantage – an “unfair” advantage, in fact, by “Standards of Mediocrity”. 

 

And just how do you “Roll the Scroll”?  By connecting with people who have “BEEN THERE” … who know the territory … who have been and seen and done … who have fallen and picked themselves up and moved on … who have encountered and overcome barriers …  Those who have completed more of the Punch Lists for life-tracks most similar to the one you’re on – or wannabe – will be most helpful. 

 

Be compulsive.  NEED TO KNOW, and GO GET WHAT YOU NEED!   And try to get as much of it “Right” as possible.  The Punch List is scrolling.  Quartermaster

 

 Paul Cézanne (at age 67) wrote to a younger friend, the painter Émile Bernard:

“Now it seems to me that I see better and that I think more correctly about the direction of my studies. Will I ever attain the end for which I have striven so much and so long? I hope so, but as long as it is not attained a vague state of uneasiness persists which will not disappear until I have reached port, that is until I have realized something which develops better than in the past,  … ; it is giving proof of what one thinks that raises serious obstacles. So I continue to study. ... “

 

 

[Acknowledgements: Shadia Hrichi http://www1.cbn.com/devotions/gods-punch-list?cpid=EU_BIAYDEVO  and delanceyplace.com http://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=3310&utm_source=Old+Masters+and+Young+Geniuses+4-10&utm_campaign=4%2F12%2F17&utm_medium=email ]

 

Let's Get Personal

We need to talk.  Seriously. 

In case you were looking for / hoping for / counting on your “ship” to come in or your Prince or Princess to ride by on a white horse or the “Dream Job Offer” to come to your door, I feel compelled to break the sobering news that the idyllic life involving any of these things does not exist!  

Life emerges from the transient safety of a tightly protected “cocoon” of infancy into a relatively protected experience of childhood into a vast, decreasingly protective universe of increasingly larger risks, barriers and hurdles to be overcome in the course of “Becoming” whoever it is we are to become … generally against a lot of very tough odds.  

For starters, at some point, we have to give up our beliefs in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the concept of “Trick-or-Treat” gleaning as cornerstones of a life well-lived.

In the parable “Life Is Like a Great Waterway”, we learn that advancement in the world requires us to move progressively from small pond wading and splashing into deeper and deeper waters – eventually “over our heads” – that may, in fact, require us to “swim with the sharks”. 

Our bodies grow and differentiate through a series of awkward and unfamiliar stages to which we have to adjust … even as we yearn to enjoy the benefits of maturation – like becoming stronger, becoming more independent, becoming more “respectable”, being able to go out with friends, dating, getting a driver’s license, etc. 

But reality is tough.  The world does NOT, sad and sobering as it may seem, revolve around US.  Yes, our parents are stupid and imperfect (up until we learn that at least they’re not stupid).  Our teachers are imperfect.  Our friends are imperfect.  And WE are imperfect.  We do stupid things and we make poor choices and we don’t always – if ever – totally “Get It Right”.  We have to DEAL with all of that, and still navigate off balance with some sense of “Right Reckoning”, progression and advancement.  

Reality includes the fact that we are incomplete for the duration … always “Becoming”.  It is not enough to get a high school diploma … or a college diploma … or to acquire physiologically mature bodily functions.   

It is not enough to finally “get a job” … and then stop “looking for work” (Zig Ziglar). 

Life’s demands continue to increase.  It is important to understand this:  The first $300,000 in financial-equivalency support required to get us from birth to age 18 is provided gratis by parents, the community and state and federal governments – with the expectation that, during that time, we will become more-or-less self-sufficient.  The final $1.4 million required to get us to and through retirement (averaging $35,000 per year for 40 years just for cost-of-living fundamentals) is all on US!  Savings for retirement is EXTRA!

Finally, the life force of the universe is not going to bend to accommodate our personal proclivities – no matter how earnestly we pursue those proclivities or seek to exercise our perceived entitlements.  The more closely our proclivities are aligned with those of the universe we choose to inhabit, the more we will be accommodated, but not until then.  

THE GOOD NEWS IS THIS  …

1.     We don’t have to do it all by ourselves!  The more capacitized we become, the more valuable we become to others, the more “useful” we become, the more RESPECT we engender, the more we will benefit from a “Bandwagon Effect” … in which significant others support our efforts, our development and our advancement. 

2.    WE get to define our own GOALS / PURPOSE / MISSION / PASSION in life.  We need to do this as early as possible, and make it BIG enough for a lifetime of unreserved effort.  VISIONING the farthest horizon that best fits, and persistently VECTORING toward that horizon with TOTAL INTENTIONALITY, will make all the other stuff irrelevant.  

3.    We need to become ENGAGED with significant other people.  Carefully cultivated ASSOCIATIONS and AFFILIATIONS will critically strengthen and solidify our passport to wherever it is we’re going. 

4.    Life’s formula is really quite simple:

“Do what you’re supposed to do,

And life will turn out the way it’s supposed to be.”

Proverb found on an old Farm House Calendar

Point to Ponder

“The upside of painful knowledge [and experience]

is so much greater

than the downside of blissful ignorance [and defiant disengagement].” 

Sheryl Sandberg

Life is personal.  Everything we deserve is going to take everything we’ve got – personally.  Life is OUR challenge, OUR opportunity, OUR problem … OURS to get right or suffer the consequences.  Let’s get as much “Right” as we possibly can, and suffer the BEST consequences we can muster!   Quartermaster