One of several ponds with fish in the aiport:
The Singapore Changi Airport is approximately 25 square kilometers (9.7 square miles) and is rated as the 15th busiest airport in the world, handling 67.7 million passengers in 2024. It is also the recipient of numerous "Best Airport" awards.
Looking outside. Outside of Costa Rica, I do not think I have ever been in a tropical country.
The Ravishing Mrs. TB is currently staying with her mother as she has had her second knee surgery (which is going splendidly). Fortunately for me, I have roommates to come home to in her absence:
One of the things that has surprised me as I have written about humility for an extended period of time is the number and variety of ways that humility manifests itself in so many other aspects of our lives: because of humility, other things happen and/or manifest themselves.
Another one that inserted itself into my consciousness this week was simplicity.
Simplicity is something which minds and voices far more melodious and mellifluous than mine have spoken on with great authority. I can only speak to the effects of simplicity on my own life; theirs the reasoning of it and benefits behind it.
If I think on it, simplicity is often connected with humility although perhaps somewhat by accident: those that live simple lives are often humble, and we in the West at least (but also, I think elsewhere) associate those that sworn to live humble lives of service - such as monks and nuns - are associated with simplicity.
I sit here, writing this on a Saturday morning, hardly in a setting of simplicity by simple examination. I live in an urban area as I have for most of my adult life, which is by default is neither associated with simplicity or humility. I have a home, which has things - many things, it could be argued - that I really do not need or need only in specific situations.
And yet, my life at this moment radiates a certain simplicity - and with it, a humility that is unexpected.
This is the first weekend in over a month that I have not been training, traveling, or scurrying around trying to catch up on the weekends. It is hot (for here, anyway) this weekend, so my plans largely involved "staying in".
I have had the simple luxury of slightly sleeping in, of multiple cups of good coffee not slammed down between meetings, of being able to read at a relaxed pace. I have made cheese already with yogurt planned for tomorrow. A the Cat has taken to napping on a box of photo albums in what is officially called The Rabbit's Room; J The Rabbit is here in her cage with the cage door open, not feeling the need to come out but aware that she can, cleaning herself (a sign of trust; no animal cleans themselves when they feel unsafe).
These strike me as simple things in an age of media and frenzied activity and InterWeb wonder and the idea that "out there" is where enjoyment is.
But here is the funny thing as I sit and think about the situation: the sense of serenity and peace and, dare I say, humility, that comes from all of this.
Inherently there is nothing pride inducing about a cup of coffee or a napping cat or the words of Epictetus, of doing laundry or cleaning house (later today, of course). They is nothing inherently glamourous or glorious about them, nothing that possess me to brag on them.
There is a connection I can intuit here but not fully make. This sense, at this moment...I do not fully have the words for it. It is the sense one has when it is raining and one is inside with a hot beverage and a book, watching it all. It is the quiet awe that sits on one when, miles and miles from civilization, one looks upon a wilderness and wildness largely untouched by humans.
Perhaps it is the peace of simply being in the moment, of enjoying the sense of simple pleasures or simple concepts or even the sense of simply being. But nothing about any of the moments suggests pride or ego or advertising to the world about myself and the greatness of me and my accomplishments.
I cannot fully define it. But if simplicity brings humility and this is indeed the outcome, I desire more of it.
(Apologies, this week has been consumed by a work investigation. That said, this is really how I run my life and my department.)
"Life is available only in the present moment. If you abandon the present moment, you cannot life the moments of your life deeply." - Thich Nhat Hanh
Greg McKeown starts this chapter with a story of Coach Larry Gelwix, who coached the Highland High School Rugby team to 418 wins, 10 losses, and twenty national championships over 36 years. Coach Gelwix has a simple question which, conveniently, is a simply acronym for win as well: "What's Important Now?"
This helps his players focus - instead of getting caught up in what just happened (the past) or worrying if they will win (the future), it helps them focus on the play they are in "right now" (McKeown's emphasis). It also allows the players to stay focused on how they are playing:
"Larry believes a huge part of winning is determined by whether the players are focused on their own game or their opponent's game. If the players start thinking about the other team they lose focus. Consciously or not, they start wanting to play the game the other team is playing. They get distracted and divided. By focusing on their game in the here and now, they can all unite around a single strategy. This level of unity makes execution of their game plan relatively frictionless."
Coach Gelwix makes a difference between being beaten and losing. Being beaten means they were better than his team. Losing means that the team lost focus on what was essential.
To operate at your highest level of contribution, says McKeown, we have to deliberately tune in to what is important in the here and now.
For the Essentialist, there is only the now. There is not the past with its mistakes and errors or the future with its possibilities or worrying about the things we cannot control. There is only being focused and present in the current moment and on what we are doing now.
He revisits the Ancient Greek concepts of time, something we have touched on before here as well: chronos, the simple passage of time, and kairos, those moments in time that are right, opportune, different. The way of the Essentialist is to tune into the present, into the kairos moments, to those things that are truly important right now.
To be focused is to be present in the moment. To this end, McKeown points out that while some multi-tasking may be possible, what is not possible is multi-concentration or multi-focus. We can only focus on one thing at a time.
So how do we focus? How do we be in the now?
- Figure Out What Is Important Right Now: "When faced with so many tasks and obligations that you can't figure out which to tackle first, stop. Take a deep breath. Get present in the moment and ask yourself what is the most important this very second - not what's important tomorrow or even an hour from now. If you're not sure, make a list of everything vying for your attention and cross off anything that is not important right now."
- Get The Future Out Of Your Head: A helpful practice McKeown mentions here is taking a moment and listing things which are essential - but not right now- out of his head and onto a piece of paper. This helps him to focus by not losing the ideas and knowing that these were now things that he did not need to act on.
- Prioritize: After prioritizing the "Right Now" list, work on those first, one at a time until they are done. This allows focus on those things.
McKeown quotes the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who spends an hour a day drinking tea with other monks:
"Suppose you are drinking a cup of tea. When you hold the cup, you might like to breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, and you become fully present. And when you are truly there, something else is also there -life, represented by the cup of tea. In that moment you are real, and the cup of tea is real. You are not lost in the past, in the future, in your projects, in your worries. You are free from all of your afflictions. And in that state of being free, you enjoy your tea. That is the moment of happiness, and of peace."
Pay attention, says McKeown, to the kairos moments of our day. Write them down, think of what triggered that moment and what you brought from it. If you can recognize that trigger, you can try to re-create it.
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Application:
Typically at this point I would write "As long-time readers of my blog know...". But that would yet another rehashing of a comment that we have discussed for a long, long time: I have trouble focusing. Instead, it is perhaps more useful to consider the wider world around us.
And how that world does everything in its power to prevent focusing.
We live in an age of distraction. Mathew Crawford in his book The World Beyond Your Head refers to the loss of what he calls The Attention Commons, that space that used to exist where people were effectively free from having their attention grabbed by advertising or a constant stream of noise and images. Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows quotes research that notes that at the best of times, our minds can hold 3-5 thoughts in working memory - and thanks to the wonder of the InterWeb and the plasticity of our brains, we are literally becoming unable to concentrate on deep issues. The very fact that we can be in a meeting with people speaking and a computer and two cell phones in front of us, checking each for updates as we move from screen to screen, never really in any one conversation - and that this is acceptable behavior - should give a clue about how the modern world values focus.
With this sort of avalanche against us, the ability to focus in the modern world is almost a superpower.
What is the best way I have been dealing with it? Very old methods. Do one thing at a time and, to the best of your ability, remove all other options to multi-focus (e.g., write and check e-mail or even, for me, write and listen to something). Do things via analog (which almost by default is doing one thing at at time). And try, more and more, to do less and less via the InterWeb.
Focusing in the modern environment is not impossible. It is just very, very hard.
07 December 20XX+1
My Dear Lucilius:
Today was the lighting of the second Advent candle.
Pompeia Paulina was patiently waiting for me when I came out into the early morning grey that constitutes daylight in Winter here. It is one of the things that I had underestimated when I first relocated here, the true shortness of the days of Winter. Especially in a world without power, one can work before the daylight, but one’s effectiveness can be serious curtailed – who wants to risk an injury just to get a 20 minute head start on something in the dark?
The Advent wreath was there, along with its for candles. The match sparked; one candle, then another candle glowed in the early morning gloom.
The second candle, she said. The Candle of Bethlehem, of Preparation and Peace.
Bethlehem in our day was one of the most well known small towns of history; we had the benefit of 2,000+ years of Christian history behind us. And while even leading up to Christ’s birth it undoubtedly had some fame as the birthplace of David, one of Israel’s great kings, it (like many other birthplaces) had slipped into backwater status; were it to have happened now, likely there would be some small sign commemorating David’s birthplace and perhaps a small museum preserving David’s birth house, manned by volunteers and preserving his parents’ memorabilia (all of the good stuff would undoubtedly be at the museum in Jerusalem), selling post cards and bumper stickers that read “I felt Bethlehome in Bethlehem”.
It was a small place, that history seemed to have moved on from. And yet Scripture promised that something amazing would happen there:
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.” - (Micah 5:2)
It was almost 1,000 years between David and Christ and almost 700 years between the prophet Micah and Christ. What did people do?
They waited. They prepared.
They prepared for the coming of Messiah. They waited. They kept the laws as they were given and looked to the future and God – sometimes a God that was not speaking to them at all. They prepared their hearts for the Promised One.
And then, in the fullness of time, Mary and Joseph prepared themselves for a journey they did not intend to make under circumstances not of their choosing to this small, backwater town. Where something which had been prophesied – but was still very unexpected – happened.
We sat in the candlelight as Pompeia Paulina read and then just watched the candles burn for a bit in silence. And then, in silence, blew the candles out and began the day.
Even with the promise, Lucilius, there is still preparation – and waiting – to be done.
Your Obedient Servant, Seneca
