Deny Yourself, Take Up Your Cross, And Follow Me

I received a great deal to think about during my Iaijutsu training last month in Japan - not just on my technique, but about Life.

Yes, about Life in general as well but specifically about my life.  No, I cannot talk about a lot of it (what happens in the dojo stays in the dojo).

The short version is that I tend to be far more focused on myself and my advancement (whatever that actually means) instead of adapting myself to, preserving, and furthering the art.

This in turn sent me down a whole series of considerations and pathways, mostly dealing with myself and my focus on me, the outcome of which was I listed a set of things I needed to change in my thinking:

1)  "I am the author of my life" versus "God is the author of my life."

2)  "I am the saviour of my life (via my own efforts)" versus "Christ is the saviour of my life".

3)  "I am the hero in the life of others" versus "I am a servant in the life of others".

If it is not apparent, I was confronted in a very meaningful way at that time.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when I found myself in a different church than I had been attending for reasons I was not sure of, other than I needed to go there.  Upon entering the space, I wanted - really needed - to hear something from God.  It seemed a little presumptuous of me to say "God, reveal Yourself" as He is already there.  Instead, I fell back on a phrase that was used by the Desert Fathers of the 4th-6th centuries A.D. when they visited one a teacher or someone they considered holy:  "Give me a word".

Just like that, the words came back "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me".

It is stunning enough when you finding something in God's word that speaks to you, personally, in that moment; it is even more so when you "hear" (I can use no other word, although there was no sound) something that is a definitive answer to a question that was asked.

As I drove home that day, I realized that set of words sounded familiar, and not just because I knew the passage where they came from.  Sure enough, there embedded in my notes from training and my deep reflections where the above statements had been written down, was the phrase "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me".

---

The verse is one that appears in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).  I quote the verse from Luke here, as it has the most clarity to me:

"Then He (Jesus) said to them all, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.  For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?'" - Luke 9:  23-25, NKJV  (also in Matthew 16:28-17:9 and Mark 8:34-28)

---

And so, I find myself wrestling with the concept of denying myself.

What does that fully mean?  I am struggling with this.  There are certainly very base level practices, practiced by ascetics and Christians throughout the ages:  levels of fasting and other physical practices meant to tame the body - and prayer, always prayer.  Giving in the form of charity, of course: C.S. Lewis noted that if our charities did not somehow pinch not just our luxuries but our basics, we likely are not charitable enough. And a litany of everyday practices meant to get our eyes off ourselves:  humbling of ourselves in the service of others, for example (humility was a matter of consideration this year for more than one reason, apparently).

Still, I struggle. Simple denial of something like food for fasting seems painfully basic and off the mark, for example - although I am pretty sure there is also a simple part of me that does not want to do even that.  But those sorts of physical restrictions, though likely beneficial, do not seem to be the core of what was asked of me.

Do I think something like what has become a fast of sorts from social media and indeed any media is part of it?  I do, although this seems of secondary or even tertiary import except that it pushes me towards having more time and silence in my life.

And so, I continue to fumble my way forward in the dark.

But this one thing I know:  Not once, but twice this year the very specific command "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me" has come to the direct forefront of my conscious thought.  Surely this is for a reason.

The question is, how well am I doing that very thing.

A Year of Humility (XIII): The Robe Of Humility

 

Not much to add to this other than to ask the question:  If Christ could humble himself by becoming one of us, what right or excuse to I have to not humble myself?

Filler

 So, I had the grand, glorious post all planned for today.  Sadly events got away from me during the latter course of the week.

Spring has sort of sprung here in New Home 3.0. I am reliably informed by my coworkers that there is a version of "fake Spring", which lasts for a couple of days or a week and the plunge back into End of Winter 2.0.

But the trees are blooming and flowers are popping out all over, so all of the growing things think it is Spring, even if the weather itself is trying to lie to the humans.

Last Wednesday represents the last of the "pre-programmed" posts I had put in place.  It was a helpful effort; it is a little odd to get back into the habit of daily writing as such.  Good, but odd.  

My sister and brother-in-law The Outdoorsman are in town this weekend for a visit.  As it turns out, it was almost at the end of our stay in New Home 2.0 that they were able to come out.  We are a great deal closer; hopefully this will be the first of many visits.

Hard to believe that all of this beauty also portends the end of the first quarter of the year.  Three months have slipped past - I have no idea where they went.

Essentialism (XII): Essence Of The Essentialist, Explore: Escape

"Without great solitude no serious work is possible." - Pablo Picasso

As I read through books written by authors Cal Newport and Matthew Crawford, I am confronted by the suggestion by both that one of the most fleeting of things in modern society is the ability to pay attention, which is generally created by 1) Space; 2) Silence, and 3) A lack of the constant chatter that is the very fabric of our electronic and media modern world.

It is this concept that McKeown picks up on in the Exploring portion of Essentialism, specifically "Escape".  The subtitle of this section is "The Perks of Being Unavailable".

He starts this chapter with the example of a founder/CEO of marketing company, Conversations, which once a month has a meeting where all employees come together - media free.  No phones, no e-mail, no agenda.  They simply think and talk.  At the time of writing, it occurred regularly on the first Monday of every month and was known by their clients as "Do-Not-Call-Monday".

There are two purposes to this meeting.  The first is to give employees the ability to figure and review what is truly essential.  The founder also uses it as a litmus test for time spent by employees on the non-essential: "If someone can't make the meeting because too much is going on, that tells me we are either doing something inefficiently or we need to hire more people."

We need space, posits McKeown, in order to discern the vital few from the trivial many.  In a world filled with constant inputs clamoring for our attention, that space needs to be consciously designated and designed.  Seldom will it just "happen".

What does the Essentialist do with this space?  They explore their options.

Exploration does not take place in a vacuum of course.  We need a place to explore, something that is set up in a way to allow us to think deeply alone or in discussion with individuals and small groups as needed.  For some, this can be consciously designed spaces that are set up in a way to facilitate (or force) conversation like specially designed rooms or areas that encourage thought and small groups or spaces like "quiet rooms" where the absence of noise is emphasized.

We need space to explore and to concentrate on our exploration.  This is not so much a physical space (although it can be) as much as it is a mental space where we set aside distractions for the matter at hand. McKeown points to the example of Sir Isaac Newton, who spent almost two years in complete isolation writing what we know as the laws of gravitation and motion.  When asked how it he did it, he replied "By thinking on it continually" - "In other words, Newton created space for concentration, and this uninterrupted space allowed him to explore the essential elements of the universe."

When, asks McKeown, was the last time you took five minutes out of your day to just sit and think?  Not compose an e-mail or make a list of things needing to be done or replaying a conversation in your mind, but "...(set) aside distraction-free time in a distraction-free space to do absolutely nothing but think?"  Not only that, he suggests - but as we get busier and things move faster, the more it becomes crucial for us to build thinking time into our schedules and the spaces to focus on them.

Part of that, suggests McKeown, is simply changing our perspective from our schedule controlling us to us controlling our schedule.

Finally, says McKeown, we need space to read.

Without reading - be it books, articles, journals and attendant thinking and pondering (or some version of listening to the same, given the technological world in which we live), we not only lose out on relevant information to our particular situation and lives, we lose the ability to "broaden our perspective" and see themes of life beyond our own narrow windows.  His only recommendation is "...to select something was written before our hyperconnected era and yet seems timeless.  Such writings can challenge our assumptions about what really matters."

(Of note, McKeown says he prefers inspirational literature such as Zen, The Reason of Unknown; The Wisdom of Confucius; the Torah; the Bible; Tao, to Know and Not Be Knowing; The Meaning of the Glorious Koran:  An Explanatory Translation; As a Man Thinketh; The Essential Gandhi; Walden, or Life in the Woods; the Book of Mormon; The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius; and the Upanishads.  It is quite a list).

His final admonition:  "Whether you can invest two hours a day, two weeks a year, or even five minutes every morning, it is important to make space to escape in your busy life."

---

Application:

I outed myself a bit by indicating that this is something I am already thinking about based on books that I have recently read or are reading. This idea of making "space" was a bit more focused on "making space to do things", but the principle is the same.

A lot of it for me is wrapped up in a lack of inputs, which can lead to silence, which is what I need to think.  In my case, that looks a lot like working on shutting down how often I check my phone for everything, what I follow on the InterWeb (it is rapidly dwindling), reducing social media as we have spoken on before, and learning to do activities without having background noise (usually a Tube of You video) going on in the background.  

In terms of space, it is having a place to "work", which is the extra bedroom that J the Rabbit generously shares with us.  It is also re-starting post-vacation the habits of morning walks in my local neighborhood and middle of the day walks at work.

Reading.  It should be no surprise that I am big fan of this, and there is something to reading in the morning that gets things off to a good start.  I regularly read the Bible (doing the "Bible in a year" plan).  In terms of other readings, I tend to choose things that break into short sections that are make for good organized readings in a week or two weeks.  Books that I have repeatedly read in this fashion have included The Art of War by Sun Tzu, A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, An Iron Will by Orison Swett Marden, and  The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching! by Jeffery Gitomer.  I have also tried longer texts, like the works of Epictetus, but having to make a break is the middle of the section make it difficult for me to pick up the next day.

I have also started making sure I find time in the evening (now usually before bed) to do the same exercise.  In this case it is reading and taking notes on the book, something I have not really done in almost 25 years.  I am finding this helps to round out my day.

I do not know I am quite to where I need to be in getting the full value out of these activities, but I am on my way.

The Collapse CLXXXV: Proposal

 24 October 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Today I was invited to a meeting.

I suppose once upon a time that statement would have been completely unremarkable; work used to be nothing but meetings, a gathering of individuals for purposes that were undoubtedly important in the moment but 99% of the time without import in the long run. Now, of course, a meeting is an entirely different thing, an exchange of time in lieu of other activities like preparing for Winter or finding food or fuel or worrying about what is to come.

The meeting was in the old post office – you will recall it; it was the hub of activities this Summer, and now (after the fire at the RV Park/bar) remains likely the most recognizable building in town, except for the Old Storefront turned church turned meeting room turned courtroom, which for obvious reasons is likely not a great location for such things. The invite had come from Young Xerxes; it was a fairly generic ask to “talk about some things”.

In the world in which we now live, there are no “things” that are without import.

When I arrived there in the mid-afternoon – our daily sunlight continues to draw itself inwards – I found around ten to fifteen men and women there: some faces I recognized, like my all to recent bailiffs and one or two souls from the expedition to McAdams who nodded acquaintance, as well as some that I hardly recognized more than “I had seen them in town” once upon a time – even years ago when all was well, it was still a small town and one tended to have some kind of nodding acquaintance with almost everyone.

It probably does not need noting, but everyone was armed. This seems to be the way, now.

A set of folding chairs had been dug out from somewhere – the courtroom, someone’s chairs for poker or pinochle? - and we eased into them with all the care that anyone does for a Chair of Unknown Provenance. One of the bailiffs spoke – not Young Xerxes, which honestly surprised me.

We will need to give him a name – Brasidas will work.

Brasidas’ speech was short and to the point. What was gathered here was not just individuals, but individuals representing households – a majority of the households, if numbers said anything at all. They were concerned among themselves, not just because of the events of the last month but because of the fact that a second Winter was coming with unknown impacts – by “impacts”, he meant bandits, he clearly stated – in the Spring. Unlike any of the other areas around them, there was no move to either enter an alliance or even protect the town as whole – still a series of individuals, rent by potentially competing interests as the recent court trial and fire indicated.

For these people represented here, he said, there was no option of picking up to go to another town or an outlying settlement. This was their home, their only home – and they had no plans to become refugees.

They were willing to make a go of it, he said, but they needed someone acceptable to all and of sufficient authority – he actually used the word gravitas, which made the Classicist in me chuckle - to put together a plan and in effect “lead” the settlement. I had marched out to fight the Locust and navigated the court case; would I be willing to do the same thing for Birch?

I sighed, and looked at the faces looking back at me. Some of them I knew, all of them were thinner than they were two years ago. There was lack of sleep and worry on all of them, a touch of anger for all that had apparently not been done on some. And laying behind all of them, the shouting of a courtroom with fingers pointed and a building burned to ash from rage as likely as accidental and a cold Winter with an unknown Spring to come.

“I will do what I can” I responded.

Sometimes, Lucilius, we seek the hour out. Sometimes in spite of all we do, it finds us.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2024 Turkey: A Final Goodbye

Dear Friends:

Thanks for tagging along with me to Turkey.  I am not sure how many entries this particular series has consumed, but it has easily been 75% of a year.  It amuses me a bit that this series ends within two weeks of the anniversary of our departure.

(Istanbul)

I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did.  I saw a great many more things than I had thought I might see on my tour.

(The Bosporus, Istanbul)

(Basilica Cistern, Istanbul)

I think the most surprising thing to me during my travels was simply the amount of history that exists in this single country.  I saw things that were 12,000 years old.  I saw the works of former empires - Greek, Alexandrian, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman.  Western history lives here in Turkey as much as anywhere else.

(Gülhane Park, Istanbul)

(The Blue Mosque, Istanbul)

It is odd to me that most people do not think to tour Turkey as part of Europe.  I confess that prior to this trip I found myself in the same position: Turkey was somewhere neither fully European nor fully Middle Eastern.  It was a place "in between".  

(Topkapi Palace, Istanbul)

(Aya Sofya, Istanbul)

But being in Turkey, you would not have known you were not somewhere else in Europe (with perhaps the sole exception of mosques instead of churches and the call to prayer).

(Troy)

(Asklepieion)

Do I have a favorite?  After almost a year of writing, that is a hard thing to say.  Everywhere we went could be a potential favorite. I wish I had a full day at the Topkapi Palace. I wish we had the time to go to the ruins of Pergamon.  I wish we had spent more hours in Ephesus and Hierapolis.  

(Kuşadasi)

(The Library of Celsus, Ephesus)

I wish I had a week in Istanbul to visit all of the former Byzantine sites and go to the military museum (which is supposed to be spectacular).

(Hierapolis)

(The Tomb of Rumi, Konya)

It is not often that I would consider re-going to the same place, but I am definitely up to another trip.  Beyond just all of the other things I listed, there is another whole side of the country to be explored, one that I expect is as surprising and different as the one we visited.

(Güzelyurt)

(Kapadokya)

So thanks for coming along with me for the ride. I hope that through these posts, you have been able to grasp a little bit of a remarkable location, its history and culture, and its people.

(Göröme Open Air Park, Kapadokya)

(Anıtkabir, Ankara)

( Atatürk International Airport, Istanbul)

Goodbye, Turkey.  Until we meet again.

2024 Turkey: Return To The Egyptian Bazaar

 As part of our last day in Istanbul, we went back to the Egyptian Bazaar for some last minute shopping.  Below is a short movie of what it was like in the alleyways outside.

Losing Our Religion For Lesser Things

 "The Christian faith does offer moral order, political and social action to help the weak and oppressed, and therapeutic comfort for broken individuals.  But if a church or denomination offers only moralism, politics, and social activism, or emotionally exciting therapeutic uplift disconnected from deep prayer, sacrificial commitment, and authentic change of life, it is useless.  It is worse than useless, because it convinces the world that Christianity is counterfeit." - Rod Dreher, Living in Wonder

As has been mentioned recently in another post, I am in the process of largely "giving up" on the bulk of social media for two reasons.  The secondary and therefore less meaningful reason (for this post) is that it simply does not add anything meaningful to my life, is a good way to burn valuable time in a low value way, and represents the "Shallow Work" that Cal Newport rails against in his book Deep Work.  

The more primary reason, of course, is politics.

(I know, I know - "TB" I hear you say, "you never discuss politics here."  And today would be no different.  Stick with me.)

---

For almost two months now I have been putting "pause" on anyone that posts anything about the current political situation and travails of the U.S. current day - and to be consistent (outside of any personal beliefs I may have) I have been applying it to both sides of the aisle.  Yes, it probably means I am missing actual non-political interesting topics (although see reason "two" above for winding down my time), but it has also cut down on my day to day stress/anger/anxiety level.

But what I find most...concerning...about all of this is the fact that people are becoming - at least in my mind and in practice - identified almost completely with their political beliefs.

Instead of, for some of them, their professed religious beliefs.

---

A great danger for us as humans, it seems, is our ability to have a thing or small group of things dominate our lives and thinking.  I suspect this is one of many reasons why God, starting in Exodus and really continuing throughout the rest of Scripture, commands us "I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.  Thou shalt have no other gods before me."  He knew that we as species had the ability to focus, but also that we were prone to focus on anything else but Him (And yes, hat tip to the King James Version.  Still the most fun version to read in my opinion.).

But not us - especially not us in the modern world.  We have very much become a "God and..." sort of people.

I suspect that people like Francis Shaeffer would attribute this to the idea that through the history of the late Medieval period and into the Enlightenment, Western Christianity divorced God first from the material world, then from the physical world, and then as a finally as the operating principle for Christians (Shaeffer does a much better job of all of this; the man really was a modern prophet in the sense of seeing 60 years ago where we would be today.  If you have not read him, his book Escape from Reason explains how modern society got here in 93 short paperback pages.).  

What modern Christianity has been left with is too often the idea that we can be "God and" something.  God and our beliefs become a something that are either bolted on to our daily life or are something that are of equal and equivalent importance.

And it is that "equal and equivalent" that has forced my social media hand.

---

The danger is this:  when we as Christians let something else become how we define ourselves, we can do injury to the message of Christ and God.  When our words, our actions, and our interests come to be dominated by something else other than Him, when all we ever talk about is anything and everything but Him, or worst case we simply somehow fail to acknowledge in any of our practices or words that we are His - we are no longer messengers and servants of Christ, those of whom Isaiah said "How beautiful on the mountain are those that bring good news..." (Isaiah 57:2) and who Paul quoted in Romans 10:15 as bringing the Gospel of Peace.  

Our words and our thoughts behind them matter, especially if we call ourselves Christians.   But just as we become what we think about and speak about most of the time, so people come to understand us per what we speak about and our thoughts (and the intent behind them) most of the time.

An example:  If you were to ask anyone at my current place of employment about me, they could tell you that 1) I like rabbits; and 2) I am a student of Iaijutsu,  It is what I talk about.  It is what I express I do with my free time.  It is what I will happily speak on when given the opportunity.

Rabbits and swordsmanship are pretty neutral or even unique topics to be known for.  Politics, a bit more divisive.

---

Why, then, am I so concerned about how people post politically that I would pause them?

It is not the people that are agnostic or even atheist that of primary concern (other than the principle, of course) as much as it those that are professing Christians who come to post only and almost completely about "current events".  They have, to my mind, sold out the thing of Greatest value - Christ's sacrifice and message of salvation - for lesser things.  

To those that agree with them, they will be evidence of the rightness of their ideas.  But to those that are politically opposed to them, they have or will have cut off their means to communicate the Gospel through words and actions - because they have put up a barrier to any sort of initial conversation or even the viewing of actions; all will be viewed through the lens of their political messaging.

After all, why would I talk to someone about something personal and intimate and potentially even impactful on the sensitive areas of my life like religion when it has been clearly demonstrated what they do and do not believe about their political opponents?

Perhaps there are individuals that can bridge such a narrow gap. Sadly, I am not one of them.

---

Of all of the characters that fill out the New Testament, we really only know of one - Simon the Zealot - who political leanings were - and I emphasize the past tense here - known.  After his call by Christ, we never hear of any of his (or anyone else's) political leaning again, certainly in the post-Resurrection New Testament.

When we lose our religion and more importantly our witness for anything, even politics, we have made a deal which leaves us the poorer and the world with one less witness - perhaps the only witness to some person that, without us, might have not seen the Gospel lived out in a way that makes it credible.

And that, simply, is an explanation I do not want to have to make at the Judgement Seat.

A Year Of Humility (XII): Teaching And Doing

 

One of the greatest challenges that anyone who has ever been a leader, teacher, parents, manager or Quality Assurance person can face is the practice of doing what we teach others to do.

Who among us has not ever been in the position where, having provided some kind of guidance or wisdom or direction (or even setting down "the law") has not come to find ourselves confronted by our students, children, employees, or even general passers by with our practice not meeting our preaching?

To be fair, I may be more overly reactive to this than many partially because of my choice of line of work.  To be Quality is to have some level of approving things when they go out and being "the authority".  But I suspect for every one of these roles, if we are honest, we would confess that at some level we have an underlying thought that we should live up to the things that we teach, train, or advise - and that hopefully we are conscious of the fact when we miss the mark.

Sadly, I am much less good about this than I should be.

It is easy enough for me to rail about the evils of society or bad behaviors or the benefits of good and righteous living.  It is a great deal more difficult for me to live these out on a daily basis.

Part of it, I suppose, can be summed up as simply "hypocrisy", and there likely (at least for me) always be an element of that.  But I genuinely believe that there is also a significant element of not fully vetting out the implication of my actions to the fullest extent possible.

Take an easy thing:  murder.  Fairly easy to be against that in real life.  But do I truly take Christ's admonition that to hate someone is like the sin of murder (not the physical act, obviously)?  And do I find that I derive entertainment from the fictional murder of others (or even just generally violent movies in general)?  I do.

And then I start to walk these things out.  Lust.  Gluttony.  Laziness.  Charity.  Even my practice of Christianity on a daily basis.  I can point to Scripture and even suggest things that others should do to live better lives.

But do I do them?

Humility, it seems to me, is being as willing (or even more so) to do what we teach/advise/admonish/command others to do.  And, of course, confess our failures and rectify them when they are called out to us.

There is perhaps no more powerful example than the one who, when a failure is pointed out that has been taught on, humbly confesses they have failed and seeks to do better.

On Travel, Litter, And Beef Jerky

When traveling, there are three different attitudes one can take.

The first is what I would name as the "Superiority" view of travel.  In this version, everything is viewed through the lens of one's own culture and experience in a negative sense.  This can come across in such statements as "This (fill in the blank) is so much worse and primitive than we have at home" or "I cannot believe that they do/believe (fill in the blank two)".  This can be any number of things, from pollution to health care to bathroom facilities to housing to the nature of toilet paper (trust me, there is a significant difference in toilet paper throughout the world.  In some cases, old sewer systems are the cause).

The second is what I would name the "Inferiority" view of travel.  In this version, everything is viewed through the lens of one's own culture and experience in a positive sense, mostly comparatively.  This can come across in such statements as "They do (fill in the blank) here so much better than we do at home; it is scarcely believable that we are civilized country doing it that way" or "They are so much more correct in that they do/believe (fill in the blank two)".  The crossover in what these things may be are the same, but the point in this case is usually a lever against one's current country or culture to express dis-satisfaction in an alternative method.

The third, and arguably the most difficult, is what I would name the "Observational" view of travel.  In this version, everything is simply viewed in the context of where you are.  Judgements is for the most part withheld (except for some fairly egregious things that are generally noxious everywhere) and there is no comparison with one's home culture and experience.  Things simply "are".  If there are things that are better or worse, one does not comment on them:  one figures out what one can do in one's own sphere of influence and power to change them, and then changes them.

It is not for us to change other places; it is for other places to change us and how we view where we live.

---

One of the most noticeable difference I found being in Cambodia and Vietnam was simply litter.

To be fair, having come within the previous month from Japan, Switzerland, and Germany, I certainly had not been prepped in that sense for what was effectively the Third World.   That is not a judgment, it simply a comment on previous 4 weeks of experience.  

Simply put, litter was almost everywhere.

It was on the streets, in gutters, between buildings. It was on the sidewalk.  In the countryside, it was in fields and on roadways. In the rivers and lakes we traveled, it floated by with the current or slowly rocked on the shallows, to be strewn on the shores by waves at some point.

To be honest, it surprised me.

If I dig into my mind a little bit, I can come up with potential reasons.  One, of course, might simply be that in both cases, these countries have "modernized" within two generations.  In the "old times", things were simply much less single use and got used until they were no longer usable and even then, were broken down into smaller elements to be reused. In another potential reason, materials used to be much more organic and would break down over time in the climate - an example of this would be coconuts, which are ubiquitous as food and material throughout the region.  Done with the coconut shell and leaves?  Toss them to the side somewhere; they will breakdown in the heat and humidity (plastics of course, much less so).

There were isolated places where this was not the case - mostly (to be frank) the major tourist locations.  In at least one city, significant efforts had been made by the local authorities to clean things up and it was very noticeable in comparison.

But to be fair to those countries, most of the people there have arguably more pressing concerns than the litter that has become part of the landscape.

---

You may remember that two weeks ago I published a post on Packaging Waste.  This was pre-written before I left; the fact that it somewhat happily overlapped (if one can use the term) with my experience abroad was purely coincidental.  But it did get me to thinking - not in the first two versions of travel mentioned above, Superiority ("How much better I do things") or Inferiority ("How much worse we could be doing") but simply Observationally, specifically "How much waste am I putting into the system and where am I putting it?"

There are some pretty obvious things of course, like every time I do an online order of anything - but there are a lot of more subtle things as well.  The one that leapt to my mind is the amount of pre-packaged food I eat - not the things I eat regularly as meals (I am pretty good about buying in bulk for those) but the smaller pre-packaged snacks like protein bars or those Will-O-The-Wisps at work, the individual bite sized candies that are always so convenient.

And so, I have another area I can work on.

---

Bite sized candies are pretty easy to deal with - do not partake (also, waistline will thank me).  But other sorts of snacks are more difficult.  I would very much likes something more filling and certainly something with protein.

And thus, I made beef jerky this week.

I do not have a full cost break down between number of days and grams of protein for the approximately 4 lbs. of on-sale steak I used versus protein bars I would have eaten.  And I do not know that I fully have a grasp of what the "litter quota difference" is between x number of wrappers that are in some manner plasticized versus the styrofoam and plastic wrap that was used for the meat. So maybe in my mind, the whole thing is a wash.

But what still haunts me is the amount of waste I saw as I traveled through Cambodia and Vietnam, waste that I highly suspect will outlive me and that in subtle ways tore down the beauty of what I was seeing and in even more subtle ways, the lives of those that have simply learned to live with it.

I cannot do everything.  But I can do something.

---

A Personal Request:

My mother in law had knee surgery this past week.  Her initial response was fabulous and she was able to go home; The Ravishing Mrs. TB flew down this week (just after getting back from our trip) to stay with her for at least three weeks initially.  Any kind thoughts or prayers for her healing would be greatly appreciated.

Essentialism (XI): Essence Of The Essentialist: Explore

If in fact the core mindset of the Essentialist per Greg McKeown is to discern, choose, and make trade-offs on the things that we will "go big" on in our lives, that carries with it the first question:  What do discern, choose and trade off for?  In other words, how do we discern what McKeown calls the Vital Few from the Trivial Many?

It is here, he says, that a paradox becomes operational:  the Essentialist actually explores more options than the Non-Essentialist.  How is this possible?

The Non-essentialist gets excited by everything that they touch and tries to pursue everything they touch thus creating the situation where, as we have seen, they simply get overwhelmed by the number of things they are pursuing.  The Essentialist, on the other hand, explores options but evaluates them before committing to any one of them:  "Because Essentialists will commit and "go big" on only the vital few ideas or activities they explore more options at first to make sure they pick the right one later."

How do they do this?  McKeown lists five areas (which we will, of course, take one by one):

- Space to think

- Time to look and listen

- Permission to play

- Wisdom to sleep

- Discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choice we make

One big difference is that Non-essentialists can see these activities as distractions to "getting on with the work".  At best, they are good ideas; at worst, they show indecisiveness and wastefulness.  "We have to do" is the mantra, "not be lackadaisical in our activities".

But if you are busy and overwhelmed in our modern "go-go-go" society, posits McKeown, these are the antidotes that are needed to fight the plague of busyness that infests our entire lives (A point, I might add, that other authors I am now reading like Cal Newport and Matthew Crawford would agree with).

"Essentialists spend as much time as possible exploring, listening, debating, questioning, and thinking.  But their exploration is not an end in itself. The purpose of the exploration is to discern the vital few from the trivial many."

---

If there was ever a person to not slow down, it is me.

I have thrown myself headlong into almost every thing and interest that comes my way.  What is worse, once I throw myself headlong into them, there seem to be one of two outcomes:  I either cannot let go of the thing even though I am making no progress and have no time, or I find myself completely done with it without understanding why I am.  Seldom if ever have I calculatedly thought about the options and possibilities, explored them, and then made planned decisions.

If ever anyone needed to have a structure for exploring options, it is me.

The Collapse CLXXXIV: Town

 22 October 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

This afternoon I took a walk through Birch.

You could name it a “reconnaissance mission” of sorts if there was need to quantify it and to some extent, that might be true, given recent events. But even now, I still occasionally like to take a walk.

My memories of this town go back a very long time indeed as we came here for Summer vacations with my grandparents; I can remember a time at the Cabin when the outhouse was the only available restroom and how terrifying it was as a child to walk the 50 feet from the Cabin there to use it.

Birch in those early days – from the little bit I can remember and the remainder that is here – was much more of a small “town” than has existed in recent memory, true of so many other towns in this country. There was certainly a mechanic, a grocery store, the post office/gas station, at least two restaurants, some other generic stores (judging from the now-faded storefronts), the Kamping Ground outside the town to which we walked to do our laundry. It was perhaps not self sufficient in the way such towns had been 60 or 80 years earlier, but it was a place where some if not much of one’s daily business could be transacted.

Over time that changed of course, as it did for many such towns throughout the country. Towns either grew in size as they became hubs of some kind of business or became folded into larger entities around them or slowly dwindled into smaller and smaller entities until they became hamlets or even not-towns, just a sign indicating a population and a handful of buildings on either side of a road one scarcely had to slow down on.

It struck me, as I walked down the former state highway and past what once upon a time was main street, of how such things were handled in other places.

In some places – and by places I mean “other countries” – the story was similar; it was clear that the town had been something different once upon a time but was slowly collapsing back into the unsettled lands from which it had sprung. In others, there seemed to be a genuine effort and concern to keep the individual towns as living, functional units – even if they were with short distances of each other.

It makes me wonder now, as I stalked the empty roads with the fading sunlight of Autumn on me, how much of a conscious choice it ever was.

Birch, even in the last few years, was at best in the final stages of decay, a small town of almost no resources (although they clung to their local school built in the early 1900’s and their post office) with a population likely consisting of people grown old from a previous generation, retirees (like myself), or the occasional odd duck that wanted to live a very different sort of life (Pompeia Paulina, Statiera, and Young Xerxes all fall into this category). The lifeblood of the town – such as it was – was in the tourist season where business came through in the form of tourists coming from Highwayville or Little City on their way to fishing or hiking or just being in “The Great Outdoors”. It was likely just enough to keep the few businesses going through the Winter months (except the bar at the now burned RV Park of course; alcohol never seems to suffer).

The Collapse, in that sense, was more of a coda than an actual event that happened.

I walked out to what is the clear “edge” of the town, where the last grouping of houses ends and the wider open spaces of custom built homes and ranches starts – it is about a mile from the edge of town where we currently sit. Turning around, I looked back on view I have likely seen hundreds of times now.

More than ever, such places seem to only have three places to go. One is the route apparently chosen by Little City, is simply to close themselves off and try and make their own way. Another, evidenced by Kentucky City and the hand of the Colonel, is to pull in people as much as possible to try to improve their current situation.

The third, it appears, is us: neither closing ourselves off nor building ourselves up, but slowly bleeding people and separating out until we are nothing but a memory of ramshackle buildings and a faded name on signs.

I do not have a good answer to this Lucilius, nor do I know that I need to have one today as I walk back with the breezes of Autumn in my face reminding me that Winter is not all that far away. But it does point to the rather salient point that in choosing not to plan, one has essentially planned the path of least resistance.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2024 Turkey: Driving To Istanbul

 The next day after Ankara, it was time to head back to Istanbul and eventually home.

The scenery began to change - not surprisingly, as we were leaving the Anatolian plateau and heading back for the coast.

A cemetary:

By the time we drew closer to Istanbul, the weather had definitely changed.

Crossing the Bosporus:

A last night's meal and dessert:

2024 Turkey: Meal In Ankara

 For our night in Ankara, we were effectively "turned loose" into the street to find our own meal.  We wandered up the street a bit and found what appeared to be a "typical" Turkish restaurant.  Once we entered and the proprietor found out we were tourists, he could not offer us enough food or hospitality.

Our starters.  He insisted we have everything:

The puffy bread that I had come to love so much:

Dinner:  Doner meat as I recall with a healthy side of sour cream:

After dinner, they served tea from a traditional serving vessel.  The water is heated from the bottom part:

Dessert.  Some kind of deliciousness:

He spoke almost no English, we spoke almost no Turkish.  But it was a grand time: he was quite proud of his establishment and his cooking (and by extension, Turkish traditions).  It was the sort of chance encounter that leaves you hungry for more interaction with people.