A Year Of Humility (XV): Accepting God's Will

 

As long time readers know, I have struggled for most of my life - certainly the life of this blog - with my, and I put this quotes, "calling".

If you were to ask me what I really wanted to do, I likely could not define it for you.  At one time I thought I had different callings - teacher, entertainer, pastor, writer, businessman, even agriculturalist - but each and every one of these failed to pan out for different reasons.  Some of them became the hobbies that they were likely ever going to be, others faded away into the background of "jobs I have held".

The one more or less constant for the almost of my post-college employment history has been the industry I am currently in, biopharmaceutical/medical devices.

This was not the industry I ever intended to be in - in school I was mediocre math and science student at best and in college I took the least amount of course I needed to in these fields to get my degree. Yet for every other things I thought I was meant to do, it is only this industry that has provided me with steady employment and a more than generous salary and benefits.

Then an odd thing happened to me in my recent application for a new position in my department:  I suddenly felt like this was my "calling".

That may not sound like game changing thought that it is, at least for me.

Literally all of my life I have somehow had the belief that I was meant to do "something important or noble" (and yes, that feeling was just as undefined as it sounds).  Likely that was a combination of an inflated feeling of self importance as well as the fact that certain things came pretty easily to me; thus, was I not destined for greatness?  And yet, that "greatness" somehow always eluded me, and I found myself "slogging" away at a career that felt was just a pit stop on my way to my actual calling.

Mind you, it was a very good career in the sense it was financially rewarding and allowed us to make decisions like The Ravishing Mrs. TB being able to stay home when Na Clann were young and even when they got older, to work a part time job to be able to stay involved in their school and activities.  It allowed us to buy a house (more than once) and travel and get out of debt and pay cash for things instead of financing them.

But always in the back of my mind was the idea that this was "not it", that the Great Thing lay out there and I was somehow always on the precipice of finding it.  

If only, I thought, I could just get out of this career.

And yet when I wrote my letter to go along with CV for the recent application, I found my attitude had completely changed.

For the first time that I can remember, I was not applying for a position merely because I needed one or that I wanted make a change to a higher level or better pay.  I applied because I truly thought that I could make a difference in my workplace - not a scientific difference of course (no sane person wants me in a laboratory or manufacturing space), but a difference in the way work, in the way we communicated, in the way the site does the business that it does.

Somehow, almost accidentally after 25 plus years, I had found my calling.  Perhaps even more ironically (but just like every major romantic or life change Hallmark-style movie), it was under my nose the whole time.   I just had to humble myself to realize that "Greatness" and "Great Importance" were not something I had been called to; making things better and being a better servant of others was.  A far humbler task, to be sure, but apparently the one that actually needed to be done.

Sometimes humbling ourselves before God means ignoring what we think we are called to do and asking "What would You have me do?"  And sometimes in that answer, the obstacles that previously beset us may be moved aside - not that they allow us to go our own way, but rather that they allow us to go in the way He always desired for us.

Moving On Up

 You may recall approximately two months ago I had applied for a managerial position at my current place of employ:  same department, some of the same duties, same people.  The process took a bit longer than I think anyone had anticipated, partially complicated by the fact that I had hauled off and gone out of the country for two weeks.

I received a job offer last week.

The offer is for a manager level position; I would be primarily responsible for a certain subsection of the activities that we do - although still doing a lot of things; we are too small a department for true specialization.  I would be "managing" five of my current peers - I say "managing" as they all know far more than I do of the operations and the history behind them. Beyond the potential increase in bonus and stock option structure, a somewhat nice thing is that due to my "years of managerial experience" (or less delicately put, I am old) they were able to increase the amount of increase between levels.  As a result, combined with my annual raise it is almost a 23% increase in the little over a year since I started here.

While I am pretty pleased with the outcome - from one of the interviewers, a friend (I actually knew and had worked with every single interviewer I had), the other candidates were credible so it was not just a slam dunk - it did strike me as a little odd.  After all, most people do not go from individual contributor to managerial level in a year. I checked with my "new" reports about how they felt about everything, mostly because I was once assigned to a former coworker when they got promoted rather hurriedly and it was not a great experience (in fact, I ended up leaving that position about six months later).  No-one seemed particularly concerned about that aspect, hopefully because they know me now well enough that a change in level is not of any concern (I remain, as I tell them, exactly as you know me now:  What You See Is What You Get).

I have to confess I feel the tiniest bit of satisfaction at this news - not just because of the promotion, but because I feel that it validates my strategy of taking the position originally:  rather than apply for a managerial position that I might or might not make the initial intake scan because of my background and lack of a scientific degree in a science field, I applied for an individual contributor role,  hoping that I could demonstrate my value and eventually things would change.

In that sense, my strategy worked out better than I had hoped.

My official new role starts next Wednesday (beginning of the pay period).  Nothing really changes in practice, other than the fact that I will have even more e-mails and more meetings (the sign of "rising in the modern corporate world).  But I do enjoy my job and my coworkers.

And for the first time in a very long time, I neither have to drive to a new place nor learn new systems (or move to new locations!) to start a new role.  All in all, not a bad way to "start" a new position.

Essentialist (XIV): Essence of the Essentialist: Explore: Play

 Anyone of a certain age will remember the ending of the Disney movie "Mary Poppins" where the father of the household, George Banks - a rather gruff figure who is the paragon of a British Banker in the early t20th Century - has been disgraced and his career cashiered, suddenly realizes the joy that he has missed for so many years.  At the end of the movie find him, bowler hat with a hole in it, flying a kite joyfully with his children (cue "Let's Go Fly a Kite" here), having restored joy not just to himself, but to his household.

A fictional story, writes McKeown, but based in an idea that play can restore a great many things - joy, camaraderie, delight - to our lives.

One never has to teach a child to play; they seem to figure it out on their own.  Their imaginations take over, spinning tales and activities in their mind.  It becomes as spontaneous and free form - and it is not just us as humans:  young animals love to play as well.  Go to any shelter or barnyard or zoo and one will find young animals - and older ones - engaging in activities that make no sense except that they are...well, playful.

But something happens to us humans over time as we grow up: "We are introduced to the idea that play is trivial, that it is a waste of time.  Play is unnecessary.  Play is childish.  Unfortunately, many of these negative messages come from the very place where imaginative play should most encouraged."  Schools, posits McKeown, are a large contributor.  Based on the work of Sir Ken Robinson, a researcher of creativity, he notes "We have sold ourselves into a fast-food model of education and it's impoverishing our spirit and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies...Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement.  And it's the one thing I believe we are systematically jeopardizing in the way we educate our children and ourselves."

Nor, McKeown notes, is the workplace any better: companies tend not only to not foster the concept of play and creativity, but actively undermine it.  Not surprising, he suggests, based on the fact that modern corporations are a product of the Industrial Revolution which focused on efficiency in the mass production of goods and used the military of its day as a model for organizational purposes.

"Play", as McKeown defines it, is "...anything we do simply for the joy of doing it rather as a means to an end." Play matters, he suggests, as studies show adults who engage in some form of play see results in anything ranging from "personal health to relationships to education to organization's ability to innovate."  Play, he states is critical to firing up the brain.

So how do Essentialists handle this?  How does play provide inputs to the pursuit of the vital few in the midst of the trivial many?  In three ways, suggests McKeown.

1)  The first way is that it broadens the range of options to us.  By playing - doing something for the sheer joy of doing it - many things can happen.  We see possibilities we might not have otherwise seen, we broaden our perspectives, we make connections, we learn new things.  Albert Einstein valued play:  "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge."

2)  The second way is that play acts as a antidote to stress.  One way is fairly obvious: we move our mind to something we enjoy.  The second is that the more stressed we become, the more the creative and innovative functions of our brain shut down and our thinking narrows (apparently during stress, the emotional part of the brain, the amygdala, gets stimulated while the cognitive part of the brain, the hippocampus, is suppressed).

3)  The third way is that play has a positive effect on the executive functions of the brain - planning, prioritizing, scheduling, anticipating, delegating, and analyzing.  Play stimulated both the careful logical reasoning side and the carefree exploration sides of the brain.  As result, quoting psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell, key breakthroughs in thinking come through in times of play: 

"Columbus was at play when it dawned on him the world was round.  Newton was at play in his mind when he saw the apple tree and suddenly conceived of the force of gravity.  Watson and Crick were playing with possible shapes of the DNA molecule when they stumbled upon the double helix.  Shakespeare played with iambic pentameter his whole life.  Mozart barely lived a waking moment when he was not at play.  Einstein's thought experiments are brilliant examples of the mind invited to play."

How does the Essentialist do this? Mostly it is on their own initiative:  companies (on the whole) do not encourage play or the concept of play as important; if anything, they tend to emphasize The Non-essentialist's view that play is trivial.  Which is a bit odd in that companies often deeply desire the creativity and innovation that moves the world (and profit) forward.

How do we start this process for ourselves?  McKeown suggests we start in our own past to mine our own memories:  What did you do as a child that excited you?  How can you re-create that?

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Application

I have to admit that of the four items to explore, this one was the most counterintuitive and odd to me.

Do I agree with his premises, that play is valuable and that it is pushed away by institutions and well-meaning people as we grow up?  I do.  My mind goes back to the quote I posted earlier this week  "One day, you and your friends went out to play for the last time".   It happens, almost imperceptibly at first, until we find ourselves mired in a job and a home and a life that seems too often to do everything it can to remove those opportunities. "Play" becomes something we do for two hours on the weekends or thirty minutes on a evening and often has ulterior motives: the workout that is only ever in a gym, the sport that masquerades as a social event, the reading that only takes place because it is required.

Do schools also insure this?  It is obviously long since I have been in school so I do not know if I can fully address that.  But business?  Business is the play killer:  Serious stuff we are about here, no fun allowed.  This can be as wide ranging as the modern open business office where no-one has space and thus no ability to display personality or fun to the groups and meetings which are only, ever slow descents into the madness of the endless discussion.

In other words, if we are going to be about play and the benefits it offers, it is up to the individual.  No-one and no institution will encourage this for you.

Oddly enough, I think this is one place that I may actually be doing okay.

I tend to be whimsical at work.  I hum to myself as I walk along.  I happily present bad Dad jokes.  My rule of thumb is "If your phone ringer is on and loud, I will dance.  Even in a meeting."  I have known to skip in the hall.

I try activities at home that are mostly useless in the modern world, or at least not at all profitable but bring joy to me.  I collect random historical facts about specific times and periodically present them for no good reason.  I continue to try to make "International Speak Like A Pirate Day" an actual thing at work.

I undoubtedly cause my managers some grief (although not of the Human Resources kind).  I am reasonable sure there are those that consider me a somewhat unserious person.  But I have to admit that I am usually pretty happy and can bring a smile to almost anyone I meet.

I may not be able to play as much as I used to, but I try to gamify the corporate work experience and life outside of work.  Am I more creative?  Hard to say.  But I do tend to be on the happy side more often than not.

The Collapse CLXXXVII: A Wife's Lament

 October 28, 20XX+1

Dear Lucilius:

Seneca has always said it was fine to write to you whenever I felt like it. He offered to let me read the letters he has “sent” you and will sometimes read part of them out loud tome. I typically do not read them without him as someone’s mail is their business and I like to respect people’s privacy. And sometimes I think he shares things with you he cannot share with anyone else here.

But I am worried about him.

I am sure he wrote to you that people here have asked him to help… I am not sure the word I would use here. It is not really lead, as he has firmly rejected the idea every time it comes up. It is not really advice, because from what he talks about to me and to Young Xerxes when he is here, it is more than strong suggestions.

He has used the word “caretaker”. I am not really sure why he chose that one, but it is the one that he keeps using.

Every since that meeting, he has been distracted and not home. I have to count on Young Xerxes or my daughter to tell me these things, because he even when he is home, he is not really home.

From Young Xerxes, I know that he has been walking – walking up and down the state highway that cuts through the town, walking around the edges of the town, walking down the handful of roads and streets that constitute the town. And then he comes back and draws at night on scrap paper. I have looked over his shoulder and it looks to be a map of the town that he has been drawing, with lines and squares and arrows written on them. He has at least a half dozen on the table.

I also know from Young Xerxes that he has now visited almost everyone in town. I think there are not more than 20 houses now that have someone living in them, and some of those are the people that think less of him after the trial. But Young Xerxes is sure he has been to every one of them, looking around, talking, asking questions.

He seems so tired and distracted when he gets home that I have to forcefully remind him to eat and drink – and even when he does that, it is less than he would usually do. When I ask him about his day, it takes him a moment to almost “come back” from some other location. He is somewhere at the moment that no-one else seems to be.

I having been giving him shoulder rubs in the evening. The tension is so much there and he seems so unaware of it. And I know he is not sleeping well, that he rises in the middle of the night so as to not wake me (he always does, of course; I don’t have the heart to tell him that as it will add just one more thing to his load) and comes out and sits in the very dim light of the fire. I don’t hear any noise when he is out there; I think he is just staring into the flames.

I love my husband, Lucilius. I just wish sometimes he had less of a sense of responsibility for others.

Your friend, Pompeia Paulina

2025 Japan: Small Snapshots Of Tokyo

 The latter half of our training was in Tokyo.

From my hotel room at night, overlooking Shinagawa:

The same view at sunrise:

Street arcades in Asakusa:

Asakusa Shrine:

Walking in Tokyo at night to and from training:

2025 Japan: Going Outside

 One of the things that has surprised people in the past when I discuss our training in Iaijutsu is the amount of time we spend in the place that we train.  One could literally enter the doors the day of the start of training and not feel the need to go outside until the end of training and we are ready to leave - it is that exhausting and intense.

That said, I made myself go outside at least once.

Looking towards Katsuura.  The blue you see at the bottom left is the Pacific Ocean.

Back towards the hills:

Bulbs were starting to emerge:

Last Drive Of The Mazda5

 One of the things I have written of in the past is realization that we so often miss last moments.

The thought was crystalized for me years ago by a nameless quote that read "One day, you and your friends went outside to play for the last time."  It is simple in words and phrase, but devastating in impact:  Do I remember that last day?  Was I conscious after the fact that such a thing never came again? 

I think I remember it - a Summer's day, likely before my freshman year when my best friend and I headed into the woods, maybe to play some sort of military game or huddle in a tent and play Dungeons and Dragons - but now I cannot be sure.  But then was high school and marching band and drama and new friends; likely the old was replaced with the new.

It is perhaps because of youth that so many of these events slip by us: we become so used to have new events and new firsts all the time that the ending of things somehow gets lost in the background.  We are, all too often, quite unaware of the cessation of things in the blossoming of new experiences.

I would argue that it is only over time that we become attuned to such things: the death of a loved one or pet that happens a short time after we see them, the milestones of our friends and children that come with the sudden realization that we will no longer be driving to that school or watching those games or programs, the leaving of a place, knowing in our hearts that although we might like to return someday the chances we will are quite slim because of circumstances or remaining time or other things we have to do.

And then we enter the retrograde movement of gathering years where the last times become far more prevalent that the first times.  If we have planned well and learned to acknowledge such things, the pain can be assuaged by the memories we have built up.  But we we have not - if we have assumed that everything will continue as it always has - I suspect our lives become nothing but a steady drumbeat of sorrow.

---

In the picking up of the new car (hereby known as The Pseudo-Truck; many thanks to friend of this blog and long time reader STxAR for the idea), I had to get the old one back to the apartment.  Fortunately my coworker was willing to give me a ride and so, as soon as lunch hit, we set off.

The drive from work to home is a reverse of the drive to work:  a series of eight to ten traffic lights and three turns (three rights and one left going to work, the reverse coming home) over the course of two and one half miles.  The route is familiar to me; I have driven it now for almost a year, a series of light commercial, condos, and apartments lined with green grades of grass and wide sidewalks and bike lanes.

I am painfully conscious, as I keep checking in my rearview mirror for my coworker, that this is likely the last time I will drive this car.

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The Mazda5 is one of two cars we have purchased new since I started dating The Ravishing Mrs. TB a rather long time ago: we each came into the relationship with a car and, over the years, other cars (all used) slowly rotated in and out of the cycle, a series of vans and compact sedans based on the needs of a growing family and long commutes.

It strikes me now that for Na Clann, this car represents one of the main cars that they will remember as having been in their childhood. For the youngest, Nighean Dhonn, it may be the one constant that she remembers.

Do I remember the cars that we had as a child?  I remember being four or five and my father driving a Blue Chevy truck (likely from the 1950's).  I almost never remember riding in it, only that he drove it to and from work and that eventually the engine blew up.  My mother must have had something to drive at that point - I cannot recall what it was, but I suspect if I were to look in the photo albums now packed up at The Ranch, I would see a photo that would jog my memory.

What I do remember is the gold Pinto station wagon that we bought circa mid 1970's, being put into plastic rising seats (the then version of today's child seats) or - horror of horrors - just sitting in the back of the station wagon. And I remember the mid 1970's yellow Datsun truck we bought, primary so we could get a camper to put on it, and the trips that we took in Home State and across the U.S..

The last car I firmly remember was that of a 1981 Chevy Malibu.  We got it new; it was my father's pride and joy.  It only had to two doors and the front seats that folded forward to allow access to the back, along with its state of the art 8-track tape player.  I also fondly remember it for being the first car I ever drove, the one and only driving lesson my mother tried to give me resulting (I think) in a level for psychic scarring of both of us and the assumption of all driver's training duties by TB The Elder.

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Driving along through the traffic lights and green grass that line the road, I drove the car like every other day I had driven it.

Cars that we drive so often come to seen like an extension of our bodies, something that we seem to intuitively know.  Over the years I had come to understand (and expect) the various creaks as I drove, how to compensate for the slight imperfections and minor mechanical issues that were not enough to warrant going to the shop and could be worked around, like learning to hip nudge the sliding doors on occasion or when to use the brights when the regular lights were dim.  These were all know factors to me, things I did instinctively as I had made my drives over that past 10 years to and from what had become the routines of my life:  work, gym, Iaijutsu, the rabbit shelter. Years and years of creaks and slams and family trips across town, across state, and halfway across the country at least twice to visit our family in Old Home.

All now slipping down to miles, then yards, then feet as I pulled into the driveway.

The end of the event itself was underwhelming; I hopped out of the car and locked it, then ran to hop into my coworker's car so we could hurry down to the dealership to get my car and then get back to work.  And later that day, when I pulled it forward and back a bit to get some cardboard under the tire to get the worst of the fluid leak, it went no more than two feet.

Sic transit gloria mundi. 

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Yesterday was the transfer of materials from the old car to the new car, almost a rite of passage for American drivers of a certain age.  

Out of the Mazda5 came all of the items I had carried over the years: the jumper cables and leather gloves and oil, the small Get Home bag I made years ago and the Mexican serape my parents had purchased in Tijuana and given to me which made a useful blanket I had used more than once, the tire pressure gauge and pens and paper maps (yes, I still carry paper maps) and Gideon's New Testament from the early 1980's they were handing out at high school at the time and my official "right to go to the rabbit shelter" badge and letter from The Plagues circa 2020 stored in the glove box, and the reusable shopping bags and picnic blanket under one of the folding seats.  

Most importantly, and perhaps most superstitiously of all, the faded paper of house drawing and a small neat folded paper flower that had been made by one of Na Clann years ago and left under the other folding seat which I had kept there, perhaps just as much for luck as I did for the memories that they represented, a father's desperate attempt to keep at bay the inevitable adulthood of his children.

At the end of this, I bowed to the car and thanked it for its loyal years of service.  For all that it is inanimate metal and plastic and fabric, it had given us safe transport and memories that would last the lifetime of Na Clann.

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Tomorrow, the car donation people will come by.  We will sign a few papers, they will hook it up and drive away, and we will notify New Home 2.0 that the car is no longer in our possession.  Some 30 days later, the same will happen for the insurance company.  It will be - except for our memories and pictures in albums and on electronic devices - as if it had never been.

We cannot stop time from flowing and things from ending.  But, perhaps, we can at least take the moment when it happens and be grateful for all that led to that last time.

A Year Of Humility (XIV): Perspective And Gratefulness

 The whole things started two weeks ago, when a spot was appearing under my car that was persistently not going away.  I had thought (initially) that the local repair guy was parking in an empty spot that was the cause, but it was there.  I finally bent down and took a taste.

Bitter.  Based on the location (driver's rear tire), brake fluid.  Suddenly the unexpected loss in the brake fluid reservoir made sense.

The Car, as you might remember, is...well aged, a 15 year old Mazda5 with 223,000 miles on it.  The issues had been been slowly piling up over the last year - a small oil leak, the sliding doors requiring a good hip slam to get into place, the batteries on two of the low tire pressure indicators expended (thus, the low pressure gauge is always on), headlamps that are dim with age though refinished once, and the most recent issue of change one of bulbs and having the wiring harness snap off (and then crimping back in place with sleeves).  

But it ran. It was fit for purpose for a fellow who drives maybe 60 miles in a week.  However, that all changed with the new leak.  Hazardous at some point to drive of course and not great for the environment - but more to fact, not really worth investing more money in for a repair that was likely to lead to other repairs.

And so, we moved from "That is something I might think about doing" to "This is something I definitely need to resolve>'

I had been putting some thought into this some months ago, even before the leak manifested itself - after all, mileage is mileage and at some point everything gives out.  And I did not really want to have to go through the problems of re-registering the car here in New Home 3.0.  

There were two things I believed to be true:  I wanted a truck, and I wanted a manual transmission.

I had become rather spoiled by driving my parents' truck during my weekly visits from 2020 to early 2024.  Not just because it was useful (it was).  It was just, frankly fun.

And manual transmissions.  After the failure twice of an automatic transmission in our previous early 2000's Dodge Caravan at precisely 100,000 miles and 200,000 (almost on the nose), I swore I would never buy another automatic transmission again (and I have not, although family members have).  The Mazda 5 was a manual transmission; I intended to drive a manual transmission until they were either illegal or not produced (or I was not driving).

There was, however, one small problem:  manual transmissions are rather rare in the United States now, at least in new vehicles.

Were you to look online for 2025 available manual transmissions in the U.S., you would only find that there are 22 vehicles that have such a thing.  Of those vehicles, there is only one truck - the Toyota Tacoma - which can be built with a manual transmission.  And, if you researched it a bit further, you would find that to get said manual transmission, you would need to pay about $4,000 extra for the privilege.  That, on top of a starting price (pre-tariffs) of $38,000 or so.  So around $42,000 for the base model.

---

That, of course, was all in the theoretical state of not needing one.  I had researched other used trucks with manual transmission.  They ran anywhere from 50% to 75% of a new model. 

But then a thing happened:  one of my coworkers had a son that works at a local dealership.  

I happened to search their website last weekend and found there a mid 2010's Kia Soul, 54,000 miles, with a price tag of about $9,000.  It was even a manual transmission.  But certainly not a truck, and certainly not a newer one.  But I made a note to talk to my coworker the next week.

On Tuesday morning, I mentioned in passing to my coworker about the Soul.  She looked at me.  "If you are serious, you need to go - now.  The tariffs are taking effect tomorrow and my son said the prices are going up."

There was a moment - only a moment - where I hesitated.  It was not precisely what I wanted - certainly not a truck.  But it was within our price range (we could pay cash).  And would do the basic things I needed it to do:  drive me from point A to point B.

Which found me, 15 minutes later, hurtling down the road to buy a car.

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In short, two hours later found me in possession of a new to me 2010's Kia Soul with 54,000 miles and a 6 speed manual transmission (out the door price was around $10,800).  A lot of things had to happen to make that happen:

 - My boss was fine with me having to rush out in middle of the day to make a car purchase.

- My co-workers were willing to cover part of my floor shift.

- The car was still there.

- We had the cash to purchase.

- We had no trade-in and an all cash purchase on a used car, which speeds the process immeasurably (including the about upselling you maintenance agreements - much more limited opportunities with a used car).

- And frankly, I had to ask the question of my coworker to alert me that I needed to take actions.

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There are, for me, two lessons here.

The first is simply God's sovereignty.  The fact that all of the conditions occurred perfectly when they needed to is amazing, when I sit and think about it.  I might not have been able to leave work.  My coworkers my not have been able to cover.  The car might have been gone.  We might not have had the cash.

But when the moment came, it was incredibly smooth, flawless, and without effort.  That is nothing I did.

The second - more pointed and relevant to the theme this year - is a self examination of myself.

When I first started this search, I was very much in the mode of new truck/manual transmission. Why? Because, somehow, I deserved it.  For reasons.  Undefined reasons, but reasons.  Sure, I could justify it by being the last vehicle I might buy, but it was also just as much about me and my desires.

Then, last Sunday at church during a sermon on the Lord's Prayer, we almost got to the part about "Give us this day our daily bread".  

Note the idea "daily". Literally, "enough for the day".  And "bread" - the staff of life, basic food to sustain us.  Until tomorrow.

How often have I prayed that prayer and said "daily bread" when I really meant " A week's worth of gourmet eating, please".

Yes, the vehicle I bought is not new.  It is not perfect.  It is not a truck.  But it is clean (really clean inside and the engine is clean too).  It runs.  It does not have a brake line leak or an oil leak.  The headlights work. And it is fiscally responsible.

Good heavens, it even has Bluetooth.

Sometimes - perhaps - being humble is being willing to mean what we say when we say we are fully dependent on God's provision for everything that is needful.  Not want-ful, but needful.  Like bread and a roof over our heads and a job that pays and a vehicle that runs.

And sometimes in that humble acceptance, we get an unexpected bonus - like, for example, finding out how fun a six speed is to drive.

Everything I Do Not Need

This past weekend with my sister and The Outdoorsman in town, we made a stop at The Super Large Bookstore in town.  The Outdoorsman found a bench immediately while my sister and I headed off into the aisles and piles.

I emerged some time later, empty handed.  He looked at me quizzically.  "Nothing that was on my list", I said, "and if it is not on the list, I am probably not buying it.  I am literally out of space."

Later when they came back to the apartment and looked at my shelves, he nodded.  "I see what you mean" he said.

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One of the challenges that has come up as I continue along the path of Essentialism and finding "The Vital Few" is a realization of not only how much I have, but how little I need.

To be fair, I think with the exception of one or two items - probably socks and jeans - I have all the clothing I could possibly use until I die.  I could (and should) re-read every book I own instead of purchasing another one.  I have all the training weapons I will ever need.  And except for the perishable item of bacteria, I have the cheesecloth and molds for almost every kind of cheese.

On and on it goes.

In some things I am trying to more carefully manage what "need" - books is one example.  As mentioned above, there is a list of books.  They are not available through the library (which is the first screen everything now goes through).  They are books that I want to read and have a high chance of re-reading (the second screen everything now goes through).  And so they exist on a Thriftbooks list, patiently waiting both to appear and to be evaluated before I press the "Buy now" button.

If there is a new "book" I want, it goes on the list.  Because I am at the point of only buying from the list.

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How does this tie into the idea of organizing my life and the Vital Few?

As the things I am leaning towards "going big" on continue to emerge, what also emerges is everything else that I am not "going big" on.  Which leads to two questions:

1)  For the Vital Few, what do I really need and do I have it? (For most of the items that are rising to the top of the list, I do.)

2)  For the Trivial Many, I should obviously not be doubling down with more if it is something that I do not intend to follow - but the question then becomes "Why am I keeping what I am keeping"?

That second question becomes a very telling one.  If I am consciously not going to follow up on things, why do I still keep them?  One could argue it is the sunk cost fallacy; one could also argue that it is simply the dragon nature within me that insists I keep my hoard, no matter the fact that it brings me no value or joy beyond being mine.

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An odd thing, this realignment of material values as I sort through the things I really should be focusing on.

Only one things seems certain:  Not only should I have less things by the end of this, anyone hoping to make a living off of me by counting on me to purchase things will be sadly out of luck.

Essentialism (XIII): Essence Of The Essentialist: Explore: Look

 "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"  - T.S. Eliot

"In every set of facts, something essential is hidden".

Journalism, starts McKewon quoting an interview of journalist Nora Ephron, consists in understanding a very specific set of things.  There are the standard things that is taught to any aspiring journalist (or Quality Investigator, for that matter):  Who, What, When Where, How, even Why.  But there is also the real issue:  What is the point of the thing being reported on and why does it matter?

Like a journalist, says McKeown, Essentialists look for that essential thing.  It means exploring the information and pieces and parts.  It means exploring their relationships and their connections - and making them explicit in their relationship, not just vague.   It mean "...constructing the whole from the sum of its parts and understanding how these different pieces come together to matter to anyone.  The best journalists do not simply relay information. Their value is in discovering what really matters to people."

Non-essentialists, posits McKeown, suffer from a lack of focus, a day by day overwhelming from information and requests that make it difficult to understand what matters and what does not.  The Non-essentialist can end up "missing the point" to something in any circumstance (work or home) and not realize the error until it was too late.

How do we begin to look for what is important, the "why"?

1) Look for the big picture

In 1972, an Eastern Airlines crash which killed 100 passenger.  The fault, investigators discovered, was not the mechanical condition of the aircraft (perfect working order), but rather that during preparation for landing the indicator light for nose gear had not lit up - although the gear was locked in place.  Focused solely on this issue, the pilots failed to notice that the auto-pilot had been deactivated - until it was too late.

Likewise, suggests McKeown, being the "journalist" of our life - look for the why and why it matters, will help us stop focusing on the minor details and being to see the bigger picture around us.  We should, he suggests, look for the "lead" like any good journalist does - the who, what where, why, when and how- but also the "why it matters".

2)  Filter for the fascinating

None of us can ever follow up and explore every single piece of information that we encounter in our lives.  Instead, we have to become discerning, to "...understand what is essential to explore requires us to be disciplined in how we scan and filter all the competing and conflicting facts, options, and opinions constantly vying for our attention.  He uses a quote from Thomas Friedman that the best journalists listen for what others do not hear the things that are not being said.

Likewise, Essentialists are powerful observers and listeners.  Knowing that - from the rule of trade-offs, that everything is a trade off and we can do anything but not everything - they focus their attention on what is not being explicitly stated:  they read between the lines.

Non-essentialists also listen - but they listen only while preparing to respond. They distracted by the noise of the conversation. They pay too much attention the detail that are of no consequence.  They too often hear the loudest voice but get precisely the wrong message: McKeown quotes C.S. Lewis in that they are people running around with fire extinguishers in times of flood.

They miss the lead.

So how does the Essentialist not miss the lead?

A)  Keep a Journal - To act like a journalist of our lives, he suggests keep a journal.  Because we as humans are terribly forgetful about what happened earlier this week, let alone last year.  He uses quote I had never heard before but it is completely accurate: "The faintest pencil is better than the strongest memory."

How often?  How much?  He does not have a periodic suggestion, other than "regularly".  And his suggestion for how much is simply write less than you feel like writing until the habit is established.

His other recommendation is every 90 days or so, spend an hour or two to re-read all of your journal entries - not focus on the details, but to focus on the main themes, on the things that are said and the things that are not said.  Look for the lead - we cannot always see small changes daily, but over time trends become visible.

B) Get out in the Field - To truly solve a problem, it is important to see what problem actually needs to be solved.  And that can sometimes only be done by actually making a visit or tour of things related to the problem to truly understand what the problem is - because without understanding the actual problem, we cannot understand the actual solution.

(Quality and Lean practitioners will know this as Gemba walks.  The word "Gemba" means "the actual place" in Japanese; the concept is to go to where the work is done to understand the work or process and its challenges).

C) Keep your eyes peeled for abnormal or unusual details - McKeown quotes another journalist, Mariam Semaan, who suggests that finding the lead and spotting the essential information are learnable skills.  What you need is knowledge:  understanding of the topic, its context, the bigger picture, and its relationship to different field: "'My goal', she said, 'was to understand the 'spiderweb' of the story because that is what allowed me to spot any 'abnormal' or 'unusual' details or behavior that didn't quite fit into the natural course of the story.'"

D) Clarify the Question:  We are human.  We can tend to avoid the hard questions.  We can tend to avoid them by giving vague answers rather than the process of finding the facts and information needed to give a thoughtful, cogent answer.  Yet, says McKeown, that vague answer only sends us down the path of further vagueness and misinformation.  One way to get out of that cycle is to clarify the question.

This can be a multi-stage process.  We can ask a question, then talk more, then reframe and re-ask the question based on the discussion and additional data - but always, always, we should be driving to the point of "What is the actual question we are trying to answer?"  Only when we have and ask the right question can start to get the right answers.

Application:

I have never been as good as looking at the big picture as I should have been.  Part of that is I often apply my own "version" of the big picture instead of the actual big picture - "Dealing with the facts as you find them, not the facts as you wish them to be (I really like to think I said this, but I probably inherited it from somewhere else).  It is only later in life that I have stated to actually learn to look at the larger picture and pick out the things that are unusual or unexpected.

Of his four suggestions, by far the one I have developed best is that of the journal.  I have keep a journal - not daily all the time, but very regularly all of the time and daily most of the time - since 1989.  What I not so good at is going back to look for themes and trends (oddly enough, I quite dislike going back and reading what I have written. I am my own worst critic).

The other three items - Getting out in the field, Keeping my eyes peeled for abnormal or unusual details, and Clarifying the Question - are all things that I use rather daily in my work life (they really all are Quality and Lean concepts).  I do not know necessarily know how to get out in the fields I need to in my personal life but there must be a way.  Keeping my eyes peeled is really a practice that I work in my sword training (always looking for that intent to draw).  And if nothing else for many of the years of this blog, I have been effectively (and terribly slowly, apparently) clarifying the questions of my life.

Am I seeing the big picture?  Probably still no, although there are moments that I see faint outlines.

The Collapse CLXXXVI: Greeks And Giants

 25 October 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Settlements: What are they? How do they come to be? How do they fade away?

For some reason, as I have given thought to this commitment I have made, two historical tracks come into my mind.

The first is of the Ancient Greeks, those hardy traders and adventurers of “the wine dark sea”, who sailed through the Mediterranean and beyond (you will remember the Athenian Empire imported wheat from the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea). What would it have been like to be the first ones to show up and essentially, ex nihilo, construct a settlement, a place to establish their lives? Not every place made it of course, and sometimes they chose poorly – for example, the founder of the Greek colony of Khalkedon (Chalcedon), who founded his colony on the Asian side of the Bosporus Straits missing the much better and more secure location that a later founder, Byzas, found on the other side which worked out slightly better as Byzantium – but they had a lot of success as well: Massalia (Marseillies), Tarantum (Taranto), Syracuse, the entire now-Turkish side of the Aegean Sea once called Ionia (if Turkey – or any country – still exists).

One wonders what amazement and wonder would fill the founders’ minds if they saw their humble beginnings in the modern world.

The other image is that of Anglo-Saxon Britain – but really, post-Roman Britain. What would it have been like to live amid a city or villa slowly falling to pieces (or being cannibalized by others for building materials), using stones and techniques that you had no idea how they were even possible? Carefully squared corners and plumb lines of stone walls, water running through pipes, constructions of walls and temples and buildings the size and scope of which you had no idea how they came to pass, delicate mosaics and paintings slowly fading or becoming buried with pictures of things you had never seen? At least one Anglo-Saxon writer wondered; the poem is called “The Ruin”. In the author’s reflections on the decaying buildings and the amazing works that must have happened there (but no more), he theorizes that it was the work of giants.

We, sadly, have neither hardy Greek adventurers nor giants, only ourselves.

A “nation”, as you may recall from your political geography courses, is a group of people that share a language, and culture, and a history or backstory. A “state”, as you may recall from the same course, is a term for a group of people has both territory and administrative power over that territory.  The two are not synonymous of course:  you can have a nation without a state or a state with many nations (or one nation).

As a small group, we seem to share a language and a sort of culture and in some ways a history, even if it is just a history of living together. We have a place we live, which (technically) counts as territory and at the moment, some level of administrative power, even if it is simply in the absence of the former governmental body that was in control of this part of the world.

So – maybe – we have something to start with.

We have local allies if we want them, Kentucky City of course, and Grant down the other way (although them seem far less interested). We have a citadel of sorts if we wanted to use it as such, the old Brick Schoolhouse from the early 20^th Century. We have things like year round water and something of a growing season and a population – or at least what is left – that understands what the seasons and weather means here.

A population that is fragmented, of course. And a territory that cannot be encompassed by any means that I can think of.

But compared to the Greeks and the Anglo-Saxons, we have quite a lot: we do not have create a settlement from scratch and we still have living memory of how such things were done.

It is not a perfect equation, Lucilius. But it may be enough.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2025 Japan: Food

 One of the things I tend to take regular pictures of in Japan is the meals.  Most of them are at the center we train at and are served buffet style.

Curry and Rice:  The curry is a bit spicy but manageable for me.

You will notice the soup and rice at almost every meal.

My guess is this is a breakfast.  We regularly had salad for breakfast, which is quite different for me.

Beer with the meal, so probably dinner.

As with last year we went to a traditional soba restaurant in Tokyo.

Udon, rice, and gyoza (and beer, of course).

Breakfast in our hotel.  They were all similar to this.  Japan has excellent baked goods.

During one of our days of training, we grabbed lunch from a mini-market.  They are quite upscale, especially compared to the average American one.

We took a morning trip to Asakusa and had lunch at a stand up sushi bar that had about 10 places to stand.

Udon:

Udon with tofu.

And dessert!  Coffee ice cream.

Breakfast the day we left - because you should always try something familiar when far away.

2025 Japan: Fuji And Vending Machine Outputs

Having finished our trip to Turkey,  I have a little catching up on other travel to do.

So, meanwhile over in Japan....

As you may recall, I have the opportunity once a year to train in Japan in Iaijutsu, the Japanese sword art that I have studied and practiced since 2009. I have gone from 2018-2020, then (sigh) The Plague, and restarted again in 2024.   Our training sessions are such that we perhaps have half a day to "sight see" (which is often taken up by going to Asakusa in Tokyo to the sword shop as well as shopping for supplies like tabi, setta, obi - things that we can get in the U.S. but are less expensive there).

Still, I try to chronicle what I can.

This is flying into Haneda airport, the first time we have done so (for those that may not know, Haneda is the older of the two airports that serve Tokyo.  The newer one, Narita, is approximately 1.5 hours by train from the center of Tokyo; Haneda is located on the edge of Tokyo Bay, about 20 minutes by train from the hotel we use when we stay in Tokyo.  

Fuji-san was very co-operative for photos; not so much the plane window.

One of the pleasures of Japan (at least for me) are the outputs of their delightful vending machines.  Items cost between 150 and 250 Yen (about 1-2 USD when we went).  It is the only way to get coffee before our early morning training, but they also have a selection of other things served hot and cold from the same machine including tea, milk tea, fruit juice, sports drinks, and other wonders.

Including, as I found when hitting the wrong buttons, corn soup.  Served hot, of course.  Not what I was expecting at all.

Coffee can come cold or hot, with milk or without milk.  Interestingly, most of it is sweetened.

A vending machine.  Red indicates hot drinks, blue indicates cold drinks.  Some play happy music when you make your purchase.

A different brand of coffee.  "Platinum", in case you were wondering, is probably not what platinum tastes like in reality - no metal taste evident.

This was a hot lemon drink.  Quite delightful.

An ice cream vending machine outside.  Even though it was cold, I had to try one.

"Sai-da" is the katakana.  "Soda"?   

It turned out to be an flavored ice sort of squeeze pop.  Kind of like cotton candy flavour.  I was disappointed; I really should have just gone with the ice cream.

This is a map in our hotel in Shinagawa, Tokyo.

That is our hotel! (Based on the size, you can place it on the map above.)

And this is the Nippon Budokan, where we performed our demonstration.

No pictures of vending machine drink outputs would be complete without a mug of Japanese Beer (Kirin, in this case).