Category: Personal Reflections

Lessons learned about life; pearls of wisdom I’ve gleaned through pain, failure and honest reflection

A morning meditation on Rumi

Carl Setzer

I adore Rumi. The wisdom within his poetry has long guided me. 

Within this small line: the importance of faith. Not necessarily directed toward any particular diety. Simply regarding our community. 

Our futures are unknowable until they become our past. Even then meaning slowly gets gleaned. 

I live with a dangerous mindset: desiring to understand all the ramifications of a choice before I act. This impossibility risks paralyzing me. Often, it has. Losing opportunity out of fear? That’s sad. 

I need to embrace that the way will appear when it needs to, and not a moment before. And that this way is good, it is for the best. 

Believe the unknown and uncontrollable are not reasons to hide, to wait, relegating opportunity to vapor. 

I Love XKCD

Carl Setzer

Soberingly powerful. I would never guess a web comic based on stick figures could craft such gut-wrenching stuff.

XKCD is amazing! Check them out now.

Quote of the Day: December 15, 2017 

Carl Setzer

​“in life, in the world, we are never given two known results to choose between, but only one result that we choose without knowing what it is.”

  • Wendell Berry

This is something I need to continuously remind myself about. I always want to know all the details around any choice I need to make. I want certainty. And it never comes. 

Because such isn’t possible. 

That reality needs to be absorbed into my mind fully. 

Do you struggle with this? With the intrinsic need to control the details, avoiding the “wrong choice”? 

How do you keep this under control?

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Thought of the Day: Ambition

Carl Setzer

Ambition can be savagely cruel, especially to those we love.

When we lose sight of the important, of what gives us life, even if we remain alive, we aren’t living.

King: Love & Pride

Carl Setzer

Ah, this…simply glorious in all it’s 80s splendor!

Mullets (things of wonder, architecturally unsound yet resplendent in their glory), androgynous dress, spiky ginormous hair, weird leather and weirder suits, Doc Martens (spray-painted!), strange, nonsensical settings and graphics, and a bunch of young boys in leather running amok, and headbands!

Perhaps intending to grasp some Mad Max ethos by it’s desert setting, otherwise making no sense at all, this video captures a significant taste of the 80s zeitgeist!

I haven’t heard this song in ages. Yet, here it is, again, it all it’s New Wavy glory. And suddenly I’m a teen at Skootchies again (if you lived in Seattle in the 80s, you’ll get it).  May you be elevated by its electronic beat and funky vibe.

 

I broke out my sketchbook today

Carl Setzer

I haven’t done much more than doodle for years. My soul had been begging my to start again. So, he we are.

This sketchbook is one I’ve had for years. So easy to let the blank page intimidate me. I don’t want to ruin my book with crap. Fear.

Finally, with an abrupt leap, the pencil came forth and the paper got marked. No one died. So things are good.

More Thoughts About “Sustainability”

Carl Setzer

Is this the right word?

This “sustainability?

Or symbiosis?

Healing our environment from millennia of destruction requires a new mindset. “Sustainability” gets bantered about a great deal. It points to a goal: creating a life that minimizes, or, better yet, eliminates environmental damage. Though the word gets used a great deal, especially by marketers, we aren’t living sustainability. There are, perhaps, a few elements of our economy that could be considered sustainable, if you bend reality enough.

We need to consider how we interact with our ecology and the ecosystem writ large. How do we build up the environment, or, invest in our environment ensuring the healthiest system for us to survive on.

Westerners in particular have developed a disconnect from the ecosystem from which we draw life. It’s time to think about what we GIVE to that which provides us life. Only taking eventually fails, whether it’s large scale biological systems, or just a group of friends in the neighborhood pub.

With that, I am not convinced that “sustainability” inspires the right vision. Lately I’m leaning towards “symbiosis”. Like the picture above, there’s an exchange between the entities. Something given for something taken. When the loop is big enough, we have a cradle-to-cradle system. Which is when we finally have a system that won’t fail. That is my objective.

 

Some thoughts on this quote: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now

Carl Setzer

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.

The second best time is now.”

– Chinese or African Proverb

 

I’ve heard the quote above attributed to both the Chinese and Africans. At some point, I should spend a little time with Google and answer that definitively. But, really, today the origination of the quote isn’t my concern.

At times I get stuck fretting about the fact I “didn’t start this sooner”. I frustrate myself with that mindset, but it became reflexive. And I lose time and energy with this. >0 time or energy on this mindset: too much.

Lamenting the past is a foolish exercise. Living live with no regrets is not about not making mistakes. Rather accepting that mistakes and poor choices are part of the package. Make the best choices you can, learn from the negatives, then move forward. I need to remind myself constantly, though.

If it’s valuable, do it. Start. There is not better time than now. Really!

A Look At The FUSE Conference

Carl Setzer

I found this fun little video today:

As fan of Debbie Millman’s work, especially her podcast: Design Matters, I really got a kick out it. Now, it’s a bit out of date (2013…wow…in some respects it seems like just a few days ago, and also like a hundred years ago).

I haven’t made it to a FUSE Conference yet. This is something that I find very intriguing and want to experience. Maybe not as bad as Burning Man, but, well, you know…

Anyway, I love the effect of leaving through the notebook. Very charming.

 

Your Best Work Isn’t “Nothing”

Carl Setzer

As you may have noticed, I think very highly of Seth Godin. This blog post gave words to an idea I’ve been considering:

Money for nothing

Seth says “…your best work isn’t nothing…”. I adore that! A reminder that our work is valuable, that our lives have worth. Seeking shortcuts to accomplishment not only shortchanges the one seeking the easy path, it short changes us all. We need to see the value we add, embrace that, and, then, get to work!
I hope you have a marvelously productive Monday!
When searching for a “Featured Image” for this post, I came across this one. Reminds of my favorite things when working for Starbucks and Microsoft.