No. 86 Your value is in how you value
No. 86 • 11/11/2022
Greetings! This week I'm testing a slightly different layout for my newsletter. Instead of the big sections, I'm going full list mode. Would love to hear how you experience it.
You're rewarded for your willingness and not your time spent willing
During this week's lectio divina I read the Christo parable about the Workers in the Vineyard. The story can be summed up as follows:
- In the morning, a vineyard owner hires a bunch of workers to work in his fields for one dinari a day.
- Later in the day, the vineyard owner finds some other people willing to work for one dinari and hires them, as well.
- At the very end of the day, some more people show up and, as with those before, he pays them one dinari for the day.
- When it comes payment time, the first hired workers get pissed, because the people who were hired last got paid the same amount for one hour as they did for an entire day's work. The end.
When reading passages like this, I tend to write down my thoughts as they come, leaving plenty of time for my initial, knee-jerk responses. "The boss needs you more than you need the boss." etc.
Then my thoughts moved toward entitlement. "The first people agreed to a wage. Who are they to say what the vineyard owner pays the others?" etc.
Then I asked myself what was the constant? For what was the vineyard owner paying the workers? This is a parable after all. Maybe I should dig a lil deeper.
When it comes to spiritual practice, and especially spiritual scenes, there are always going to be those who think that the hours they clock doing a thing is the thing they should be valued for. While there is of course value in time spent (see: elder traditions need saving), that value has a ceiling so long as one's heart and mind are in the big bad wrong place.
So, why were the workers (read: spiritual practitioners) all being valued the same? How can a new spiritual practitioner's progress be valued the same as one who has been practicing for decades? Because of their willingness. Each worker possessed the same willingness to engage with the work. It did not matter that there were some who heeded the call later than others. The willingness to do the work was all that mattered. Those who were first, who missed this teaching, missed out on the greater reward. "So the last will be first, and the first will be last."
PS: This is a majorly important lesson for people involved in social justice. Don't hate on the n00bs.
Animals engage in mutual aid. We are animals.
Reading a lovely lil article on everyone's favorite, snuggly, bearded, 19th c. Russian anarchist, Peter Kropotkin. This piece focuses specifically on how observing nature influenced his thinking on mutual aid:
"[Kropotkin] came to believe that mutual aid had deep biological roots because animals engaged in it despite the absence of anything remotely like a government. The process of natural selection had favoured mutual aid in animal populations: anarchy, Kropotkin writes, was 'a mere summing-up of … the next phase of evolution. It is no longer a matter of faith; it is a matter for scientific discussion.' And since animals cooperated in the absence of government, it seemed to Kropotkin impossible that humans could not find a way to break free of government shackles."
It's easy (for me, at least) to fall in love with the non-human natural world evidence for a biological impulse toward mutual aid and, by extension, anarchism. Right up until I remember that there's a ton of hierarchy in nature, insects, et al. That, by human standards, it's a pretty violent place. Not quite government. But, not quite freedom from oppression.
But, then I'm off thinking about how non-human animals live in an eternal presence that makes things like "yeah, but that's not fair" all but nonexistent. Things are. Actions happen. Life is.
Bonus: Great take from a commenter on HN:
"Humans don't live 'in nature'. We live within systems we build."
I'd have to agree. Only I'd say it this way: "Modern, civilized humans don't live 'in nature.' We live within system we build that are in various states of communion and antagonism with nature."
The commenter says it better.
"Hierarchy" is a tired, imprecise term
As I get older, I find far less use in terms like "hierarchy" and "anti-hierarchy." I'm much more interested in "the right people for the job," "showing up," "not being lame," and "not being an entitled monster."
I'm ok with pay-to-play if it leads to an increase in human agency
I think Elon is wrong on most things at a fundamental ideological level. His view of "free speech," for example, is total White Guy bunk. (Like "hierarchy," "free speech" is an increasingly troubled term. "I'm going for the Buddhist "right speech" from now on). But, having people pay for Twitter blue-checks strikes me as a good thing. That is, if it means Twitter becomes an actual product that people purchase access to and is no longer a user-as-product technocratic nightmare. Although, I fear the worst: Having people pay-to-play will merely make the user both a consumer and a product.
Peeps just need a push
What I find most interesting about this (minor) exodus from Twitter that's going on is how it speaks to a desire that seems to have just needed a push to get going. Many people already wanted to leave Twitter. They just needed a good enough reason. This, I'm pretty sure, speaks to many of our experiences of social media as a whole: People want nothing to do with it. They just need a good enough reason (and the possibility for something else that's better) to nudge them out the door.
Just tell me what it costs
Newsletter platforms are very up front about their pricing and I think they should be commended for that. On the other hand, restaurants, clothing stores, and UTV catalogs who do not post their prices should be chastised publicly.
Don't use the common terminology cuz it's be defanged
Ran Prieur does something I like to do: Not Use the Term. Here, he's not using the term "fascism," because it's losing its power, and instead trying to get at something more explicit:
"I want to try to...look for a low-level definition from which high-level definitions can be derived. And I want the definition to be emotional, because I think it's obvious that people decide what they're going to believe for half-subconscious emotional reasons, and then cook up rational justifications.
"I suggest, as the root of repressive human institutions: feeling good about positive feedback in power-over —and by extension, feeling bad about the erosion of power-over."
Not fascism but: feeling good about positive feedback in power-over—and feeling bad about the erosion of power-over.
Here's me Not Using a Term on Twitter this week:
"Ideologically consistent new religious groups with well-demarcated borders, relatively strict orthodoxy and orthopraxis, and who are sometimes led by a charismatic leader usually have awesome restaurants."
Can you guess the word?
Good advice on picking a note-taking / note-making app
Start with a basic notes app (Apple notes, etc). If the notes you take in that app hit the ceiling of what the basic notes app can offer, then "graduate" them to the next base-level note-taking software.
link min 5:32
Another way to think of it uses Nick Milo's differentiation between note-taking and note-making. Note-taking is the rough capture phase where you capture ideas quickly just to get them down. These can be quotes from other people or thoughts you have as you have them. Note-making is the process of turning those captures into something useful by editing the content, linking the idea to other ideas already stored in your stack of notes, etc. So, in this framework, you take notes in one level of software, but you make notes in another.
Don't be annoying to your future self
It seems a lot of people relate to their future self the way overbearing, overzealous, live-vicariously-through-their-children helicopter parents relate to their kids.
For God's sake, be loose with your future self. Give good guidance, some dope references, enough context so they don't have to work too hard. But, make sure you give them plenty of room to do their own thing.
Note: your "future self" is the you for whom you're setting up good practices.
The self as an environment
Visa is one of the handful of minor twitlebrities on Thoughtful Twitter, who every once in a while tweets something that cuts through the refuse:
"recommendation: replace 'I am the source of all my problems' (factually muddy statement. lots of your problems likely have multiple sources, catalysts, etc) with 'I am the site of all my problems' (technically more accurate, and implies opportunity for improvements)"
This is good spice.
Sometimes I'm just that old guy
Many times when I read the Twitter replies I've made on threads showing up in scenes I'm not really a part of (see TPOT above) I think to myself, "Hey. I know that guy. He's old, out of touch, and ignorable." In that moment I have a choice to make. Should I run around trying to convince people I'm not that old guy you don't need to pay attention to? Or, should I accept that in some communities, in some scenarios, I very much am that guy and that's ok?
And, that's that! See ya next week.
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