Oh hey, speaking of what is next, here is a new animation, yes yes! Watch “Hill” (music by Trimmo) on YouTube

Onward:

I recently bumped into a weird little term: “satisficing,” which I first saw when an ex-NFL player wrote about it, and then I nosed around the work of Herbert Simon, an economist who apparently got a Nobel for this sort of thing. There sure are a lot of people out there thinking about a lot of peculiar concepts in great depth. I imagine them walking around with their hands on their chins muttering. But it’s probably not all like that.

“Satisficing” has to do with how people make decisions, and how this process can be overwhelming and result in paralysis (whomst among us has not stared at an aisle of hair products or beers and just - glitched out) and that we long for a bounded decision environment in which we can do Real Things. As in, satisfies the basic needs, and suffices. And then you move on.

Not a magic wand, by any means, but a way, according to these folks, to make progress. Especially in our current world environment of Too Much All The Time.

I tend to think about this as something I call Doing What Is Next.

We run into overwhelming situations constantly, when things around us are changing, and we feel tossed up in the air, or we are worried about Life, or what-have-you. And this overwhelm can get a person quite stuck, or worse, fast-forward one’s brain to bad outcomes somewhere Out There. Either way, our hands lose hold of the steering wheel and that can feel very bad (see also: No Man’s Land)

In these situations I try to say to myself, “Hey, self, you should Do What Is Next.” As in: do something that’s available to you, don’t try to Do It All or Reach The Ultimate Galactic Goal. Because life is lived in order, we don’t jump around, we accumulate. Like rocks, like sand, like rain water.

Sometimes our accumulation means learning something. Other times it might be calling someone up. Or, putting breakfast dishes in the kitchen. Or, folding a pile of laundry. For me, Doing What Is Next is often picking up a pencil and sketching, not trying to make The Ultimate Comic Page. Just roughing something out on a shopping bag or whatever is around. Or writing only the text. Or putting the next ten cartoons into the next Brainwaves book (this is how I’ve gotten to page 300!)

For me at least, this is life lived closer to the ground, a page or a sketch at a time, and then pretty soon some stuff has Happened, and that feels much better than Undefined I-Am-Doing-Nothing Angst. And then I try my best to take a deep breath and Do What Is Next after that.

Neptune Road

Things Of The Week

Here is a game in which you try to find rare words. A good use for any weird words you know.

You can compare the sizes of various animals, even dinos!

Very retro soothing sounds of a disk being defragged. NERDY

Featured Thing

The slow-down Sloth at INPRNT (they do a really nice job with prints and cards)

Okay! That's enough nonsense for now.

May you do a thing, may you do the thing that is next after that, won't you be my neighbor? - Betsy