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Spooky Sundays 🎃: Are you Serious ? (Like Actually)

Spooky Sundays 🎃: Are you Serious ? (Like Actually)

the muses of men

Dominic Henry
October 29, 2023

Spooky Sundays,

Let’s cut right into it. No Preamble.

🧐 Thought(s) of the Week

My methodology for imparting advice.

Very rarely do I give unsolicited advice. Before felt like I knew what’s best , when presented with a problem from someone. But most times I think the person knows best. So if they know best why do they come for advice? Most times they need an outlet or direction. The technique I employ is listen and observe and just ask questions. Don’t hold the reins and guide their life. Just be a beacon that shows them potential paths and allow for them to take their own choices.

Abate Frustration that leads to Anger

Anger seems to be the default position for many who may be frustrated.

A short story.

It’s the end of the month, so it has become customary for me to head to the bank to withdraw money from the ATM. As usual the end-of-month frustrations of ATM lines and frustrated clients not getting money.

It became a lot more heated than usual, a person was so frustrated with not getting money from the machine that they became frustrated and belligerent. This led to them being passive-aggressive towards the security guard, which just further ensued into ad hominem attacks from both parties.

It didn’t feel like the situation could’ve escalated that quickly — but it did. Noticing how I was reacting, I just stayed calm and was in no way perturbed, which feels odd for such a situation.

It dawned on me how frustration brings many to wrath.

We’re all human, and frustration that leads to anger is common. I’ve changed my mental model when it comes to perceiving an inconvenient situation by looking at it as the story having hitches within the road. “This is merely a story point or obstacle in the human story”. Minor inconveniences are a part of the plan, and will just require more brain power to solve.

Since adopting that mindset I’ve become less stressed and calm in the face of problems.

❤️ Weekly Highlights

1 - Seeing a great friend.

He’s the type of friend who inspires creative energy — he reminds me of Rick Ruben. He told me he’s proud of me and that meant a lot, I value his opinion highly.

A lesson I’ve learned from observing my friendships is that different friends provide different values for me — it never feels like a zero-sum game. Not all my friends provide monetary value, some provide creative energy, new ideas, and outlooks.

Don’t judge a friendship solely on one variable. Determine whether there is value reciprocation.

2 - I lost the ability to punch.

I went back to my kickboxing classes, after months of not going. I felt so out of place, the realization that to get better is to continually practice — hit me literally 🥊. Seeing others be able to follow a sequence so smoothly has given me motivation.

As I watched others hit the mits, it dawned on me how effortlessly they were able to execute the combo.

❝

What is effortless comes from many repeated actions over a long timespan.

Dominic Henry (me)

📚Interesting Content

1 - Quote(s) from Rick Ruben (Extracted from the book “The Creative Act: The Way of Being”)

When my appendix burst, the doctor who diagnosed it insisted that I go to the hospital immediately to have it removed. I was told there were no other options. I found myself in a nearby book-store. Standing out on a table in the front was a new book by Dr: Andrew Weil. I picked it up and let it fall open. The first passage my eyes went to said: if a doctor wants to remove a part of your body, and they tell you it has no function, don't believe this. The information I needed was made available to me in that moment. And I still have my appendix.

Look for Clues

The universe has been speaking to me about becoming a master or mastering some endeavor. Many books, pieces of content or observations within my life, has been indicating that I should be on a quest of learning and apprenticeship.

Creating my own cannot be done unless I have the experience and skills to bring new work into the world.

2 - Are you Serious (about anything)?

I recently read a substack essay centered on whether we take life seriously. Since developing more of an awareness outside my bubble, I’ve realized that most tend to let life pass them by. Most are filled with empty statements of ambition — all talk but no action.

Here are a few excerpts from the article that were of interest to me. Click here to view the full article → Are you serious?

I haven’t lived long enough to really demonstrate just how serious I am, and I hesitate to say it because seriousness is something that really you can’t tell from an utterance. You can mainly only tell from watching how someone conducts themselves over an extended period of time. Over decades. Particularly, how they deal with shocks, rough times, downcycles. Everyone is optimistic when times are good. The thing to look out for is who keeps going when the going gets tough.

It’s hard to persist for a long time if you ‘take yourself too seriously’. You become rigid, stiff, the opposite of dynamic, and eventually you bang up against something that breaks you one way or another, because you weren’t able to back down, or laugh it off.

Thoughts: This ties in with my observations from the bank scenario, taking life too seriously all the time makes the rough patches much harder than they need to be.

It’s worth reflecting on this one for a bit. For Feynman, taking physics seriously meant being playful and silly with it. As I revisit my own drafts and notes, I often find the same issue – I want to write essays that mean something to me, but when they become tedious, solemn obligations, then I don’t wanna. That’s the tension to navigate. It’s not complicated.

Thoughts: To become a master, your work should feel like play, any friction or love you don’t have for something, you cannot master.

3 - Random Photo with a Random Thought.

How do they keep the grass so manicured, even with all the people that probably trample over it? It fits the theme of the park, “Emancipation and Prosperity.”

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