Best Of

I was just having a discussion with a good friend about meaning in life, and she held that for her learning and development held more meaning than proving one’s capability through overcoming challenges. For me that hasn’t been true, if I look at my life the things I was most proud of, that lent me the most confidence, they were creating things of beauty and accomplishing difficult things.

I think that meaning ends up in one’s life automatically, as long as you follow your heart. I find that not listening to the mind but listening to the heart is an art, it’s like finding the silence inside even amidst noisy surroundings, a knack. I haven’t always been equally good at it but most of my best decisions have come from that space.

I said yesterday to my dad, if I have a regret it is that I didn’t make it happen when you proposed that we should go on a tour to Egypt together to see the antiquities a couple of years ago. That may still happen, I held it out for him that if he becomes well enough we will go and do it with the two of us. It’s difficult but I think my mother will be alright with being on her own for a couple of weeks if we arrange the right support for her. And that immediately felt like the right thing to do.

Generally I can only find my emotions and the voice of inspiration that comes from my heart when I’m quiet inside.

@person said:

half of people reject it out of hand

I need to rephrase. Only like 10%-20% of the population is either far left or far right that are probably engaged enough to have that reaction. The 60%-80% in the middle are better able to take things as they are. The megaphone of social media makes it seem more extreme as it lets the loudest take control of the narrative. But that in turn creates an increasing polarization.

I used to wonder why so many people held Right Wing positions directly and overtly detrimental to themselves and their families. Then I was unitentionally exposed the one-sided flood of attack ads and deliberte disinformation and misinformation with no room, no space allowed foe any counter arguments or contrary (to the rt wing) messaging of any kind. It waa both a shock and an awakening. It explains much about why people keep voting for candidates and issues that only harm them and never help them.
Almost all of this (in the US) traces back directly to Ronald Regan abolishing the Fairness Docrtine in which the FCC required the holders of broadcast licences "both to present controversial issues ofpublic importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints."
The Right Wing was poised to pounce upon that removal and, with Mr Murdock in the lead, did just that. The Moderates ad te Left were caught competely unprepared, were overwhelmed, and have been playing catch up ever since.

I can't seem to re-find a good source, and am too lazy to dedicate more time to it... From what I've read about the NASA budget cuts, they are more drastic in the realm of non-manned programs than manned missions. Regarding actual science, probes and telescopes are the main thing, while manned spaceflight is more of a vanity project.

I guess that if you're serious about cutting state spending, the NASA budget is on the table, fine. However, personally, I would cut it the other way around, slash the manned spaceflight program, keep the probes and telescopes that do most of the actual science.

Just my view.

I thought the first review on Goodreads was interesting ( here ) in that it pointed to a kind of right wing narrative in the book, in that all the examples Kaufman uses of the victim mindset are of left wing liberal “snowflakes”. While in effect the right wing has its own victim mindset, looking at for example the idea that if it wasn’t for all the immigrants deserving Americans would be able to succeed better, but Kaufman doesn’t cite those cases.

Of course it is an idea popular with the right wing, that one shouldn’t focus on one’s traumas but should instead be ‘tough and rugged’ and this ties in with the trend towards citing Stoic philosophers, who are often thought to have a similar mindset. I see it as kind of a spectrum, in recovery from a traumatic event there comes a certain point where one has to let go of the trauma, otherwise you start identifying with it and perpetuating the idea of it, and that isn’t healthy.

In short I’m a fan of a certain amount of Stoicism. There should be a healthy balance between the extremes of ignoring one’s emotions, and being so caught up in them that any small disturbance is labelled a ‘trauma’. It is good to be in touch with emotion, to be aware and emotionally intelligent, but it can be taken too far, and it is important to be resilient to stress and life events.

There were some other comments that Kaufman had some more extreme right wing thinkers like Charles Murray on his podcast. It’s interesting, recent discussions here between you @person and @shoshin1 have made me more aware of political bias in the discourse of American influencers and on social media.