Bernardino Branca’s product motto
“Novare Serbando (Renew but conserve)”
Fratelli Branca Distillerie motto, 1850
Remember what you want to be doing
Remember what you want to be doing… remember what you care about and what you’re making.
I run a site for new dads and I get sidetracked from time to time looking at the “competition”, comparing my work to theirs, my “place” compared to theirs.
I get frustrated. “WTF!? How does this site have a pagerank of 4!?” “My god, who’s reading this stuff? And they rank for all that!?”
I could spend a shit-ton of time working my way up the list. It wouldn’t be tough. All I’d need to do is post something readable everyday. Maybe hunt for a few links here and there, too, but mostly just write a bunch and tweet about it and google starts to honor me with these abstract metrics.
But that’s not what I’ve committed to making. I’ve committed to making something better, to giving up on analytics and making something I love. I don’t want to blog a bunch and then have opportunities to promote other peoples’ products and then have to keep blogging a bunch and then have ideas I’d love to create but can’t because I have to blog a bunch and then end up with a body of work that has a few gems no one’s gonna wade through to read because I rank for “baby sourkrout stain fermentation.”
I’m just reminding myself on this one: Remember what I want to be doing.
None more matterful…
I think, and I’m not sure about this cuz I’m some dickhead kid, but I think these are the most meaningful words in the world… I think.
“Ring the bells that still can ring /
Forget your perfect offering /
There is a crack in everything /
That’s how the light gets in.”
Louis C.K. on people alive today
“We’re the worst people yet.”
Louis C.K.
There’s temporal, and then there’s temporal
- of or pertaining to time.
- pertaining to or concerned with the present life or this world; worldly: temporal joys.
- enduring for a time only; temporary; transitory (opposed to eternal).
A story I told about my body
I was terrified to do this, but I had a blast. Thanks to the girls at @backfencepdx for cajoling me into it.
Here’s a lil’ story I told at an event called Back Fence PDX. The theme of the night was our bodies, ourselves. Catch more of the stories here (don’t miss this one from @laurenweedman. OMG hilarity).
On passion, business, and douchebaggery
The Old Model: spend energy thinking up how to make money doing what I love and am good at (love+skill).
Potential New Model: spend energy leveraging my love+skill to truly help people.
Some ideas:
- Help people achieve total un-douchebaggery online.
- Help projects/organizations I love merchandize/market better.
- Help guys who cuss and who have new babies to feel more comfortable in their own skin and make the most of it.
- Help fledglings achieve true homemade cocktailing prowess.
- Teach young men to understand the art of cigar, or, at least, to not get sick when they smoke some.
And then, what if I marketed these things not for “the close” but for the long-haul relationship and/or the good of the art of dadding, cocktails, cigars, un-douchbaggery or whatever it is?
The Problem: I have to make money. Right? Right. But, truth be told, I don’t have a lot of wisdom on this point. I just feel it, like neurosis, like nagging mild-anxiety.
Come to think of it, this “money anxiety” around these businesses is many-faceted. Revenue is a great tool to prove to my wife this thing is worthwhile. It’s good in more ways than that too: it lets me buy things.
But it’s also what causes all the stress. It’s what forces me into furrowing my brow and getting all grown-up serious when I think about these businesses. When in real life I do it better when I do it for the art of it… instead of doing it for the result. Just ask my wife.
So, this is the shape of my double-mindedness today. It looks like this: can I shift my focus to apply my love+skill to truly make others’ lives better?
Alan Watts on Following Your Passion
“I promise to abstain from exploiting my passions.”
Makes me think of my internet douchebaggery… wherein I try to ‘hack’ a passion to ‘turn’ a buck and ‘jack’ a profit. Maybe there’s something more sacred to these passions of mine.
To be fair, that would be a misinterpretation methinks. “Passion” in conversations about buddhism is normally in reference to desire in general, not the things you really geek out about and love.
BTW, this comes from an interesting lecture intro to Buddhism. Check it »
Mr. Rogers on where we come from
Mister Rogers went onstage to accept the award — and there, in front of all the soap opera stars and talk show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, “All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Ten seconds of silence.”
And then he lifted his wrist, looked at the audience, looked at his watch, and said, “I’ll watch the time.” There was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn’t kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch, but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked. And so they did. One second, two seconds, seven seconds — and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier. And Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said softly “May God be with you,” to all his vanquished children.
A Guided Meditation
I just finished up a guided meditation. Gil Fronsdal. It was a stretch, but I’m glad I did.
Pool Shirt
I feel very fat. I sat there feeling my love handles against the back of my shirt like gentle guilt. Then Gil told us to start relaxing parts of our body… the belly came up. I relaxed it. Holy shit! I was holding it in, like, 12 inches or something.
So I have all this fatness control under the surface of my mind, like some kernel task. I’m constantly sucking in, elongating my torso, trying to look buff-er and in-control-er. (more…)