People often remember to be thankful for the big things, like their children or having food on the table. And when they think to be thankful for the little things, they think about their mother's sense of humor or the way that their friend is always able to sit down for five minutes when they need to Talk.
I won't dispute that they're little things, but if that's what we're going to term them then maybe we should also classify them as deep things. And in that case, why not have take a moment to be thankful for the shallow things, too? Yeah, they don't mean much, but they're still there and they're still nice.
I'm thankful for Jack's pizza. I'm thankful for Doctor Who. I'm thankful for Harry Potter fanfiction, and fanfiction in general, and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality in particular. I'm thankful for notebooks and pencils and my missionary planner that I've been able to adapt to civilian life, because it makes life a little bit simpler. I'm thankful for chocolate, and I'm thankful for Homestuck, and for pillows, and for the Animorphs series.
I want to say that I'm thankful for these things and for so many other little, shallow things that don't really matter, because even if they don't matter they're still there, and not being thankful for them doesn't mean that I'm wise. It just means that I'm ungrateful.
What are some of the shallow things that you're thankful for?
Showing posts with label 30/31 days. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 30/31 days. Show all posts
Monday, January 6, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Happy New Year!
Today I start two new projects. The first is a YA novel called Fox Sense and Circumstances. It's about a young girl who finds a friend in an abandoned, half-dead fairy who turns out to be more Cthulhu than Tinkerbell. But she accidentally ensnared him in a magical contract that's put him on a leash firmly in her hands, and if he wants to act as he pleases then he's going to have to convince her to let him.
In the meantime, they're going to have to deal with a group of straightedge wizards with white trench coats and cold iron straight razors. Her new friend is a walking nuclear bomb, and they aim to put him down like they thought that they did the first time.
So it'll be interesting. I really don't know what it's going to be like tomorrow. It's practically a fairy itself.
The other thing that I'm working on is the 30 Days to a Better Man project from The Art of Manliness.
Whenever it's relevant (there's no point to saying "Today I scheduled an appointment for a medical check-up!") I'll discuss what's gone on. Today was "Defining Your Core Values."
I decided to start with the initial list of suggestions that they offered. If there seemed to be a hole missing then I could fill it, but I thought that it would be mighty silly to spend a few hours working it out only to find that everything was right there on the list.
Right off the bat I could see some things to rule out. Control was a complex of mine, not a value. Assigning it as such would only make it harder to not be authoritarian and controlling. Same thing for Power. Fulfillment, Happiness, and Success both seemed like putting the cart before the horse. Unless you were understanding it as, say, financial success, all of these seemed more like the result of living in alignment with your core values.
Spirituality and Faith got folded into "God. Honesty and Integrity got folded into Truth. Marriage and Friends got folded into Family. My closest friends are family to me, and otherwise the Friends category isn't a core value for me. Education and Wisdom were folded into Knowledge. The former contributes to it, and wisdom is a kind of knowledge, not this thing that's totally distinct from it. Independence was folded into Freedom. Progress was folded into Growth.
With thirteen less options to choose from, I did what the article suggested and started pitting them against each other. For simplicity's sake I did it in alphabetical order, and this left me with Balance (over Adventure), Creativity (over Confidence), Forgiveness (over Fun), Kindness (over Humor), and Knowledge (over Peace of Mind, which I thought was an apt conflict), and Truth (over Strength).
There were a few conflicts that I couldn't resolve, and I saw that Reason needed to be folded into Knowledge, and both Financial Security and Self-reliance needed to be folded into Freedom.
From the fifteen possibilities remaining I narrowed it down to Knowledge, Discipline, Creativity, Freedom, God, Growth, Family, and Truth. I liked the rest, sure, but I couldn't include them in the Top 5.
But ohhhhh... Knowledge, that sneaky weasel. Hadn't I realized that prioritizing Knowledge was a Bad Road for me months ago? Apparently I was starting to forget, but I chopped it out readily enough. I liked it, but if it were endorsed by a Top 5 position then I might never fix the complex that that obsession had given me.
With that out of the way I got it down to Creativity, Freedom, God, Family, and Truth.
Then I had to prioritize them in anticipation of conflicts between my values:
1. Truth
2. God
3. Family
4. Freedom
5. Creativity
I tried to view these in a Wu Xing kind of way. One value wasn't superior to another so much as it allowed another. Without Freedom I can't exercise my Creativity, so choosing Creativity in a conflict between them is only going to hurt it in the long run. Similarly, I can't have Freedom if Family isn't accounted for.
Truth comes before God because no matter how I try to get away from it what fills the "God" spot is ultimately going to a flawed conception. I don't know everything and I don't perfectly process and accept everything that I do know. What God is in this list is "My understanding of God and what God requires of me." Where it's right, it's still incomplete, and there are many things that I "know" about God that are totally wrong.
By putting Truth above "My understanding of God" I hope to ensure that I will never turn down the opportunity to update my knowledge of God because the information runs counter to what I think that I know right now. Without my chief priority being Truth, I'll only ever serve God-as-I-think-God-is and never God-as-God-is.
In the meantime, they're going to have to deal with a group of straightedge wizards with white trench coats and cold iron straight razors. Her new friend is a walking nuclear bomb, and they aim to put him down like they thought that they did the first time.
So it'll be interesting. I really don't know what it's going to be like tomorrow. It's practically a fairy itself.
The other thing that I'm working on is the 30 Days to a Better Man project from The Art of Manliness.
Whenever it's relevant (there's no point to saying "Today I scheduled an appointment for a medical check-up!") I'll discuss what's gone on. Today was "Defining Your Core Values."
I decided to start with the initial list of suggestions that they offered. If there seemed to be a hole missing then I could fill it, but I thought that it would be mighty silly to spend a few hours working it out only to find that everything was right there on the list.
Right off the bat I could see some things to rule out. Control was a complex of mine, not a value. Assigning it as such would only make it harder to not be authoritarian and controlling. Same thing for Power. Fulfillment, Happiness, and Success both seemed like putting the cart before the horse. Unless you were understanding it as, say, financial success, all of these seemed more like the result of living in alignment with your core values.
Spirituality and Faith got folded into "God. Honesty and Integrity got folded into Truth. Marriage and Friends got folded into Family. My closest friends are family to me, and otherwise the Friends category isn't a core value for me. Education and Wisdom were folded into Knowledge. The former contributes to it, and wisdom is a kind of knowledge, not this thing that's totally distinct from it. Independence was folded into Freedom. Progress was folded into Growth.
With thirteen less options to choose from, I did what the article suggested and started pitting them against each other. For simplicity's sake I did it in alphabetical order, and this left me with Balance (over Adventure), Creativity (over Confidence), Forgiveness (over Fun), Kindness (over Humor), and Knowledge (over Peace of Mind, which I thought was an apt conflict), and Truth (over Strength).
There were a few conflicts that I couldn't resolve, and I saw that Reason needed to be folded into Knowledge, and both Financial Security and Self-reliance needed to be folded into Freedom.
From the fifteen possibilities remaining I narrowed it down to Knowledge, Discipline, Creativity, Freedom, God, Growth, Family, and Truth. I liked the rest, sure, but I couldn't include them in the Top 5.
But ohhhhh... Knowledge, that sneaky weasel. Hadn't I realized that prioritizing Knowledge was a Bad Road for me months ago? Apparently I was starting to forget, but I chopped it out readily enough. I liked it, but if it were endorsed by a Top 5 position then I might never fix the complex that that obsession had given me.
With that out of the way I got it down to Creativity, Freedom, God, Family, and Truth.
Then I had to prioritize them in anticipation of conflicts between my values:
1. Truth
2. God
3. Family
4. Freedom
5. Creativity
I tried to view these in a Wu Xing kind of way. One value wasn't superior to another so much as it allowed another. Without Freedom I can't exercise my Creativity, so choosing Creativity in a conflict between them is only going to hurt it in the long run. Similarly, I can't have Freedom if Family isn't accounted for.
Truth comes before God because no matter how I try to get away from it what fills the "God" spot is ultimately going to a flawed conception. I don't know everything and I don't perfectly process and accept everything that I do know. What God is in this list is "My understanding of God and what God requires of me." Where it's right, it's still incomplete, and there are many things that I "know" about God that are totally wrong.
By putting Truth above "My understanding of God" I hope to ensure that I will never turn down the opportunity to update my knowledge of God because the information runs counter to what I think that I know right now. Without my chief priority being Truth, I'll only ever serve God-as-I-think-God-is and never God-as-God-is.
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