Once you grasp this, the modern mantra of “no regrets” begins to look not courageous but fear-based: a desperate, panicky effort to avoid future sadness. By contrast, and paradoxically, amor fati offers a more full-throated way of overcoming regret: by accepting it. It’s not a matter of making bold choices “before it’s too late”, but rather of seeing that it’s already too late, and always has been. This is deeply liberating. You only live once. Why waste it trying to have no regrets?
The conclusion of the book provides advice on avoiding blunders.
…make a realistic effort to slow our rush to judgment before all the relevant facts are in. If we could grow more comfortable with the uncertainty around us, our daily blunders would not be as great. All kinds of daily interactions would be altered if we suspended our insufficiently informed conclusions over why others act the way they do.
As children, we harbor ideals for how the world and our lives could be; as adults, we gain bitter experience of how often reality falls short. Growing up means refusing to scurry back into childhood’s unsullied ideals – yet *also* declining to give in to cynical resignation. It’s about tolerating the tension between how things are and how they should be, while still getting out of bed in the morning. To be a good citizen, a good parent, a good political activist – a good grown-up – may require nothing less.
Links: Standing Desks
We had a discussion at work recently about how much we sit, standing desks, treadmill desks, etc. So I did about 90 minutes of searching and came up with the following digest of items that I thought covered the topic fairly well. This will be my starting point if the topic comes up again in the future. Bottom-line: Variety is the spice: mix standing and sitting, don’t do too much of either, move regularly. I was surprised by the observations from some writers about the types of work best done sitting vs. standing.
I’m a writer but I’m also a teacher and having been successful at both I can tell you that people who say things like “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach,” ought to try to teach. It is hard to be a teacher….
I have dedicated my life to art but honestly, in many ways, artists are parasites. We don’t keep people warm, we don’t feed people, we don’t keep them dry (unless they use books to build a shelter.) Give me an oncology nurse any day. You can all deluge me with emails about how important art was/is to you and I won’t disagree, but try living in your car for a week.
I’m proud of what I do. But I’ve arguably changed more lives by being a mom and by teaching than by writing.
Maureen McHugh (via austinkleon)
Here’s a polite person’s trick, one that has never failed me. I will share it with you because I like and respect you, and it is clear to me that you’ll know how to apply it wisely: When you are at a party and are thrust into conversation with someone, see how long you can hold off before talking about what they do for a living. And when that painful lull arrives, be the master of it. I have come to revel in that agonizing first pause, because I know that I can push a conversation through. Just ask the other person what they do, and right after they tell you, say: “Wow. That sounds hard.”
From “How To Be Polite.”
Institutions – from national newspapers to governments and political parties – invest an enormous amount of money and effort in denying this truth. The facades they maintain are crucial to their authority, and thus to their legitimacy and continued survival. We need them to appear ultra-competent, too, because we derive much psychological security from the belief that somewhere, in the highest echelons of society, there are some near-infallible adults in charge.
In fact, though, everyone is totally just winging it.