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Can't it just be simple?
Dec. 5th, 2014 09:48 pmThe sophistication of truth
Posted by Seth Godin on September 30, 2014
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/09/the-sophistication-of-truth.html
A common form of complexity is the sophistication of fear.
Long words when short ones will do. Fancy clothes to keep the riffraff out and to give us a costume to hide behind. Most of all, the sneer of, "you don't understand" or, "you don't know the people I know..."
"It's complicated," we say, even when it isn't.
We invent these facades because they provide safety. Safety from the unknown, from being questioned, from being called out as a fraud. These facades lead to bad writing, lousy communication and a refuge from the things we fear.
I'm more interested in the sophistication required to deliver the truth.
Simplicity.
Awareness.
Beauty.
These take fearlessness. This is, "here it is, I made this, I know you can understand it, does it work for you?"
Our work doesn't have to be obtuse to be important or brave.
Seth Godin is a writer, a speaker and an agent of change.
SOURCE
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/09/the-sophistication-of-truth.html
Posted by Seth Godin on September 30, 2014
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/09/the-sophistication-of-truth.html
A common form of complexity is the sophistication of fear.
Long words when short ones will do. Fancy clothes to keep the riffraff out and to give us a costume to hide behind. Most of all, the sneer of, "you don't understand" or, "you don't know the people I know..."
"It's complicated," we say, even when it isn't.
We invent these facades because they provide safety. Safety from the unknown, from being questioned, from being called out as a fraud. These facades lead to bad writing, lousy communication and a refuge from the things we fear.
I'm more interested in the sophistication required to deliver the truth.
Simplicity.
Awareness.
Beauty.
These take fearlessness. This is, "here it is, I made this, I know you can understand it, does it work for you?"
Our work doesn't have to be obtuse to be important or brave.
Seth Godin is a writer, a speaker and an agent of change.
SOURCE
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/09/the-sophistication-of-truth.html
QotD: Awakening
Dec. 3rd, 2014 01:42 pmThe awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place, and all things are affected by the change. We ourselves have become mysterious strangers in our own eyes and tremblingly we ask ourselves who we are, whence we came, whither we are bound. Are we the being who is called by our name, whom we thought we knew so well in the past? Are we the form we see in the mirror, our body, offspring of our parents? Who, then, is it that feels and thinks within us, that wills and struggles, plans and dreams, that can oppose and control this physical body which we thought to be ourselves? We wake up to realize that we have never known ourselves, that we have lived as in a blind dream of ceaseless activity in which there was never a moment of self recollection.
—J.J. Van Der Leeuw from "The Conquest of Illusion" (George Allen & Unwin), 1951.
—J.J. Van Der Leeuw from "The Conquest of Illusion" (George Allen & Unwin), 1951.
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QotD: Don't Ask Me
Oct. 25th, 2014 11:30 amCan't help it 'bout the shape I'm in,
Can't sing, ain't pretty, and my legs are thin.
But don't ask me what I think of you,
Might not give the answers that you want me to.
Now when I talk to God I knew he'd understand,
He said, "stick to me I'll be your guiding hand,
But don't ask me what I think of you,
Might not give the answers that you want me to.
"Oh Well" -Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac
*not that I agree with this song, but it's food for thought
Can't sing, ain't pretty, and my legs are thin.
But don't ask me what I think of you,
Might not give the answers that you want me to.
Now when I talk to God I knew he'd understand,
He said, "stick to me I'll be your guiding hand,
But don't ask me what I think of you,
Might not give the answers that you want me to.
"Oh Well" -Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac
*not that I agree with this song, but it's food for thought
QotD: Faultless
Mar. 2nd, 2014 10:02 pmIf you limit your actions in life
to things that nobody can possibly find fault with,
you will not do much.
--Lewis Carroll
to things that nobody can possibly find fault with,
you will not do much.
--Lewis Carroll
Does Surfing the Web Make You Lonely?
Nov. 15th, 2013 05:32 pmWhat do you think? Have you ever fallen into that pit where you had no "real" life and your entire life existed through a keyboard and screen? Have you found your way back into the land of living and breathing? Have you discovered your body? Are you OK being alone with yourself??
Got me started thinking about this (again):
http://vimeo.com/70534716
I had a housemate once who would become completely obsessed with a new video game and play it continuously until he had completed all the levels. It took a couple months for him to master Grand Theft Auto. He took me for a ride in it. Our virtual reality was shared in living and breathing space, and he was not a lost cause. I don't think. I hope not.
I have a friend who lives a good fraction of her life in second life. She is married in this life and has a significant other in second life. Her 2nd life SO is known to her and her husband. He has a wife and kids. They visit together, eat icecream, break ankles, breathe the same air. Second life has merged with first life.
I have a sister whose occupation is building things for the second world. That is, she obtains or develops images and sounds that she can sell for virtual money. Her reality is beyond my comprehension, except that when she is there beside me she is just as solidly herself as she has ever been, with a sharpened wit.
I have a boyfriend who barely exists on the internet. I told him how many fb friends I have now and he laughed at me. I think he is afraid that I will go where my sister went, or my friend. He likes to exercise and play his guitar and garden and read. Doing all those other things sounds far better than this. I'm outta here.
Got me started thinking about this (again):
http://vimeo.com/70534716
I had a housemate once who would become completely obsessed with a new video game and play it continuously until he had completed all the levels. It took a couple months for him to master Grand Theft Auto. He took me for a ride in it. Our virtual reality was shared in living and breathing space, and he was not a lost cause. I don't think. I hope not.
I have a friend who lives a good fraction of her life in second life. She is married in this life and has a significant other in second life. Her 2nd life SO is known to her and her husband. He has a wife and kids. They visit together, eat icecream, break ankles, breathe the same air. Second life has merged with first life.
I have a sister whose occupation is building things for the second world. That is, she obtains or develops images and sounds that she can sell for virtual money. Her reality is beyond my comprehension, except that when she is there beside me she is just as solidly herself as she has ever been, with a sharpened wit.
I have a boyfriend who barely exists on the internet. I told him how many fb friends I have now and he laughed at me. I think he is afraid that I will go where my sister went, or my friend. He likes to exercise and play his guitar and garden and read. Doing all those other things sounds far better than this. I'm outta here.
You have enemies?
Good.
That means you have stood up for something,
sometime in your life.
--Winston Churchill
Good.
That means you have stood up for something,
sometime in your life.
--Winston Churchill
QotD: Freedom
Nov. 1st, 2011 11:02 amPeople demand freedom of speech
as a compensation for
the freedom of thought
which they seldom use.
-Kirkegaard
as a compensation for
the freedom of thought
which they seldom use.
-Kirkegaard
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QodD: the Healthy Social Life
Oct. 14th, 2011 08:05 amThe healthy social life is found
when in the mirror of each human soul
the whole community finds its reflection.
And when in the community
the virtue of each one is living.
--Rudolf Steiner
when in the mirror of each human soul
the whole community finds its reflection.
And when in the community
the virtue of each one is living.
--Rudolf Steiner
They spend all day in their dripping wet rainforest camp. The men stay in their tents and their sleeping bags as if they existonly only to live in them. The women do what the men are always too tired or too uninterested or too caught up in a conversation about sport or politics to be bothered doing. They work. They peel vegetables. They collect firewood. They fetch water from the river up the steep and awkward bank to the campsite. They wash dishes. They help the guides organise the camp, unpacking and packing barrels. Repairing equipment. The men reserve their energies for some future conjectural at of courage. The women's courage is of a type that endures this day of rain. Meanwhile the men get depressed. The men feel some embarrassment that women are on the same trip and doing things that really only men ought be doing. The guides prefer it. Nothing, for a river guide, is worse than an all-male trip. They are boring and lazy and inclined to foolhardiness. They are considerable work to look after. They are generally not in the same class for company. Aljaz likes sitting down with the women around the fire....
--Richard Flanagan
p154
( another quote, p224: )
--Richard Flanagan
p154
( another quote, p224: )
QotD: Love
Mar. 16th, 2011 01:06 pmLove is manifest where there is an able vessel.
~Bhakti Narada Sutras
~Bhakti Narada Sutras
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QotD: The Real You
Mar. 4th, 2011 07:54 amYou are presumed to be showing us your real self when you are on deadline, have a headache, are facing a customer service meltdown, haven't had a good night's sleep, are facing an ethical dilemma, are momentarily in power, are caught doing something when you thought no one else was looking, are irritable, have the opportunity to extract revenge, are losing a competition or are truly overwhelmed.
--Seth Godin
--Seth Godin
