Today's Meditation(s): "Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. ( Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.)" Virgil, Aeneid, 6. 95  A thought I think at times and one of my favorite quotes. The personal motto of Ludwig von Mises. I have this engraved on my wallet.

Today's Meditation(s): "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.  And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an un-uprooted small corner of evil." ~ Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Good and evil exist in all of us. It's up to us to choose. I try to train myself to make that choice more naturally, more easily, more automatically. It doesn't work as often as it should, but it has become surprisingly automatic in many areas.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.26 (Hicks and Hicks) Marcus. Epictetus. My dad. I've been thinking about my dad a lot recently, what with Father's Day and all. He was as good a man as I could hope to know. And at the end of his life, he was afraid. Afraid of what was going to happen to him after. Would he go to heaven? Would he go to hell? He was truly, deeply, afraid. If he doesn't qualify, no one does. I love you, Dad. And I miss you. And I hope I can live up to your example.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 6.30 "The fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good.” Meditations , 6.30 (Long) And that is what I give to my children: the desire for and goal of, in fact, possessing a good character and doing things for the common good. This is my Father's Day present to myself.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 11.19 (Hicks and Hicks) Four temptations of the mind. Unserious, divisive, and external thoughts. Finding my own acts vicious. I need to use these warnings and improve my behavior, be better.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.18 (Hicks and Hicks) Living in a pretend world is dangerous and stupid, ineffective and counterproductive. Assholes exist. Deal with it. But deal with it with wisdom, not wrath.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.18 (Hicks and Hicks) Anger and violence are not qualities of a man. They are certainly qualities of men  — the wild portion of our species that has long been the more aggressive — but not of those who truly deserve the title.  Real power, real strength is quiet because it can afford to be quiet. It doesn't need bravado or recklessness to do the things it means to do. Real power simply does them and others adjust to the new reality. Beware the person who is quiet and composed in the face of conflict and opposition. They have the ability to make things happen despite the clamoring rabble of pretenders.

Today's Meditation(s): It’s bad. It’s dangerous. It’s awful. It’s mean. But is it? How quickly we, as the Noah Kahan lyric puts it, “state a feeling like a fact.” We take our initial impression of something, our partial view of an entire event (past, present, and future), and decide we know what this is. We then add our judgments. They are bad people. They are wrong. This is a disaster. What began as a feeling hardens into certainty. Our reaction becomes reality and our feelings become the truth. ... When we decide our emotional reaction is the truth, curiosity disappears. Humility disappears. Patience disappears. We stop trying to understand. We stop listening. We stop seeing things as they truly are. So instead of mistaking feelings for facts, let’s pause. Let’s get curious. Let’s be humble. Let’s be patient. Because the way we feel about something in the moment is rarely, if ever, fact. Feeling as fact . . . a favorite sport nowadays, it seems, (though I've little doubt our ...

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.18 (Hicks and Hicks) --- Meditations , 11.18 (Waterfield) I like the subtle differences between the final few sentences there. To the extent you are able: Address problems in private. Offer praise in public. Someone mess up on the group email? Respond just to them about it. Someone silently come through for you? Make sure others are around to hear you praise them for a job well done. But, as the tip begins, it's all based on sincerity: I have to mean it . I need to be genuinely happy to share good news while completely willing to improve behaviours in private (if possible). Add genuine sincerity to the actions I choose, to the kindness I try to make a bedrock part of my life, and it makes the world a better place.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.18 (Hicks and Hicks) First, it's obviously true. Anger and frustration cause so many more problems than would exist in their absence. Second, it's not about erasing emotions, but controlling them, accepting and working through them, acknowledging but not wallowing.

Today's Meditation: Meditations , 11.18 (Hicks and Hicks) Another way to thwart anger: is this important to my life as a whole? When viewed from farther away, in distance or time, how bad is it, really? Would the remembering me of foreyears laugh at current me fretting over this?

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.18 (Hicks and Hicks) There may be layer and circumstances which change the moral flavor of the action. Prima facia, it my look bad, unforgivable even, but, when we learn the larger story, we see that what we took for evil was, in fact, morally ambiguous or even praiseworthy. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Stick with what is presented to me and work from there.

Today's Meditation(s): No one can be good for you. If I'm not good, I'm not good. There's no sidestream moral worth here. Either I act virtuosly or I don't. It's a binary thing, internally, where I influence things. What people do outside of me has no impact on my inner citadel. For evil or for good.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 11.15 (Hicks and Hicks) Learned this in sales training a long time ago. Never say anything about being honest because it casts doubt on what you've said up to now and on your character down the road.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.13 (Hicks and Hicks) I did well today, laughing at the gentle insults of my friends. Finding my way to automatically playing along instead of taking offense. It's so much better.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 11.11 (Hicks and Hicks) Treat indifferents properly and focus on what's important.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.9 (Hicks and Hicks) Be rational, but kind. Control myself, even among my detractors and opponents. Don't let anyone draw my away from my pursuit of excellence and virtue.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.7 (Hicks and Hicks) What is Marcus going through that philosophy was so important to him just then? Waterfield's note on this one takes it exactly the other way: things must be going great if Marcus is freely able to consider doing his philosophy. I wonder why he (and presumably others) read it that way.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.4 (Hicks and Hicks) A spurious argument, but a good thought. If my act is spurred by thoughts of others or the community, then I'm on the right path.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 11.5 (Hicks and Hicks) Be good. Learn to be good. Practice being good. Continue to be good. Even when it's inconvenient. Even when it's confusing. Even when it's hard.   I wish I could live up to this.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.38 (Hicks and Hicks) My body isn't me. Thus what happens to my body doesn't necessarily happen to me. My body may be imprisoned, but my self remain free. Without the inner reason, the body is nothing. Useless. Detrimental, if you listen to many traditions.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.37 (Hicks and Hicks) As with everything, start with myself first. Fix myself first. Focus internally first. Build resilience first. Grow into a new world citizen later. At the end of life, we don't get a grade. But if I were to choose a metric which would be worth using, I think this might be it: You are graded based on your contribution to individuals. And on your how well you help the group succeed  proceed excel continue do well   as a group .

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.36 (Hicks and Hicks) A natural act . . . if I do it right. I've had some good examples. A few bad. I hope the worthy ones dyed my soul a deeper hue than those faithless and vicious.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.35 (Hicks and Hicks) Said the man who lost 7? 8? children before he died. I must accept the past. It cannot change. Only my position, my attitude toward it can change. Whether I am willing or unwilling, fate rolls on, uncaring. I can walk or be dragged.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 10.34 (Hicks and Hicks) Our children are tender leaves as well. We ALL are. All ten thousand things. Even my memory will pass out of people's minds with a few hundred years or so. Assuming humanity lives that long.