Happy New Year, all.  Thank you for your attendance.  You may now retire.  Year-end Review : My top post this year by views (and by a large margin) was, as I expected,  a memoriam for a friend who passed away in March .  It's one of my best posts I've ever made on this site.  (And it's  prequel post .) Another good post came from January and  concerned luck and life . This one from February examines  criticism and improving myself . And another from February which repeats one of my most common thoughts during these meditations:  action v  re action . Stepping aside from stats-driven listings to a fee which I personally feel are well done or important, three recent posts offer a pretty good insight into my progress these last few years. A few days ago, I discussed  spending my life well . Two days ago, I explained  why I do this . Yesterday, I looked at  kindness and wasted time . Daily Stoic: Today's Medit...

Emergencies rise Crags above a rocky shore. Steady sails o'ercome.  Daily Stoic: Panicking doesn't help. It's assenting to an emotion I can function better without.  Not that it's easy to act rather than re act, but it is necessary if I want to be as effective as I can be in whatever crisis I face.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Cf. Stoic cosmopolitanism Today's Music: The long day closes by Arthur Sullivan No star is o’er the lake, Its pale watch keeping, The moon is half awake, Through gray mist creeping, The last red leaves fall round The porch of roses, The clock hath ceased to sound, The long day closes . . .

Haunting melodies Beautiful sounds of heaven.  Angelic voices.  Daily Stoic: I actively try to be as nice as I can. Life is so much . . . nicer when I can make people smile and feel good.  The look on the waiter's face when something is screwed up with the food and I smile and they realize I'm not mad, not going to yell at them or berate them.  My kid's emotions when they realize that, while I may be disappointed or alarmed or worried by whatever they did, I'm focused on having them learn to be better rather than punishing or being mad at them.  The old lady or man who is embarrassed because they are walking so slow and impeding my way in the store or on the walkway and I smile and assure them it's no problem, can I help you with XYZ?  I look for these opportunities. And I owe it to these daily meditations.   The changes I've made through studying Stoicism and trying to improve my attitude and behavior have made me so much kinder, more...

All-American Heretics * are in motion. Forgotten and lost.  Daily Stoic: I'm not in this for glory, for remembrance, for changing the world.  I'm in this to change myself for the better. And I'm in this for my family, that they may be the best I can help them be. And I'm in this for being the kindest person I can be.  Today's Meditation: Today's Music: Piano Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI no. 50, 1: Allegro  (to 8:23) by Joseph Haydn =============== * I love the organ (Hammond B-3) at end. Fantastic! 

Handy and hardy, Changing through day to ev'ning, How to get moving.....  Daily Stoic: I'm not dead yet, but my spirit often fails before my body.  Last night I was ill. Today, I'm feeling (mostly) better, but damned if I don't want to just lie around all day and do nothing.  Even simple things like getting out of the recliner to get a drink are a challenge to my motivation. I eventually got up, but it was a struggle. I'm not sure how to change this. Time to think more.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: O Gaúcho (Corta-jaca) by Francisca Edwiges Neves 'Chiquinha' Gonzaga

Making progress through Examination of self, Of patterns inside. Daily Stoic: "Life is long enough . . . if we spend it well."  I've mentioned this quote often in these pages. Add to it the second part: "We don't receive a short life, we make it so." How do I waste my time?  Watching TV is an obvious one.  Driving in traffic, sometimes.  Being lazy. These don't have to be wasted times.  The same 'action' with different circumstances can be worthy. Watching sports with my son can be a bonding experience. A teaching time to show him strategy and teamwork, perseverance and determination. A time watching all-time performances . Driving in traffic allows me to listen to audiobooks. Sometimes novels. Oftentimes philosophy or history or psychology. Being lazy can be productive if it is needed .  Recuperation from illness, for example.  But, if I'm not taking a break from exertion, mental or physical, and I'm just using downtime to f...

Casual destruction.  Causal reconstruction then Use it to my aid.  Daily Stoic: Fallow times make great progress possible. If I push myself too hard too often, I will break down. I will fail.  The trick is to allow myself rest without making rest my purpose. I know myself well enough to see that pattern in my history. Taking breaks is attractive to me.  I slip easily into laziness, then desuetude.  Wasting hours, days, weeks with nothing to show for it. Temperance is the virtue I need. With wise perseverance.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 1: Chorus: 'Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage' - 'Celebrate, rejoice, rise up and praise these days' by J. S. Bach Daily Shakespeare: Hamlet , Act 1 Scene 1 

Rich foods, like a stone Dragging down through muddy streams,  Drag down, submerge me.  Daily Stoic: What do I pursue beyond the bounds of temperance?  Good food and drink?  Definitely.  Money?  Yeah, dos tres .  Pleasure?  Sometimes.  Escape?  Yes. How can I do better?  What would convince me to accept happily standard fare?  To be happy with a plainer life?  To embrace frugality and simplicity? 

To be unafraid,  To be simple. Here. Now. Here. What is this life you speak of?  Daily Stoic: What do I do that means anything? So what if it doesn't mean anything?  It all depends on what I mean by life. 

5, 4, 6, 2, 3 7, 4, 5, 5, 2. 1 2. 3. 4. 4. 3. Daily Stoic: Though my record here is mostly quote-based, I hope my contributions are worth something. If they're not, that's ok, too.  I'm making progress either way.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: What sweeter music? by John Rutter What sweeter music can we bring  Than a carol, for to sing  The birth of this our heavenly King?  Awake the voice! Awake the string! Daily Shakespeare: Sonnet 14

We've got a really big shew for you tonight. A really big shew. A little failure, a little winning, a little Ellington. A really big shew.  Daily Stoic: Have I done enough that is worthy? Have I done anything worthy?  Will I do anything worthy? I'm in medias res  examining my life. Ditto with trying to raise my kids to be the be people with a headstart on examining their life. — I want, desperately want, an external beyond my control to happen, to be true. — I want them to leave their teens exposed directly to philosophy. Broad patterns of how philosophy can bring you happiness through tranquility and equanimity.  We been reading books about philosophy for 2022 and will continue into 2023.  Nasty , Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with Kids  by Scott Hershovitz and How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson. (Links to both are in the sidebar.)  So, if I'm really lucky, maybe my legacy will be my progeny and their c...

While I pondered weak,  Death did kindly stop for me. Gently into night.  Daily Stoic: Death, for all its frightening aspect, includes its own demise. After death, there is no more pain, no more worries, no more hesitancy about the future. Death earns its sobriquet "sweet release."  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Music: Cradle Song by Michael Berkeley O my deir hert, young Jesus sweit, Prepare thy creddill in my spreit, And I sall rocke thee in my hert, And neuer mair from thee depart. Daily Shakespeare: As You Like It , Act 2 Scene 7

Small busyness drowned  In my concern, o'erwhelming A long view sets right.  Small busyness lights Attention traced through maelstroms To calming tension. Daily Stoic: It seems I've anticipated my Daily Stoic again . Can I let yesterday's entry count for today......?  In business-speak, taking a 50000 ft view strips away messy details and identifies what is essential to a project. Bypassing all the crap, focusing on the heart of the matter, allowing me to do many things.  I can avoid feelings of helplessness. Stopping that downward spiral, either by escaping Charybdis' clutches or, better, preventing capture entirely through understanding the big picture and larger strategy.  I can examine future paths more clearly. From above, grand patterns present themselves for my evaluation. Interactions with other broad strokes are visible and can now be accounted for.  From a long-term viewpoint, I can examine my anticipated judgments of this course's out...

Differences tell Tales of praise and blame untrue. Just live. And do right.  Daily Stoic: I referenced this the other day, Alexander and his mule-tender.  If I am powerful, a world-beater, a God among men.... If I am dust, the lowest of the low, the depths beneath which humanity should ne'er delve.... There's so little distance between them.  We exist in the smallest of ranges. We live in a tiny temperature spectrum of a few hundred degrees on the lowest end from a hundred degrees or so below Zero* to 10s of billions above. We are of a size restricted to a meter or two, even the outliers are within 1 or 2 of each other toward the lower end of possibilities from a few millimeters* to billions of light-years.  We crawl through a universe that has speeds from light speed to our galaxy moving at 2.1M km / hour to our own planet tracing its path at 30 km / sec.  Nothing is as different in our lives and we think it is. The highest glory and the most abject...

I'll be fine. Takin' Time slow. Got the lovebirds sit tin' on my window.  ( With apologies to A$AP Rocky .)  Daily Stoic: I misread that at first, thinking Death didn't know itself . Changes the idea a bit.  I believe my life is, to a degree, examined. But I can still learn from this. I can still remind myself that there's more to do. I can still do the 'more to do' things.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Meditation III: Today's Music: Symphony no. 10 in E minor, op. 93, 2: Allegro by Dmitri Shostakovich