How I use my Bullet Journal — a great practical guide to using a bullet journal.

#InterestingReads #BulletJournal

An idea: instead of just keeping old blog posts lying around, why not print them and turn them into a self published book? Then you can store them in a bookshelf at home.

This idea was somewhat inspired by this post by Kin Lane.

#Blogging

God never gives you a dream that matches your budget. He's not checking your bank account, he's checking your faith. ~ Mark Walhberg

#Quotes #Spirituality

Selective Ignorance is when you pick and choose what you want to focus on or what you want to learn, instead of taking in everything that's available out there. You want to consider doing this, because we don't have time to learn everything. So, you have to be selective. It is as Ness says, a form of intentional knowledge.

Source: Selective ignorance: cultivating intentional knowledge in a chaotic world

^ This is also a great way to help avoid information overload.

#AvoidingInformationOverload #DigitalMinimalism

One of the best things I've learned a few years ago: I don’t need to have an opinion on everything. There are things that are beyond my control and it’s pointless to wallow in them. Having an opinion on everything is like paying attention to something that didn’t ask for your attention.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRFQkXanEd5/?utmmedium=copylink

#DigitalMinimalism

https://john.do/today/ — seems to be was good advice for starting/restarting a blog. Unfortunately navigating to that page seems to elicit some warnings on the browser, so browse at your own risk.

Anyway, my takeaway from this was: Writing is all about putting down your imperfect thoughts and ideas into paper. This allows you to reflect on your thoughts and ideas, and then go from there.

#Blogging #Writing

Series: #JournalEntry Tags: #InterestingReads #BulletJournal #Blogging #Quotes #Spirituality #AvoidingInformationOverload #DigitalMinimalism #Writing

Here are some of my takeaways:

• Trying to promote yourself or your work online only leads to more stress.
• Chasing after accolades, recognition, views, likes, hearts means you're not free.
• Jesus had the simple and quiet life because he was so humble and he had no pride. He rejected popularity.
• You don't need to give up on your hobbies/activities to live a simple and quiet life. You just need to stop promoting yourself while engaging in said hobbies/activities.

Tags: #Spirituality #Christianity

Tags: #Christianity #Spirituality #Theology #WordOnFire

The Three-City Problem of Modern Life — interesting read and social commentary about the lives we live today. We either live in the city of reason, of faith, or of technology. Living in one city isolates us from the rest of the world and that makes us feel incomplete.

7 Tips to Stand Out And Land The Job — has great advice for job interviews.

A Roth IRA is one of the most powerful wealth building tools that the average person can use to become extremely wealthy... — good info on ROTH IRA accounts.

^ This is probably only applicable to US readers, as a ROTH IRA is a specific tax-advantaged account offered by the government. But if your country has a similar offering, then some of the info might still be useful.

On Social Media

Social media is like a sandbox where you can observe mimetic theory and mimetic desires in full display.

Staying off social media while you know all your family and friends are there, is like missing out on a party that you're invited to, a party that goes on 24/7, every day of the week and year.

Some people, actually most people, can't resist the urge to join the party. That's because we humans have this need to connect and to belong to a tribe. That's what the creators of social media figured out and made use of. It is one of their crowning achievements. They've fabricated this need, this desire, to be online all the time, to browse the news feed and like and comment on every single interesting post that comes our way.

Parenting

My kid just texted me 🌭 — great tip on the use of family code and passwords. I didn't even know this was a thing.

Perhaps the reason teens isolate themselves when they're overwhelmed instead of coming to us... — seems like great parenting advice on not shutting out your toddler when they're having a tantrum.

The Research Behind Picky Eating — it looks like, the more you pressure a child to eat something (like say veggies), the more they will not want to. And it doesn't just stop there. Research seems to indicate, that if you continue forcing this issue, the kids will end up not liking the food even when they turn into adults.

Quotes

Sometimes to touch the light, you must first touch the darkness. ~ Galadriel, Rings of Power, Season 1 – Episode 5

This might just seem like a good quote to be shared online, but I think it is a deep theological observation. Have you ever wondered why wherever there's good, there's evil? Wherever there's light, there's darkness?

It's because evil is a parasite that latches on to the good.

Now read that quote again and hopefully you'll gain a new appreciation of it.

Spirituality

Choosing to follow Christ means choosing exile, but the flip side to it is that the key to living a joyful and happy life, is to follow God’s will. So by choosing exile, you still ironically find the path to living a joyful and happy life.

Feeling stressed out? Feel like you can't keep up? Feel like you're drowning in anxiety? Talk to God and lay it all out on Him. If you put God first, then everything else will fall into place.

Misc

I finally have a reason as to why walking in nature is better than say, walking in a parking lot, even if that parking lot is surrounded by trees.

Before you read my reason, just know that I am a car guy.

Taking walks in a parking lot makes me look at cars, which then gets me thinking about my car, and wondering why is it that I'm driving an old car, when I could be driving something new like this one over here, or that one over there. Walking in a parking lot basically has the potential to distract me with thoughts of wanting to buy a new car. That goes away when I do my walks in nature, because well, what am I going to think about, wanting to buy a new tree?

One of life's mysteries is this itch, want, need, to buy new books even while the number of unread books in my bookshelves keep on increasing.

This is why I'm putting a lot of effort into clearing out my online to-read list, as well as dropping a lot of the RSS feeds I follow. If I want to make progress with reading all the unread books in my bookshelf, I need to let go of reading all these interesting articles and blog posts on the internet.

Tags: #JournalEntry #Bookmarks #PersonalFinance #SocialMedia #Parenting #Quotes #Theology #Spirituality #Christianity

Link: WOF 3485: The Power of Mimetic Desire with Luke Burgis

Here are some of my takeaways after listening to the podcast:

One talking point in the podcast was René Girard's interpretation of the story of the adulterous woman brought before Jesus (John 8:1-11). This is the story where Jesus famously says, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Before he even utters that famous line though, the bible passages specifically says that Jesus looks down and writes on the sand, while the scribes and the Pharisees try to get a reaction out of him. By the law of Moses they said, a woman caught in the act of adultery will be stoned. Jesus averts his gaze and keeps writing on the sand.

Why?

Girard thinks that Jesus was averting his gaze to avoid imitating the accusatory behavior of the accusers. If behaviors like that, can be imitated unconsciously, then that would explain so much of the toxic behavior online. All it takes is one person to throw the stone, and then everyone else picks up a stone and slings it at the accused.

You can see this play out in social media. A common example is when somebody gets jumped on by the masses for saying something wrong on Twitter or Facebook.

The key point from Girard is this: what Jesus was doing in that Bible passage, was showing us how to deal with negative mimesis. It can be really easy to get whipped up into being an accuser and start throwing stones all over the place. What we need to do, is take a step back and avert our gaze before coming up with our own judgement of the situation.

The hive mind of the internet, of social media, can be described by René Girard's Mimetic theory.

Another interesting point that was mentioned in the podcast, was the 10th commandment, “Do not covet your neighbor's goods.” How quickly we've forgotten that in today's world. And why wouldn't we, when this is what the internet and social media serves up everyday; photos and videos of our neighbors living their best life with the coolest products at their disposal.

Another way to look at it is, God already knew that we humans will fall prey to mimetic desire. So he tried to steer us away from it with the 10th commandment. And yet, we easily forget about it in today's modern world.

Social media has made everyone our neighbor.

The sheer reach of social media has made everyone appear to be our neighbor. And with that comes the unconscious imitation of our neighbor's desires. And with that comes rivalry and competition.

Can you see it now? This is why people keep trying to one-up each other on social media. It's rivalry and competition caused by mimetic desires. Mimetic conflict/desire/theory by René Girard does explain so much of our current state of the world.

For car enthusiasts, there's a short story on the rivalry between Ferruccio Lamborghini and Enzo Ferarri. The owner of Lamborghini realized that competing against Ferrari (mimetic rivalry) only brought him stress and sleepless nights, so he actively sought ways to avoid it.

To get away from mimetic desires and rivalry, you have to find God's mission for you.

How does that help?

It helps because that mission is going to be unique to you. Everybody else's mission is going to be different. That means you won't end up comparing yourself to others, because each person has a different mission.

If you focus only on your desires in life, if you focus only on what you want to do in life, you'll end up comparing yourself to others to see what they are doing and how they are doing relative to you. And then you'll find yourself subjected to mimetic desires, rivalry, competition, envy, etc...

If you've made it this far, I thank you for reading. In the event that this is my last post for the 2022, I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Tags: #Bookmarks #WordOnFire #MimeticTheory #ReneGirard #BishopBarron #Christianity #Spirituality

Creating habits: how long does it take to form a habit? — the title pretty much explains what this article is about.

So, how long does it take to form a new habit? Apparently, it takes an average of around 66 days, or 2 months, to form a new habit. That is way longer than what is normally mentioned in articles or magazines I’ve read. That means if you want to build a habit of doing pull-ups right after waking up, you need to consistently do it for 2 months straight.

After reading this essay, Peter Thiel's Religion, and finding out about the idea of mimetic theory, of us imitating others, my mind was opened up. I'm starting to see it around me. Most of everything we do is imitation. I don't quite know yet what to do with this new found information, but I'm excited to find out more about it.

Blogging and Digital Gardens

A digital garden is where you go to think. And once you've sorted through your thoughts and ideas, you go to your blog to write it all down, then share it to the rest of the world.

Splitting one big blog/website into smaller more focused blogs/websites, is you, the author, shifting the responsibility of categorizing/filtering content away from the reader. Instead of the reader having to deal with figuring out how to only subscribe to content on your website that they like, you break it up for them so it is easier for them to pick and choose what to follow or subscribe to. It might not be the most efficient use of your resources or your time, but it is more respectful of the readers time.

The more I work on my digital garden, the more I become convinced that my Digital Garden as it is in Obsidian, does not need to be shared online. What needs to be shared is the content, which already makes its way into my posts on my various blogs/websites.

Nutrition

Always wondered why most recommendations for eating chicken is to eat one that doesn't have skin on it. Well now I know. That's because chicken skin has high amounts of saturated fat.

Why does that matter? It matters because saturated fat can increase your LDL (bad cholesterol). So, if you are trying to keep your cholesterol in check, take off the chicken skin before eating it.

Spirituality

Heard these lyrics in a song:

Show me all your scars and I'll show you the cross.

Yeah, we all have our scars, we all go through our own suffering. But take a look at what Jesus, the son of God, endured on the cross for you and me. Let that put your scars and suffering into perspective.

You cannot change God no matter how hard you pray. God will do what He wants because He is God and you are not. The key though is that He always wants what's best for you. So even if He does whatever He wants, it's always taking into account what's best for you.

^ Thought inspired by one of Bishop Barron's Daily Gospel Reflection.

Misc

Found this pretty cool and free Anime Avatar Maker.

Writing is addictive to me because just like woodworking, we are creating something tangible that can be shared with other people.

The same feeling or motivation that drives secular people to share their causes online, is the same feeling or motivation that drives religious people to share the Gospel. Its finding something that you are so invested in emotionally, that you cannot help but share it with other people.

This applies to anything that hits you on an emotional level. If it made you feel something, you will more than likely want to share it with others.

Tags: #JournalEntry #Bookmarks #BuildingHabits #MimeticTheory #Blogging #DigitalGarden #Reflection #Nutrition #Spirituality #Christianity #Writing

If you have an interest in minimalism, detaching from material possessions, finding joy and happiness with less, you might want to watch this. It's 14 minutes long, but well worth your time.

Here are some of my takeaways from this sermon:

Earthly goods will keep you in an addictive pattern. You'll want more and more and more. And chances are, you'll get more and more and more. And yet, you'll never be satisfied.

The more you cling to the goods of the world, the more you become imprisoned by them.

The goods of the world talked about here are not limited to material possessions. They can be immaterial things too like fame, honor, reputation, likes, hearts, etc... If you cling on to those, you will also be imprisoned by them.

Nothing in this world lasts. And so while we can cling to them, they will still fade away. We will still fade away. And so what's the point of trying to hang on to them?

What should we do instead?

We should savor the moment, but not cling to it. Detach and let it go. Don't be imprisoned by the goods of the world.

Guess what doesn't fade away?

The Word of God. It's been here for 2000 years now. That should give you an idea of what you should be clinging to instead.

If you keep your focus on Christ, then in turn you'll learn how to deal with the goods of the earth in a manner that doesn't consume you, in a manner that doesn't keep you addicted, in a manner that doesn't imprison you.

Lastly, he ends his sermon with this wonderful quote from Cardinal George of Chicago. Read it a couple of times and let it sink in. It might just change your life.

The only thing you take with you into the life to come, is what you've given away on earth.

Tags: #Spirituality #BishopBarron #Christianity #Detachment #WordOnFire

If you are a parent of young kids and you are concerned about how distracted you are around them, then you will find a lot to relate to in this podcast.

Takeaways

As mentioned above, the whole podcast was a little over 2 hours long. Here are some of my takeaways from watching it. Note that most of these are not direct quotes. I tried to capture the idea as best as I can, but I would suggest watching the podcast to get the context and fully appreciate them.

When Matt, the podcast host, mentioned that he no longer gives out his phone number to everyone, and that he now only corresponds with people through email, which he can only do so with a laptop that stays at his office, John Lentz said this (not a direct quote):

What is more loving, giving 10% of your all to everyone? Or giving 80-100% of your all to the people you love?

You have to pick and choose who you want to be able to reach out to you 24/7. By opening yourself up to be interrupted by anyone, you stretch yourself out too thin. And so you can only give so much of your best to people.

By going the email route for correspondence, you actually give yourself time to disconnect. You're no longer expected to reply right away. Now the expectation is, you'll get to their message when you check your emails. You'll get to it when you get to it. People will need to learn to wait for a response, which can be hard in today's world of instant messaging.

Children are like arrows. It's our job to pull the string, point them hopefully in the right direction, then release and let go. ~ Chris Kaspar

A very good analogy of what it means to be a parent.

Most parents usually have a plan on how to introduce kids to the subject of money. We usually go about it slowly. And the lessons progress over time, going through a number of years until we deem them responsible enough to handle money. Why don't we have the same plan for the technology that we hand out to our kids?

Most parents, including me, will allow their kids to use an iPhone or an iPad and call it a day. I see now how that is reckless. We have to teach kids how to handle technology, just like how we teach them to handle money.

We use tech to escape God, but simultaneously, God uses tech to protect and reach out to us. ~ Chris Kaspar

They (your kids) will only be here for a short time. My wife is a gift to me and she will only be here for a short time. I will only be here for a short time. ~ John Lentz

That's a great reminder of what we are losing, when we spend our days distracted with social media or the phone in our hands — we are losing time with our loved ones.

Lastly, an interesting explanation of why the company is named “Techless”. I previously thought it meant “less technology”, which equates to “techless”, makes sense, right?

But actually, the company name alludes to what John the Baptist said in John 3:30, “He must become greater; I must become less.” With regards to the company name, it means “God must increase, technology must decrease.” It's a very paradoxical name for a technology company.

Tags: #Bookmarks #DigitalMinimalism #Parenthood #Parenting #SmartphoneAddiction #Spirituality

Personal Publishing Principles — this is a great read for someone interested in creating/maintaining a personal website or a personal blog.

One good tip that was shared in that post is that a personal website/blog is the perfect place for you to experiment with your own ideas. Not everything will work out of course, but keep trying and some will.

This also tells me that if your personal website won't allow you to do that, then you probably have a professional website as opposed to a personal one.

‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ – the mantra of the Instagram era — extremely good read on the use of social media, and how it changes the way we think and go about our daily lives.

One of the problems with social media that is highlighted in this essay, is that while social media gives everyone a voice, everyone on social media is also speaking at the same time. This means that if you want to be heard, you will want to speak louder, and you'll want to do so more often than everybody else. If you don't, you risk becoming somebody who shouts into the void with nobody even glancing your way.

So you can see how this can make people addicted to constantly posting photos, status, updates, etc... Each post becoming grander and grander just so you can get more eyeballs and hopefully likes/comments on it.

Christianity

From Mk 10:46-52:

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging.

On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.”

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.

Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

This gospel passage is a great example of being persistent with your prayers. Bartimaeus kept calling out to Jesus even as he was getting reprimanded by the people around him. He was being told to shut up, but he kept calling out anyway. And eventually Jesus answered his call. The lesson here is to be persistent with your prayers.

You could argue that he kept on calling because he was blind and desperate. True, that seems to be a valid point. But then, why wait till you're blind and desperate before you persevere in your prayers? I feel like you open yourself up to more gifts and blessings from the Lord, if you don't wait till you're blind and desperate.

When Jesus says,

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate Father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

... what He means is that any of those cannot be loved more than God himself. To be a disciple means to put everything else second to the love of God.

Source: Bishop Barron, Word on Fire Bible Volume I, p386

There is a beautiful comment on this Youtube video from Christian Gospel that goes like this:

GOD is like oxygen. You can't see HIM, but you can't live without Him! The GOD that fought with David is the same GOD that will fight with you & for you! Your next chapter will be amazing. GOD is changing your storyline to happy & healed!💕❤🙏🙌

“GOD is like oxygen. You can't see HIM, but you can't live without Him!” Love that analogy!

Reflections

One of the great things about social media is that it made it really easy to give everyone a voice (see interesting read above). The problem is, it comes with a price. You pay for it with your data and attention.

People who weren't on social media before, didn't have the urges to post photos or post status updates. It makes me think that this is something that has turned into a habit over time. And since it's become a habit for most people, it is hard to stop.

Writing for yourself is writing to a private diary or journal. Writing to an audience is when your writing is shared to the public.

Quotes

What is weird? Someone who is different? Or someone who is different than you? ~ Sensei Wu, Ninjago

Ninjago is easily becoming my favorite kids TV show. It is filled with insightful quotes like this one. Sometimes I feel like they made the show for adults, just as much as they made it for kids.

“Children are perhaps the most unmistakable evidence of goodness in a world so bogged down by suffering and anger.” ~ Jared Zimmerer, Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute

Parenting

Is the internet hurting the youth? — Gary Vee — seems like excellent advice on how to handle kids and their use of the internet.

For those who don't want to click the link because they're allergic to Instagram or Reels, the advice is this: Build your kid's self-esteem first before letting them loose on the internet.

Tags: #JournalEntry #Bookmarks #Blogging #SocialMedia #Christianity #Spirituality #Reflections #Writing #Parenting

I say new because I've had a journal entry series before. If you are a returning reader, you've most likely even read them. If you are a new reader, then you missed out on a number of cringe-worthy personal posts. And that's part of the reason that series came to an end. I somehow outgrew that phase and no longer wanted to write about overtly personal stuff.

So, for this new series, one of the things I want to focus on is just sharing what I've learned. Instead of this journal/series being about “What's been going on with my life?”, I want it to be more about “What have I learned today?”

Also, I won't commit to a schedule for posting. It could be once a month, once every 4 months, or even just once a year. Whatever it will turn out to be, I'll write one when I feel like writing. So before that urge to write fades, here goes.

Interesting Reads

The Power and Joys of Turning Off — Great post on the simple joy of going offline.

Every Blogging Option Sucks — Pretty good round up of current blogging options. While the author didn't end up choosing write.as, it did fairly well compared to the competition.

Praxis and the Indieweb — Great read on the potential and challenges with the IndieWeb. It is an interesting take because most of everything you read online about the IndieWeb is all positive. This is the first one I've read that tries to argue against it.

But perhaps the most important thing I've learned from reading it is mentioned in the quote below:

The problem is that this construct fails in two key ways, legal and conceptual. Legally, any and all content that you post to a silo is no longer “your content”.

The quote is talking about the idea of POSSE: Publish Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. It's basically posting content to your own site first, then syndicating it elsewhere. But there's a problem with doing that. If you post the same photo that you posted on your site, onto a social network like say Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you end up giving them ownership of that photo.

Yikes. Was totally not aware of that.

Reflections

A problem with my Weeknotes posts is that I have to decide what gets included on a post, based on what I’ve written down during the week. If I wrote a lot, then there are a lot of decisions to make.

This is one advantage that impromptu blogging has over my Weeknotes posts. With impromptu blogging, I only write down what I want to write about. And I only ever do it when I really want to get something out.

And this is why this post is a “journal entry” and not another Weeknotes post.

We live in an age of distraction, not an age of doubt. ~ Father Joshua Whitfield (Sunday Homily)

All I can say to that is, amen Father Joshua Whitfield.

Actually... I can say a few more. I think what Father Joshua was saying, is that the challenge with the people of today, is not that they doubt, or that they don't have the capacity to believe in the existence of a creator. The challenge with people today, is that most are distracted by social media, the internet, and so many other things and activities, that they never find the time and solitude to think about the answers to existential and theological questions like:

• Where did we come from?
• Why are we here?
• Where are we going?
• Is there more to life than this?
• Does God really exist?
• What happens to us when we die?

Is it wrong for me to say that finding answers to those questions, is more important than say, checking up on your Instagram feed tonight? Or even dare I say, more important than publishing that new blog post? I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Tags: #JournalEntry #Bookmarks #Reflection #Blogging #Spirituality