Category Archives: motivation

Monday Musings — 18NOV24

It time to Gird your loins folks. It’s time to do battle and get to work.

I don’t think the next 4 years (hope that’s all it will be) is going to be great for lot of people. In fact if Trump does half of what he’s telegraphed, then it’s going to be really shitty. So get ready to put some hard work into the things you feel are important, and that the elites are going to try to fuck up.

I put some resources in last week’s Musings, and a few more since then. Check them out.

So, I’m handicapped. Can drive myself, don’t leave the house as much as I used to (especially in the cold weather), I’m weak (can barely lift myself out of a chair), all that crap. I can write and make art still. Thank goodness for that. Have all (or most) of my faculties. So I can still read, also. I can’t join protests, making it to meetings is, while not impossible, not practical, unless it’s via Zoom or something. It’s not something I worried about, even a couple of years ago, but there you have it. I do what I can. Around the house I do chores, with lots of rest breaks, I cook, etc. I work in my studio, when I can. Some days motivation is damn nigh nonexistent, others it comes back.

So I do my art, I write this blog. Which I hope can be motivating for you all. I donate money to causes (not much). I Zoom with some people who help me motivate to write the comic I’m working on. I do what I can. You should to.

On that note, I’m an old fart, and there’s an organization for older people who want to make a difference. Read about it:

“Experienced Americans” are the fastest-growing part of the population: 10,000 people a day pass the 60-year mark. That means that there’s no way to make the changes that must be made to protect our planet and society unless we bring our power into play.

We’re used to thinking that humans grow more conservative as they age, perhaps because we have more to protect, or simply because we’re used to things the way they are. But our generations saw enormous positive change early in our lives—the civil rights movement, for instance, or the fight to end massive wars or guarantee the rights of women. And now we fear that the promise of those changes may be dying, as the planet heats and inequality grows.

But as a generation we have unprecedented skills and resources that we can bring to bear. Washington and Wall Street have to listen when we speak, because we vote and because we have a large—maybe an overlarge—share of the country’s assets. And many of us have kids and grandkids and great grandkids: we have, in other words, very real reasons to worry and to work.

Monday Musings — 24JUN24

Wow, it’s Monday already. Had a terrible weekend due to chemo side effects, and have nothing reallly prepared for today.

So let’s talk about procrastination. Which I have been doing a lot of lately. I talked about this with my palliative care docs on Friday an basically everyone agrees that that I need to stick to a plan and do something daily. But how to do that and be accountable is the problem. Maybe putting it out there for everyone to see is a start.

I belong to a Zoom meeting group that meets every week day morning, and that is helping me get some rough work done, if I keep it up.

Ha ve you got tips for not procrastinating? Leave them in the comments.

That’s today’s story.

37 Pieces of Career Advice I Wish I’d Known Earlier – RyanHoliday.net

Just leaving this here for future reference.

The trope that a day job takes away from your art or your hustle is stupid. There was a great exhibition at the Blanton Museum a couple years ago about artists who had day jobs. I wrote 3.5 books while I was the Director of Marketing at American Apparel. I started my own marketing company while I was a writer. I have

Source: 37 Pieces of Career Advice I Wish I’d Known Earlier – RyanHoliday.net

Monday Musings — 22JAN24

From a commencement speech at Harvard by Charlie Munger (How to Guarantee a Life of Misery):

My third prescription for misery is to go down and stay down when you get your first, second, third severe reverse in the battle of life. Because there is so much adversity out there, even for the lucky and wise, this will guarantee that, in due course, you will be permanently mired in misery. Ignore at all cost the lesson contained in the accurate epitaph written for himself by Epictetus: “Here lies Epictetus, a slave, maimed in body, the ultimate in poverty, and favoured by Gods.”

The rest is pretty good too.

https://www.space.com/barbenheimer-star-defies-explanation

a purple and blue explosion behind the periodic table of elements The newly discovered Barbenheimer Star exploded in a supernova billions of years ago, leaving behind a cloud of unusual elements in its wake. (Image credit: University of Chicago/SDSS-V/Melissa Weiss)

Scientists have discovered evidence of a massive star from the early universe that does not fit with our current understanding of the cosmos. 

Epic: The Musical is a loose adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, who wrote the music and lyrics and also orchestrated and produced the tracks. His song clips and process videos have gone viral on social media with over 60 million views across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The yet-to-be-released musical also has an active Discord fan community of over 30,000 people who share fanart, memes, fan theories, cover songs, positive affirmations, and tattoos of the lyrics.

Free to listen on Spotify, or get the ones that have been released on Bandcamp:

https://jayherrans.bandcamp.com/album/epic-the-troy-saga-original-concept-album

A link filled Monday, of stuff that interested me this week. Not much musing going on is there. Just wanted to share good stuff. We all need that don’t we. See you next week.

Monday Musings–30OCT23

Had an MRI this week. The first in a couple of years. Seems that Northern Light has a newer machine, that is close to a CTScan machine. Not as tight , and with a shorter barrel. Makes it a lot less claustrophobic. Easy Peasy. Still loud though. The advance in just a couple of years was great for me, who doesn’t like tight places.

The room at hospital with MRI scanner.

Working on a new painting. It’s of our old house that we lived in for 18 years, before we had to move to Bangor, when I got sick.

That’s just a few hours work. Roughing in colors and form.

Here’s some rules from Sister Corita Kent:

The Rules
  1. Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for a while.
  2. General duties of a student — pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
  3. General duties of a teacher — pull everything out of your students.
  4. Consider everything an experiment.
  5. Be self-disciplined — this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
  6. Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail; there’s only make.
  7. The only rule is work. If you work, it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
  8. Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
  9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
  10. We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.

 

Helpful hints

  • Always be around.
  • Come or go to everything.
  • Always go to classes.
  • Read anything you can get your hands on.
  • Look at movies carefully, often.
  • Save everything. It might come in handy later.

Think that’ll do it for this week.