Day: September 14, 2012

Get Up

The Selection: Get Up, by Bill Strickland:

It helped somehow, goofing around. All of us, anyone who rides, normalizes the risk of being on a bike. In a pack, there is something else on top of that, the need to find a way to acknowledge the danger without either glamorizing or dismissing it—either of which, we all know, courts its more wrathful incarnation. When the danger does arrive, I have been taught by my elders and betters and fasters, you entertain it with a kind of respectful insouciance.

[True. But danger doesn’t arrive. It’s part of the system and crashes happen. And once you climb on a bike it’s almost guaranteed. It’s not always epic. Sometimes it’s just that heartbreaking flop onto your side because you failed to clip out and then panicked. Other times… it’s the real deal. I think about this almost every time I’m going down a hill quickly. I certainly thought about it last Sunday when I was doing 37MPH and saw down the hill a little bit that the strong rains had washed a stream of gravel across the road (I had ridden up the other side of the hill). I picked a line, and let the bike float and all was well. But my first thought was “wow, this is gonna suck”. Danger’s always there—it’s built into the system.]

Apple’s Magic Is In The Turn, Not The Prestige

Apple’s Magic Is In The Turn, Not The Prestige:

While it lacks the pomp and circumstance of a Prestige on stage at some big event, this interaction is much more intimate, and as such, much more powerful. You may not perceive it directly, but the care and craft of The Turn percolates through your hands and eyes. Within minutes or even seconds, you just know this is something different. Something far beyond what others are doing with their false magic. You want this. You need this.

That’s why Apple is now the most valuable company in the world. And that’s why you will buy an iPhone 5. And an iPhone 6. And beyond. You’re upset about The Prestige, or the lack thereof. But it’s all about The Turn.

[Great piece. At work I’d really like to get to the point where I can spend time carefully researching and redesigning our work. It won’t be for a while in larger sense, but in a smaller sense we do it every day.]

If this isnt nice, I dont know what is.

If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.:

“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” – Kurt Vonnegut

One of the best pieces of career advice that I have received is that you should never forget to have fun.

A lie that people like to tell themselves is that once “success” is reached (ie raising money, hiring new people, reaching important milestones etc), their life will get a lot easier, and only then can they start to have fun.

Unfortunately, “success” invariably raises the stakes and life actually gets harder and more complicated… not easier.

Instead of admitting this, we try to keep the lie alive by creating a new, more ambitious mirage of “success”. Months, years, decades and entire careers can fly by in this manner.

With all of this in mind, I am trying to take a deep breath, feel the love of my family and friends and say: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

[Right before the start of the Jewish New Year, this bared repeating in whole.]

Source: Dalton Caldwell