“When we find ourselves at war, our leaders don’t ask us to reflect upon our role in the world (and why we face such ill-will); they ask us to spend more money to keep the economy active. When we face the potential end of species (or vast diminishment of), we don’t take drastic actions to change; we tell ourselves we can buy “greener” stuff. And even here, where we are encouraged to revel in the “human spirit” we’re far more inclined to buy some overpriced nationalistic merchandise than we are to ask about our less fortunate neighbours, and how we might tangibly exhibit such sentiments.”

Go World? by Eric Karjuluoto

Anonymous asked: Critical Thinking... what process do you have in place for creating solutions?

1. Analysis of the job. What’s the problem? What’s trying to be said?
2. Mental inventory. Word lists. What do I know about it? What do I associate with it?
3 Spin cycle. Mix and match. Shake, rattle and roll. Play with meanings. What’s old? What’s fresh? What doesn’t work? What does?
4. Review. Is it good? Suitable? Does it do what it’s supposed to?

Enthusiasm

If you translate “enthusiasm” from its Greek origin, it means “to be filled with God.”

Being filled with God is a pretty ideal, state, huh? If you think about all the great philosophers talking about the supreme state of a person, and asking “What is the good life?” it seems to me that being filled with God is as fitting of an answer as they could come up with. The pinnacle of emotion in this world is to be filled with something otherworldly. The Greeks decided to call that “enthusiasm.”

Enthusiasm is an overflow of emotion. The old use of the word means to be divinely inspired to do things like speaking in tongues. When the work is good and fluid, it almost is like we’re speaking in tongues: we’re done saying something we don’t fully understand before we even realize what we are doing.

The ideal state of a person is not composure, peace, or a stillness. It’s movement. Frenetic, excited, jubilant movement. It’s a sign of life. It is atoms vibrating and an eruption of potential into kinetic. But, in movement, enthusiasm is not necessarily accomplishment, power, or wealth, but an intense interest and enjoyment about the thing right in front of you. Enthusiasm is about the work at hand. To be enthusiastic is to be present, content and elated. That sounds like a happiness cocktail to me. Maybe the Greeks were on to something…

Anonymous asked: what makes you skip some questions? have they been asked before?

I skip questions that: have been asked before, are bad questions, are ones I’m not interested in answering, or ones I do not have an answer to.

“An elegant person is a gentleman, one who knows how to handle himself. He cares for his life, and intends to live it in association with others who care and with things that are beautiful and fine.”

Mid-century novelist David Loovis, quoted by Ivy Style, from The New Yorker (via putthison)