Ryanware

A few quotes I’ve collected over the last few weeks on twitter, or just had lying around, or whatever.

My Goal of the Day: Fully listen to my critics, even if they may not know exactly what they’re critical of.
– Malcolm Gladwell

I don’t think I mentioned it, but I ran into Malcolm Gladwell in the lobby of the office building I work in. I always feel a little bad in interrupting someone who probably gets interrupted a lot, but if I actually care about who they are I will usually interrupt anyway. Some may see that as backwards, but whatever. I don’t try to become their friend. I just say hi, express my appreciation for their work, and go on my merry way.

The following advice, given by the deceitful Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood in C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, describes a common malady afflicting many of us today: “Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient’s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.”
– Michael J. Teh quoting The Screwtape Letters

I posted this quote back in November of 2007 and I’ve already said everything I have to say about it (for now).

“To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.”
– William H. Walton

Which would be pretty terrible, especially if you had no allergic reaction to the bee. I choose a grudge-free life.

Also, that would be quite the persistent, death-resistant bee.

Few concepts have more potential to mislead us than the idea that choice, or agency, is an ultimate goal.
– Dallin H. Oaks, “Weightier Matters,” Ensign, Jan 2001, 13

Choice, or agency, is a condition of life. This should not be confused with the ability to act on choices without undesired consequences. That’s called freedom.

If your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you need to seriously rethink your life.
– Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes)

And in the spirit of Calvin & Hobbes, here’s a semi-sad reminder (if you love Calvin & Hobbes) about saving things for your children instead of throwing them away. I’m really just putting it here because I like Calvin & Hobbes, I’m sentimental, and I wanted an excuse to post it.

I started reading Perelandra by C.S. Lewis today. In the second chapter the character Ransom says something I find extremely interesting.

Haven’t you noticed how in our own little war here on earth, there are different phases, and while any one phase is going on people get into the habit of thinking and behaving as if it was going to be permanent? But really the thing is changing under your hands all the time, and neither your assets nor your dangers this year are the same as the year before.
– Perelanda, C.S. Lewis

Then, I read this post, How far away is your emergency? by Seth Godin, and marveled (mainly because I wanted to use the word) that Godin illustrates exactly the point Lewis was talking about.

It’s amazing that people have so much time to fret about today’s emergency but almost no time at all to avoid tomorrow’s.

A glimpse at the TV and internets shows one talking head after another angsting about today’s economy. These are the same people who needed to devote entire hours to mindless trivia nine months ago when they could have done an enormous amount of education about avoiding this mess in the first place.

…

They say the best time to look for a job is when you don’t need one. And the best time to invest in a new Purple Cow is when you’re still milking the old one. Move your emergency back in time and you’ll be amazed at how far your money goes.
– Seth Godin

It’s important to remember that our present circumstances are not permanent. Tomorrow’s emergencies will be different from today’s and we ought to keep that in mind so as not to be surprised and, more importantly, so that we’ll be prepared when the changes occur.

I just noticed that I only posted on the first and last days of this month. Whoops.

If I read 76 books a year until I’m 80 years old I will have read 3,000 books.

Of course, I don’t know the actual number of books I’ve read. I only know that I’ve read or listened to approximately 82 books in the last 3 years. A few of those are books I remember reading while growing up (real books).

If I could remember all the books I read growing up the full number would probably be closer to 150, or at least I hope it would.

So basically, my depth of reading is pretty sad.

I recently started twittering about my book reading over at 3000books. I also have the domain 3000books.com, but I haven’t set anything up on it yet. When I get around to it it’ll be a book reading blog, naturally.

My most recent reads:

• The Anatomy of Peace by The Arbinger Institute (read it)
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (read it)
• Xenocide by Orson Scott Card (listened)
• Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (listened)
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald (dailylit)

I am currently listening to The 8th Habit by Stephen R. Covey and just started reading The Fellowship of the Ring By J.R.R. Tolkien.

I’m still poking along at several books on dailylit: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Tale of Two Cities, and Little Women. Whew!

Not that that’s enough. I just purchased The Joseph Smith Papers, Out of the Silent Planet (already read it, but it was among those lost when I moved), Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go get busy reading (or listening).

So tonight I had dinner, which is normal. The abnormal part was that it was unlike any dinner I’ve ever prepared for myself.

(just ignore the dirty stove)

I took a picture in case no one would believe me.

The bag it came in was a little tough to open so I almost abandoned the idea for a big bowl of ice cream, but I managed all the same.

I followed this up with some roasted almonds, then raw almonds, then granola, then I got out some yogurt for the granola.

The challenge now is to resist the temptation to eat a big bowl of ice cream before I go to bed.

Actually, that should be pretty easy. I’ll just eat it straight from the carton.

I am sitting here, in my home office (sounds so official), starving to death. Some people (you know the types), upon reading that last sentence, immediately thought, “well, you’re not really starving to death because you’re going to eat food soon enough. you’re just experiencing hunger pains because you haven’t eaten in a little while. if you waited long enough, they would go away. give it a day or two and then you’d really be starving to death.”

To those types of people I respond thusly: You’re wrong. I’m not experiencing hunger pains. You see, I started to eat a bag of chips right before I started writing this post. The feelings of death by starvation have been dissipating ever so slowly.

I knew when I opened the bag of chips that it might keep me from going outside (in the ACTUAL outdoors) to get food. I accepted the consequences, though I think I’ll regret it later.

I decided a few weeks ago that I was never going grocery shopping again (for as long as I don’t have a car). It wasn’t a completely silly thing to decide, and you might be making all sorts of wrong conclusions about my eating habits, but the decision did have one consequence I did not intend: starving to death.

In the battle of quantity vs. quality, quantity almost always wins. For example, I’d rather eat two bags of plain tortilla chips than one bite of amazing pizza. The deciding factor being this question: “if this is the last thing I eat, how long would I last before starving to death?”

There all sorts of flaws with my quality vs. quantity decision making, and an examination of my behavior would no doubt provide ample reason to distrust everything I have said thus far. The fact remains, however, that my cupboards are almost completely empty and if I don’t do something about it soon I could easily be hungry way more than I like to be.

I do have pancake mix, some eggs, some chips, hot chocolate mix, a bottle of hot sauce, and plain yogurt (I thought I was buying vanilla). This is a suitable amount of food on which one can survive (not for long), but not on which one would pleasantly thrive.

So, a few weeks ago I ordered food from FreshDirect, an online grocery delivery service for the New York area. I ordered, and the food arrived. I didn’t have to walk. I didn’t have to take the subway. It was awesome.

So I decided to shop like that for the rest of my car-less existence.

Then, I ran out of food. So I bought a few things from the grocery store. But not too much because it’s cheaper and easier online.

The problem with online shopping is that you have to wait for it. You don’t get instant satisfaction, which is fairly important when you’re trying not to starve to death.

So now that I’ve rambled on and on and have eaten way too many chips, I’m gonna go outside and find something to eat. Wendy’s? Subway? Crown Fried Chicken?

It would be nice if restaurants had signs that said “our food prevents starvation.” That way, if a restaurant didn’t have the sign, you would know not to get food there.

Upon reading the title of this post you may think to yourself, “self, I think he must have meant ‘Lost World – Jurassic Park’.” If you thought that, I’ve been wondering, is it a book I should read? It’s been on my list for a while now.

Books are awesome. Especially books wherein the story takes place in a different world, or in an alternative or modified version of our own world. It’s as if the books came from those other worlds. They are a gateway to a different reality—often a more desirable one than our own. Separating myself from this world and learning of another allows me to accept things I might not otherwise accept (which can be good and bad), and hopefully use those things to improve my life.

When I moved to New York I packed up the stuff I could bring with me, which wasn’t much, and then boxed up the rest and shipped it to New York. I got most of it last week. Today I got another box, full of books. Earlier this week I got a letter from the U.S. Postal Service stating, “an empty wrapper with your address was found in the mail and it is believed to have been separated from a parcel during handling.” They even tapped the address label to the paper so I could see it.

I can fill out a description sheet and mail it back and they’ll try to find my stuff. I waited until today for the other box full of books to come so I could get a better grasp on what I lost. While I still have both my English and Spanish versions of The Chronicles of Narnia, I lost all my other C.S. Lewis books, which I am very bummed about (I mark up and write a lot in the margins of my books). I also lost my Malcolm Gladwell books, Gordon B. Hinckley’s biography as well as some of his books. 13 is the total number I cannot account for. I’m sure I’ll remember more later.

Oh, I also lost a few movies on DVD. I used to be the proud owner of 6 movies. That number has now been reduced to 1. Pride cometh before a fall, they say.

One funny thing. I packed the books and DVDs in these two boxes and used my socks to keep them from sloshing around. I kept expecting the boxes to come so I didn’t go out and buy socks. It’s been rough. I like socks.

So, in a lost and found, under a machine at a post office, on the side of the road, or perhaps in some happy postal worker’s living room, lay my books. Lost worlds.

One writer said: “Again Christmas, abiding point of return. Set apart by its mystery, mood and magic, the season seems, in a way to stand outside time. All that is dear, that is lasting, renews its hold on us: we are home again.”

President David O. McKay (1873–1970) declared: “True happiness comes only by making others happy—the practical application of the Savior’s doctrine of losing one’s life to gain it. In short, the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit, that makes our hearts glow in brotherly love and friendship and prompts us to kind deeds of service.

“It is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, obedience to which will bring ‘peace on earth,’ because it means—good will toward all men.”

Giving, not getting, brings to full bloom the Christmas spirit. Enemies are forgiven, friends remembered, and God obeyed. The spirit of Christmas illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than things. To catch the real meaning of the “spirit of Christmas,” we need only drop the last syllable, and it becomes the “Spirit of Christ.”

– The Best Christmas Ever, Thomas S. Monson

Isn’t this time of year wonderful?