The Daily Blog Open Mic – Thursday – 19th March 2020

My opinion is that we don’t do enough thinking and reflecting these days. We get caught up in the trivia and entertainment, we are encouraged to be physical just for the sake of it and perhaps health, but it’s a bit of a craze ie mountain biking, marathons. They are not of direct practical use. (Nancy Wake cycled many kilometres in WW2 to set up a new radio operator contact with the UK. She was afraid to get down from the seat in case she wouldn’t be able to get going again. That was real use for being fit.)

This is an item about what the young people affected by Covid-19 closures in a normal USA family are doing and thinking, physicality rules and mental activity, without pictures, comes in a poor last in the race.
Like Jackson and Kevin, Cy is missing ‘March Madness’, the big college basketball fest that the US usually indulges in this time of year. (It’s all cancelled.) But he’s grateful his brother is stuck at home with him. “If it was just me and my parents I’d go a little insane.
“I might have to read a book or something, but it would be a serious last resort.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018739029/what-happens-to-a-family-stuck-together-in-quarantine

If we are going to have a lot of down time, are we going to use it to get informed, learn something, read, and not do everything on-line? On-line can be good – the Khan programs, the Ted Talks present food for thought and vocational training. What about learning another language, getting something solid but not essential for work, from the spare time?

Last century people strived for better conditions and more learning, and they thought things through. They didn’t have fascinating pictures on a screen to seduce them into an acceptance of having someone else organise life, and one that encouraged consumer aspirations. We only have the better life that many of us have today as a result of striving, some sacrifice, thought and deed. And the fact that so many now are having a shit of a time these days doesn’t cause us to respond with vigour to improve, we have become supine and self-satisfied, and unaware of the need to fight for general principles or else we will be next found to be sidelined. There is little sign of politicians and influential people turning conditions right around to better everybody’s lifestyle opportunities, just incremental crumbs from hard-faced or myopic providers.
We as a society have allowed that to happen and the practices and thinking patterns are deeply embedded in our brains and have come to be accepted as reasonable, when looking at outcomes squarely would signal this is not so.

A guy called Robin Sharma sounds interesting. We could read his book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43877.The_Monk_Who_Sold_His_Ferrari
About oft quoted George Bernard Shaw he says:
One of my favorite quotes comes from George Bernard Shaw who noted: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Please think about that idea.

And also Robin S. Sharma > Quotes
“Give out what you most want to come back.” …
“Your “I CAN” is more important than your IQ.” …
“We are all here for some special reason. …
“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.” …
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/24678.Robin_S_Sharma

Start reading books, things you can operate from your own energy, your own volition, your own choice, and which use a different part of your brain than the visual. Can you see how television has influenced us, feeding us pictures and a narrative that is chosen by others, foreshortened to fit a schedule, turned into sound bites that only enable you to see the situation as through a slit in the curtain. We are like young birds who have been fed regurgitated food collected for us, and don’t want to find our own brain food. If you have ever seen a grown seagull youngster squealing and chasing its parent for a feed, you will know what I’m talking about.

And if you are hooked on physicality, get and read Christopher McDougall who wrote Natural Born Heroes. And learn about parkour which is fascinating body sport. (On TradeMe and available in NZ, support our local economy!)
Summary from amazon: Christopher McDougall’s journey begins with a story of remarkable athletic prowess: On the treacherous mountains of Crete, a motley band of World War II Resistance fighters—an artist, a shepherd, and a poet—abducted a German commander from the heart of the Axis occupation. To understand how, McDougall retraces their steps across the island that birthed Herakles and Odysseus, and discovers ancient techniques for endurance, sustenance, and natural movement that have been preserved in unique communities around the world.

2 COMMENTS

Greywarbler March 19, 2020 At 10:51 am

My opinion is that we don’t do enough thinking and reflecting these days. We get caught up in the trivia and entertainment, we are encouraged to be physical just for the sake of it and perhaps health, but it’s a bit of a craze ie mountain biking, marathons. They are not of direct practical use. (Nancy Wake cycled many kilometres in WW2 to set up a new radio operator contact with the UK. She was afraid to get down from the seat in case she wouldn’t be able to get going again. That was real use for being fit.)

This is an item about what the young people affected by Covid-19 closures in a normal USA family are doing and thinking, physicality rules and mental activity, without pictures, comes in a poor last in the race.
Like Jackson and Kevin, Cy is missing ‘March Madness’, the big college basketball fest that the US usually indulges in this time of year. (It’s all cancelled.) But he’s grateful his brother is stuck at home with him. “If it was just me and my parents I’d go a little insane.
“I might have to read a book or something, but it would be a serious last resort.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018739029/what-happens-to-a-family-stuck-together-in-quarantine

If we are going to have a lot of down time, are we going to use it to get informed, learn something, read, and not do everything on-line? On-line can be good – the Khan programs, the Ted Talks present food for thought and vocational training. What about learning another language, getting something solid but not essential for work, from the spare time?

Last century people strived for better conditions and more learning, and they thought things through. They didn’t have fascinating pictures on a screen to seduce them into an acceptance of having someone else organise life, and one that encouraged consumer aspirations. We only have the better life that many of us have today as a result of striving, some sacrifice, thought and deed. And the fact that so many now are having a shit of a time these days doesn’t cause us to respond with vigour to improve, we have become supine and self-satisfied, and unaware of the need to fight for general principles or else we will be next found to be sidelined. There is little sign of politicians and influential people turning conditions right around to better everybody’s lifestyle opportunities, just incremental crumbs from hard-faced or myopic providers.
We as a society have allowed that to happen and the practices and thinking patterns are deeply embedded in our brains and have come to be accepted as reasonable, when looking at outcomes squarely would signal this is not so.

A guy called Robin Sharma sounds interesting. We could read his book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43877.The_Monk_Who_Sold_His_Ferrari
About oft quoted George Bernard Shaw he says:
One of my favorite quotes comes from George Bernard Shaw who noted: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Please think about that idea.

And also Robin S. Sharma > Quotes
“Give out what you most want to come back.” …
“Your “I CAN” is more important than your IQ.” …
“We are all here for some special reason. …
“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.” …
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/24678.Robin_S_Sharma

Start reading books, things you can operate from your own energy, your own volition, your own choice, and which use a different part of your brain than the visual. Can you see how television has influenced us, feeding us pictures and a narrative that is chosen by others, foreshortened to fit a schedule, turned into sound bites that only enable you to see the situation as through a slit in the curtain. We are like young birds who have been fed regurgitated food collected for us, and don’t want to find our own brain food. If you have ever seen a grown seagull youngster squealing and chasing its parent for a feed, you will know what I’m talking about.

And if you are hooked on physicality, get and read Christopher McDougall who wrote Natural Born Heroes. And learn about parkour which is fascinating body sport. (On TradeMe and available in NZ, support our local economy!)
Summary from amazon: Christopher McDougall’s journey begins with a story of remarkable athletic prowess: On the treacherous mountains of Crete, a motley band of World War II Resistance fighters—an artist, a shepherd, and a poet—abducted a German commander from the heart of the Axis occupation. To understand how, McDougall retraces their steps across the island that birthed Herakles and Odysseus, and discovers ancient techniques for endurance, sustenance, and natural movement that have been preserved in unique communities around the world.

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