It is a grey day here in Portugal — the sun has temporarily deserted us hidden behind layers of cloud. I have a day full of chores ahead after a weekend of relaxation. Cleaning, laundry, changing cat litter — all the mundane things I love to “hate” but know have to be done. Mr P is already fielding phone calls, organizing international transports from France to Portugal via our usual third-party who just happens to be in Brazil this week — the usual Monday mediocrity.
His was a life of bricks and the skillful hands to lay them, fast and capable hands as adept as machines. His was a history thrown with gale force at walls and buildings all over town, a long constructive life of making things to last. Everywhere now in his decline were the monuments of his having passed that way, standing in red clay and mortar, signs of a man’s existence no less expressive than those of whatever poet you might wish to mention.
The job of any True Artist is one of conversion. The Artist takes a notion and transforms it into something else, something greater, than what it was before. That conversion also plays a direct role in the real life of the True Artist, too.
We must always wish for collaborators — and not cooperators — because collaborators have a vested interest in a shared success, while cooperators have nothing to lose, but they are always around to suckle on the win.
Keep your focus
one task by one
the unitasker reigns
Today, the iPad is fulfilling it mission of appropriately and coyly tempting international wanderlust. Yesterday, closer to home, our two iPads finally arrived a few days before scheduled delivery after we purchased them online from Apple the first week of May. After less than a day of playing with the iPad, I can confirm what I said way back on February 5, 2010: The iPad is a killer device. Here are my iPad-only Apps:
She looked every moment of her age; 70 and spent.
We are taught from an early age that work is good for us. We are routinely compressed by the idea that hard work builds character while providing for our needs. Work is the alpha and the omega and we are never to question what lurks in between. We are defined by our jobs.
I am one of those who refuse to “go with the flow” because — I have discovered over the arc of a long life — that “going with the flow” is actually a code phrase for having no schedule, and a cudgel of indecision against ambition, and a smothering blanket of malaise that excuses anyone “in the flow” from having any responsibility for getting anything done at all.
Last night on his television show, David Letterman made history by confessing in the public square he had not been faithful to his son or the mother of his son.
It’s a tough life for a person who has to work outside the home. I do pretty well for myself in the afternoon with the food I bring from home. For the past month or so I have changed my workout routine significantly enough that I get a lot hungrier in the morning than a cup of coffee can ever hope to cover. So the question is, what do I do in the morning when the appetite is there but the need to get to work in a timely manner competes?
The last we heard of him was a picture postcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words: “Hello — Goodbye!” and no address.
In a recent article — Medical Fakery and the Intentional Placebo Effect — I argued in the comments stream that our minds and our bodies are failing us faster even as medicine advances quicker than ever while we live our two lifetimes.
Every Day Proves Itself. That is my mantra. Yesterday doesn’t matter. Tomorrow never arrives. Today, this moment, that instant — the notion of the immediate now — is the prime drive of the day.
