David > Recent Status Updates

Exploring how the spaces where we experience conflict can shape those conflicts. Noting how different cultures (like Japanese of his mother's background) deal with situations differently, based on the history of the culture. Solzhenitsyn is quoted prominently, about the line between good and evil passing through every human heart (ie the problem is not just "out there").

"Build arguments together" can allow both sides to include their perspective and have their issues addressed. I must admit the idea of getting together with people on opposite sides of an issue I care about deeply to try to hash out possible actions did not make me excited to try it, though it did sound like a reasonably productive activity.

The ACA got passed! Had to be reminded of the weird way it happened, with Rep. Scott Brown getting elected in MA special election to fill Ted K's seat in the Senate meaning there were no longer 60 votes to pass a compromise with the House version (or filibuster). The path that was left was to have the house pass the Senate's version of the bill, even tho they didn't like it. They managed it with just a 7 vote margin.

The introduction holds out a lit of promise for the book. Also interesting stats here about the number of "nones" in society as a whole and among young people in particular.

Many thoughts presented on how to have "eros" in your life while (at least potentially) still observing and preserving your committed relationship. Essentially see those urges as trying to tell you your life needs energy of _some_ kind, not necessarily as a new relationship.

Also some specific thoughts on unity, a word much in the news lately with Biden's recent inauguration and the trial in the senate.

Health care gets underway, and the H1N1 pandemic causes some tension. Fortunately, that pandemic turned out to be less serious than initially thought. But the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Gates led to some offhand comments by Obama at a health care briefing that caused a media blow-up and led to the biggest loss in approval ratings of his 8 years in office.

In the chapter about asking interesting questions, which is using existence of ghosts as its example. As a skeptic of spirits I'm struggling a bit with it, but he got a wide range of responses from friends and family he asked about it!

Surprise, they managed to defeat the 7 Princes and gain the 5th shard. 6th and 7th are evidently in a crown of a terrible demon in what amounts to a hellscape. Oh, and they have only an hour or so of safe time left.

Lots of description of the purply Prince world, with some crazy and probably deadly challenge of 7 versions of Prince coming up.

Lots of Prince trivia in this last section, with some Twin Cities trivia thrown in. Some showdown coming with Prince characters.

They've made better time on the latest shards but have a lot left to do, and they have bad and worse news about NPCs going rogue and Anorak having avatar's possessions brought to him, possibly trying to find the Dorkslayer sword that might be the only thing that could kill him. The Lo5 group has been drafted to help. Hi5 will continue on to try to find the other shards. They have roughly 2 hours before they overload.

Here in Develop Honest Bias it talks about some of the many biases humans have and some strategies for trying to overcome them. A mantra is (IIRC) discomfort is key for my growth, and desirable.

Lots of examples taken from Amazon and Jeff Bezos.

They've headed to Sherman HS, of John Hughes movie fame, and we've gotten a lot of info about stuff in those movies but not much else.

In the discussion of pleasure, desire and eroticism. It's pointing toward some of these feelings as being about other things, e.g. the woman interested in her neighbor who maybe was really just needing different work challenges.

After Anorak stole the robes and sabotaged the OASIS, the high 5 gang has to get it together to find the other 6 shards withinb12 hours to avoid having 0.5 billion people die from being in the OASIS too long. Samantha manages to escape her transport plane but the rest seen to be trapped inside.

Z manages to defeat a vintage SEGA game and one extra level to win the 2nd shard, so they're ready to go for #3.

After finding the 1st shard his sleep is cut short because Og has gone missing. Though they wonder if it was a kidnapping, soon Og's name shows up on the shard scoreboard. And then again for a 2nd piece. So it seems some kind of race is on. Also Nolan has escaped prison, and GSS suddenly has a system stability problem in its hands.

Several things have happened, leading to Z getting the first shard and awarding $1b to L0hengrin for the assistance. And now he's had a weird-ass dream about pushing the off button, which destroyed his old home in the stacks, which collapsed on him and killed him in his dream. So 6 more shards to go to finish this quest...maybe?

At the owners meeting Samantha/Art3mis proposes to limit ONI use to people at least 18 years old. She is outvoted 3-1 in what is evidently a common thing, and only after tempers flare. Z is starting to seem alone and isolated, mostly spending his time in the OASIS. And Art3mis called him Locutus. :-)

We got more of a recap about how things with Samantha went south, and how pathetic is the state of his existence now. He certainly has the perks money can buy, but the exposition clearly makes on think they're not really worth it, since his actual existence seems no better than when he had locked himself in a cell in book 1 to try to win the contest.

It picks up just days after the earlier book ended, but now chapter 0 has seen a few years pass as we get set up for what will be the meat of the book. We've had some references to the gang from book 1, as co-owners of tue OASIS, but haven't had any details of any if the others. Just that Parzival is addicted, and he's implied his life is out of control. Again.

In this chapter we've been encouraged to listen to our internal voices of power, reason, avoidance, and possibility. Noting that avoidance may seem good, but it can be a way of just delaying a reckoning. Possibility, or basically asking "What am I missing?" can help us get constructive feedback on our process.

Not sure how that can help a political conversation yet, maybe it can't?

Watch for what anxiety has sparked a disagreement, realizing the other person involved may have been sparked by a different facet than you were.

Made it through the intro to get to chapter 1. :-)

The author describes being able to have productive disagreements as a superpower, one that levels up all your other skills. There is an overview of the coming 8 skills to be covered, with a promise of 3 important results: disagreements won't be frustrating; fewer repetitive disagreements; your world will get bigger (fewer ideas you must avoid).

A chapter (3) on dreams and how their images might give us clues into our feelings about our life and how it's going. Much made me think of Joseph Campbell and the power of myth; other of his works were actually cited, at least here with 1000 faces.

Conclude with "Be," living as an essentialist rather than a nonessentialist who tries to apply some essentialist principles.

Appendix section on essentialist leadership describes some high-level practices.

Pretty obvious message for "Focus": get your mind to be in the present, not the past or future.

Story of the coach he says they always win, which the mostly did, but meaning they ask "What's Important Now?"

It all reminds me of a lyric from Rent: "There's only now, there's only this...."