3-Item Status
Current Location: Milwaukee, WI
Reading: The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas & Andrew Hunt
Listening: byob by Sabrina Sterling
If you have a moment, reply with your own 3-Item Status.
Quick Notes
Truly Simple Tools:
I’ve been working on some apps (macOS & iOS) and some non-app things (extensions, web-tools, etc) in the background for a little while now, and I’ve put together a humble home for them at TrulySimpleTools.com
If you check out the Principles section on the About page, you’ll see that I’m making these things in such a way that they align with my values and priorities (which is super important to me, as there’s a lot of not-great stuff going on in this corner of the tech industry)
Anyway! That’s something I’ve been working on, and if anything I’ve made looks like it might be useful to you, please check it out and let me know if you have questions, run into bugs, or have feature suggestions. And do please leave reviews if you enjoy them, those help more than you might think :)
New Work:
This week’s Let’s Know Things is about Pay Per Crawl
Yesterday’s Brain Lenses essay was on Social Judgement Theory & the pod was about the Game Transfer Phenomenon
Strengths
It’s good to feel strong, and that’s perhaps even more true during periods of unrest and change.
The word “strong” often evokes concepts like steel beams and rippling pectorals, but it can also refer to less visible (but still potent) flavors of resiliency or capability: strong morals, strong reasoning skills, strong relationships.
I work out, eat as healthily as feasible, and try to maintain a decent psychological equilibrium because I think it’s important to aim for sturdiness, flexibility, and durability.
Truly practical strength, though, is seldom (perhaps never) entirely self-contained. A strong individual (by whatever definition we might use) in a tumultuous, disordered environment will be less strong and more prone to all manners of turmoil because of the inherent fragility of their context.
We are stronger individually when we’re stronger collectively. And while we may sometimes feel tempted to trip others to feel taller—playing status games instead of addressing real, tangible issues—with rare exceptions, we feel and do better when we opt to elevate everyone, not just a fortunate few.
More strength tends to breed more strength, and such growth both broadens and deepens the level of stability we all enjoy.
It’s important that we work to feel strong, internally, even as we look outward for other people who might need a hand with something. Investing in our health, our self-esteem, our capacity—all vital.
But figuring out how we might sustainably give and take, assist and be assisted, plant seeds and cultivate more resilient communities and contexts is just as important, and just as worthy of our time and energy.
If you enjoyed this essay, consider supporting my work by becoming a paid subscriber, buying me a coffee, or grabbing one of my books.
Interesting Links
If you want more links to interesting things, consider subscribing to Aspiring Generalist.
What Else
I’ll periodically mention my apps and other such efforts on here, but if you’re really keen to keep up with the details of that side of my portfolio, I’ve started a Truly Simple Tools newsletter where I’ll be talking about making stuff, announcing new apps, listing changes to existing ones, and other things of that nature.
I’ll have to start promoting this stuff soon, and many of you know how allergic I am to that kind of marketing and can thus appreciate how much I’m dreading that aspect of this new undertaking.
That said, I’m having an absolute blast making these things, so I guess I can’t complain too much :)
Say Hello
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You can also fill me in on something interesting you’re working on or something random you’re learning about.
I respond to every message I receive and would love to hear from you :)
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Maybe a quiet surrender == soft
strength