The need for..................

 

.............................................conversations.

Tyler Cowen.....................

 

.........visits with Jonathan GPT Swift:

COWEN: If I try to boil your different works — from Gulliver’s Travels to Modest Proposal to the political and coinage writings — down to a common theme, I would say it is this: “Moral and intellectual progress is extremely difficult and is not to be taken for granted.” What would you say to that?

SWIFT: My dear reader, your assessment is perceptive, capturing a common thread that weaves through my diverse body of work. Indeed, I endeavored to convey that moral and intellectual progress is a most arduous endeavor, one that requires constant vigilance and reflection.

A couple of bottles of wine and a few cigars......

 

..........................and we might make a dent in this.  Worth trying anyway.

What cigars and bourbon are for.........

      Getting things right requires triangulating with other people.  Psychologists therefore would do well to ask whether "metacognition" (thinking about your own thinking) is at bottom a social phenomenon.  It typically happens in conversation—not idle chitchat, but the kind that aims to get to the bottom of things.  I call this an "art" because it requires both tact and doggedness.  And I call it a moral accomplishment because to be good at this kind of conversation you have to love truth more than you love your own current state of understanding.  That is, of course, an unusual priority to have, which may help to account for the rarity of real mastery in any pursuit.

-Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction

On the virtue of being boring................

 We are a nation of rules and the rules are boring. Embrace that. In times of difficulty, go with the boring option. When faced with a frightening crisis, tamp it down with ultra-boring moves. No matter what, stick with the rules.

I can’t avoid talking about Donald Trump but I’m going to make it brief. I know you don’t like him; neither do I. But let’s assume he’s only a politician. He’s not Hitler, Godzilla or the Beast of the Apocalypse—just a guy with a loud mouth and a desperate need for attention. Most Americans think of him that way.

This is not about him. It’s about you.

When you demonize those who disagree with you, you invite treatment in kind. When you refuse to engage in political argument and resort to performative moralizing, you make it clear to any neutral observer that for you there’s only one side, one opinion, one conformist crowd that can ever govern legitimately. The rest are disgusting subhumans who should never be tolerated near the levers of power. When you trample on the rules that say “all are created equal” like that, you are destroying the fabric that holds the country together. And believe me when I say this: You will reap the whirlwind.

-Martin Gurri, from this essay

Sounds like.......................

 ................................heaven on earth:

Conversation with real people replaces an imaginary life on social media.

People care about what you have to say and are generally interested in hearing different viewpoints without considering you an enemy of the state. Rather than using the pretense of listening as an excuse for what they will opine about next, their questions are sincere and thoughtful.

A radical notion........................

.................................. face-to-face.

One of the great tragedies.......................

....................of our current society is that conversations like this just don't happen anymore.  Watch as William Buckley sorts out, in response to a question from Huey Newton, what side he might have been on in 1776.  Firing Line was special.   Money quote from Huey: "one of my principles is contradiction is the ruling principle of the Universe."  Enjoy.

 

An interesting conversation.............

 I'm so pleased that Yeats

never got off his stilts

though I have only one.

Midday silence is different

from nighttime silence.

I can't tell you how.

-Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison, Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry

summon up..............................

 The only persons who are really at leisure are those who devoted themselves to philosophy: and they alone really live: for they do not merely enjoy their own lifetime, but they annex every century to their own: all the years which have passed before them belong to them.  Unless we are the most ungrateful creatures in the world, we shall regard these noblest of men, the founders of divine schools of thought, as having been born for us, and having prepared life for us: we are led by the labour of others to behold most beautiful things which have been brought out of darkness into light; we are not shut out from any period, we can make our way into every subject, and, if only we can summon up sufficient strength of mind to overstep the narrow limit of human weakness, we have a vast extent of time wherein to disport ourselves:  we may argue with Socrates, doubt with Carneades, repose with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, out-herod it with the Cynics.  Since Nature allows us to commune with every age, why do we not abstract ourselves from our own petty fleeting span of time, and give ourselves up with our whole mind ot what is vast, what is eternal, what we share with better men than ourselves?

-Lucius Annaeus Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

waiting....................

I have used up more than

20,000 days waiting to see

what the next would bring.

-Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison, Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry

a general unrest..............

The full  moon often rises

in the wrong place.  Tonight I sense

activity up there, a general unrest.

-Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison, Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry

Checking in .........................

....................................with Jim Nantz. 

 For an interesting exposition on "goal minded lifestyles" make sure you listen a few moments after the 3:00 minute mark as Jim Nantz chats with Dave Lapham.

exquisite tantalization.............

     The other night, I was having dinner with some friends in a fairly decent restaurant and was at the very peak of my form as a wit and raconteur.  But just as, with infinite and exquisite tantalization, I was approaching my punch line, the most incredible thing happened.  A waiter appeared from nowhere, leaned right over my shoulder and into the middle of the conversation, seized my knife and fork, and started to cut up my food for me.  Not content with this bizarre behavior, and without so much as a by-your-leave, he proceeded to distribute pieces of my entree onto the plates of the other diners.

     No, he didn't, actually.  What he did instead was to interrupt the feast of reason and flow of soul that was our chat, lean across me, pick up the bottle of wine that was in the middle of the table, and pour it into everyone's glass.  And what I want to know is this:  How did such a barbaric custom get itself established and why on earth do we put up with it? 

-Christopher Hitchens, Wine Drinkers of the World , Unite, from here

Conversation starters (or maybe stoppers)..............

 .............100 more questions that don't get asked.

Cooperation.......................

. . . cooperation begins with conversation:  asking intelligent and open-ended questions;  listening;  respecting others' opinions;  and understanding people's real concerns, as well as what opportunities they're most excited about and what strengths they have to contribute.

-Dan Sullivan/Catherine Nomura:  The Laws of Lifetime Growth:  Always Make Your Future Bigger Than Your Past

Inner........................

     In the parable of the Talents, the Master's condemnation of the servant who neglected to use his gift is clear and unmistakable, and having discovered one of the rules of the game of life, we risk failure by ignoring it.  The talent not used. like the limb not exercised, slumbers and finally atrophies.  We must be "doers of the Word, and not hearers only".  Since thinking follows tracks laid down in one's own inner conversations, not only can we see where we are going on the playing field of life by observing our inner conversations, but also, we can determine where we will go by controlling and directing our inner talking.

-Neville Goddard

A dinner conversation..................

 "We don’t know so much more than we do know.  Live the best life you can live and things will take care of themselves.”

-more from the conversation here

Can we all say Amen...................................?

None of us is infallible. Whether you are a person of the left, the right, or the center, there are reasonable people of goodwill who do not share your fundamental convictions. This does not mean that all opinions are equally valid or that all speakers are equally worth listening to. It certainly does not mean that there is no truth to be discovered. Nor does it mean that you are necessarily wrong. But they are not necessarily wrong either. So someone who has not fallen into the idolatry of worshiping his or her own opinions and loving them above truth itself will want to listen to people who see things differently in order to learn what considerations—evidence, reasons, arguments—led them to a place different from where one happens, at least for now, to find oneself.


-Cornel West and Robert P. George, as excerpted from this call for "Truth Seeking...."


via

If it were me.....................

..............................I'd just buy more income-producing real estate.

Investing When No One Really Knows What to Do

-Ben Carlson, as blogged here