Category: post

What worries me are the consequences of a diet comprised mostly of fake-connectedness, makebelieve insight, and unedited first drafts of everything. I think it’s making us small. I know that whenever I become aware of it, I realize how small it can make me. So, I’ve come to despise it.

Better – Merlin Mann

This piece is really resonating with me today. There are things I know in my gut I need to do and want to do but am struggling with the courage to actually do them. That said, I think I am beginning to realize that I’m on a course to make bold moves in the near future regardless of the fears that may hold me back. Because, ultimately, they are the only ones that makes sense.

And, yes, I know I’m being a bit cryptic. I’m being so purposefully. I’m not even sure I’m being fully transparent with myself. All will be revealed when the time comes.

MicroPod | Office | Gear.
I would love a place of my own like this one.
(via Christoph Schobel)

The Buddha Machine is not an iPod. It’s not loaded with features. It’s simply a small plastic box — available in an assortment of colors — that plays nine different loops. The possibilities of how you listen to it, however, are infinite.

I received one of these today, a surprise gift from John Carey of Fifty Foot Shadows (THE place to get beautiful desktops, by the way). I have know about them for quite some time and wanted one but never pulled the trigger. It was incredibly thoughtful of him and it is even better than I imagined it.
My little girl has suffered with a really bad little flu bug that had her over a bucket all of last night. Not wanting to risk the same tonight I was looking for a way to ease her misery and lull her to sleep without her normal bottle of milk. I turned on the Buddha Machine and laid down next to her. She was calmed and asleep within minutes. Magical.

Levenger Leverage Punch Review from Patrick Rhone on Vimeo.

I review the new Circa Leverage Punch from Levenger. I include a tip for one possible use for the Circa System that might make a great gift idea.

Links to items mentioned include:

• Circa Leverage Punch

• Lap Desk

• Freeleaf White Annotation Ruled Pads, Letter

• Circa Notebooks – Get Organized with Levenger Circa Notebooks and Daily Planner Pages

• Lakota Circa Foldover Leather Notebook

• Helvetindex Cards

• Circa Portable Punch

• Circa Discs

Typerighter is a new application that I have been testing for a while. As the developer is a close personal friend of mine and willing to listen to my, um, gentle persuasion, I have been giving active feedback since the very beginning and I hope you, like I, will find it the perfect web based writing tool.

My favorite feature is it’s complete lack of features. The only visible feature is a blank page and the occasional “save” that happens automatically. That’s it, one feature.

OK, l lied. But not completely. It has more features but the rest of the “features” are completely hidden.

Want to save your file as plain text? No problem. Just type “.txt” at the end of the url.

Oh, you write in Markdown and wish there was a way to convert it to valid HTML without an extra step? No problem, just type “.html” at the end of the URL.

Oh, and if you are a paid user, you get nifty things like your own user space and being able to create a filename URL by typing http://username.typerighter.com/filename and you will always be able to access your document directly at that address.

So yes, it has a few features but none of them, ever, get between you and that blank page. The way a writing app should be.

And, it works in the browser so, you know, everywhere is disco. iPad? Disco. iPhone? Hustle! Heck, throw it on your Chromebook.

I’m using it to write this letter. I drafted an essay of my book using it (on my iPad, naturally). It’s really neat. I keep it open in a browser window with a page I have set as my scratchpad. I can type a quick note in there if I’m working in Safari and not break my stride too much.

To get the extra goodness a personal Typerighter domain provides, and to support independent development, I recommend you pay the current $5.00+ cost. Because, you see, that cost increases by one cent for each person who signs up. So getting in now gets you the best price. But, you don’t have to pay to use it. Just use the “Try it out” link at the bottom of the sign up page and use it for as long as you wish.

Seriously, I hope you love this thing as much as I do. Just head on over to https://typerighter.com/ and play with it for a bit. Like I said, my good friend Garrick van Buren is the developer and he would love your feedback. Make any feature request you want as long as it can be completely invisible ;-).

each morning
I awake
to the sound 
of the girl
at the end 
of the hall

the sun is on
she tells me
though it’s not
not this early
or this late
in the fall

she believes
she sees light
which is enough
for me to rise
and respond
to her call

what matters
more than sleep
is these mornings
while she 
is still
so very small

in life
with a child
you have only
a handful of suns
either real or imagined
that is all

If you have been reading this site or listened to the Enough podcast for long enough, you know I’m always trying crazy experiments. Like going a week without things I use or writing a book on my iPad. Ask me on almost any day and I have some sort of insane idea I’m trying out. My latest seems to have attracted more attention than I ever thought it would.
On a recent episode of the podcast, I discussed a plan for yet another crazy experiment. – To reduce my Mac to the out of the box install and limit myself to only five third party apps and utilities (feel free to listen). The reason? Well, it is the same as any other crazy experiment I do: It’s an attempt to find what is “Enough” for me. That tricky and ever shifting balance between want and need. I want to explore these things for myself in the hopes it will inspire others to do the same.
In everything I do and try to communicate here, what matters is that I am not only asking the question, “What is enough?” but I am actively seeking answers.
All. The. Time.
The thing about that answer is that the only person that can answer it correctly is the person who is living it. In other words, I can’t tell you what is enough for you. You have to ask and answer what is enough for you. I can only tell you what is enough for me. I can only explain how I went about discovering that answer for myself in the hopes it will give you a potential path, of which there may be many, to the answer that is right for you.
So, why five apps? Why not ten? Twenty? Well, let me tell you a little secret…
It’s a MacGuffin. Which, according to the canonical authoritative source of all truth and knowledge, Wikipedia, is:

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is “a plot element that catches the viewers’ attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction”. The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are (at least initially) willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. Common examples are money, victory, glory, survival, a source of power, a potential threat, or it may simply be something entirely unexplained.

OK. Understood? Great. But I want to highlight one specific part again as it relates to my point:

In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot.

In the case of almost every experiment I do, there is a MacGuffin that fits this description. In the case of “A week without…” the MacGuffin is the week itself. The important part is that I’m actively trying to evaluate not only my need and use of a thing but also its value to me and where it fits in my life. In the case of writing a book on my iPad, the MacGuffin was the iPad. I mean, I could have chosen any tool to replace the way I commonly would write a book – my iPhone, pen and paper, etc. The reason was simply the inherent challenges that may come from doing so and to evaluate if the tool was better for me than the one I would normally use.
In the particular case of my “Five apps” experiment, it is the number is that MacGuffin. The number is unimportant. I could have chosen any number of apps. It does not matter. What does matter is that I am asking a question about what enough is for me when it comes to the things I have chosen to install on my Mac and am seeking an answer.
The theme here is that everyone has a balance that works for them. I’m actively seeking mine. If I wish to inspire anything at all in doing this, it is that others actively seek what is the proper balance for them. You should ask and answer what is enough for you. I’m only here to help. But, please, do not get hung up on the MacGuffin or you may very well miss the point and be left with more questions than answers.

Beatrix |ktfdn|referrer|arryf
came home from school a couple of days ago and demanded… Demanded!… To watch Star Wars. At first, I wondered at what point she even became aware of it and if she knew what it was about. So I asked.

She explained, “It’s about that Princess with her hair all done up like this (makes twirly motion with her pointer fingers around her head) and the little green man that protects her from the bad guys.”

Of course. I should have known.

According |ynkez|referrer|ttefd
to lore, they have to be invited in. Within the sacred space of your home, they can not harm you. They can not suck one drop of your precious life-giving blood unless you open the door and invite them past your threshold. If your time, your attention, and your purpose are not the very essence of what life is, then what is? If where you commit your time, attention, and purpose is not sacred space, then why isn’t it? And if those items that seek to take from those things are not vampires, then what are they? Most importantly, why are you inviting them in?

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

– Henry David Thoreau in Walden

Please forgive the repetition, but this has been on my mind lately. Namely, what are my three chairs? Is three chairs a reasonable and good sensible default for ones own approach to digital communication?

I don’t assume I have any right answer to those questions. That said, I have some ideas surrounding them.

Solitude

This could be any for working with ones dialog with self. This could take the form of a paper or digital journal, diary, etc. Those that are familiar with The Artists Way would have this with morning pages. Digitally, projects and services like OhLife and 750 Words might be good. Or local applications like MacJournal. Some may find this reflection and introspection simply with writing to plain text files. Regardless, I think it essential to external communications to first foster a healthy and regular internal one, no matter how one achieves it.

Friendship

This is one to one. It is interpersonal and private by default. Digitally, email would fit this idea. As would instant messaging, SMS, or even a phone call. It is dialog between two people. Unguarded and non-judgmental. It is an open exchange. A honest sharing. The opportunity for back and forth.

Society

This is where a social network may fit in. A forum would fit here as well. Even a blog with comments and an active and engaged readership might fit. The idea is that it should be productive dialog between a limited many. Greater than one-to-one but not so many that the conversation becomes noise and ideas are lost.

What are your three chairs?

The challenge, of course, is to use this as a healthy constraint. To choose three chairs that you are comfortable with and abandon or, at least, greatly decrease the use of others. To let others know of your choice where appropriate. For instance, “I prefer contact via email” or “I’m on Twitter and not on any other social network.” And even then, to have a clear intention about how and when you wish to use those chairs and with whom.

I would also like to think that balance is important here as well. That spending too much time in any one chair adversely affects the others. That the health of our internal dialog reflects well on when engaging our friends and society. That, equally true, the quality of those external engagements feed the quality of the internal. Therefore, choosing each chair with care and purpose is not to be taken lightly.