Writings

Sometimes it’s easy to fall prey to the dual lies that 1) we’ll have our loved ones in our life more-or-less forever, and 2) that love is something that we can give too much of or run out of. It can be easy to withhold a kind word because we think we might not be creative enough to top it or live up to it later… or we might decide not to give that gift, thinking that maybe it would be better to wait and give it some other time… ...

I’m dabbling with an idea, and testing whether it’s a good fit for work and life. Thus far, I’ve been liking the fruit of it. Basically, the idea can be expressed as follows: If I find myself doing the same (or a very similar) task 3 or more times, it’s worth starting to look closely at that task and to figure out a better system for it. After doing a given task a few times, you start to get the hang of it. You start to understand the bounds and contours of what needs to be done. And you start to see ways that the task can be simplified. ...

I recently published my 100th post on this blog. An exciting milestone! After passing the big 100, I’ve found myself pondering why I’ve been doing this. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process of blogging. But it is a time consumer. It is effort. That effort made me spend some time thinking about the classic and vital question that should be regularly asked about any endeavor we spend time and effort on: "Who is this for? and What is this for?" ...

I’ve done my fair share of manually creating subtitles over the years. It can be quite a tedious and time-consuming process, so for a while now I’ve been on the lookout for a way to make that process faster. Over the last few days, I’ve also continued to be playing around with Whisper, which I wrote about before. While playing, I found a workflow that I wish I had had access to years ago. It’s a process that allows for quick generation of subtitles using preexisting scripts, without setting a single timestamp manually. I’ve already got several projects I’d like to try this new workflow on, but first I just wanted to share one completed project with that workflow here! ...

A note to my future self (and to whomever else this may concern 🙃): When you chew on questions like “should I go to the gym?” or “should I go for a run?”, almost always there’s at least some resistance you encounter which makes answering with a “yes” challenging. Often the inner monolog goes something like, “that’s too hard”, or “meh, it’s not worth it”. Because of that, it has been not-uncommon for you to chose the path-of-least-resistance, and not put in the work… to not get sweaty. ...

This morning, on day 8 of the 2023 Israel—Hamas War, my amazing girlfriend is mediating a dialog/debate between a Muslim and a Jew, about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Last night, she was studying in preparation for the discussion, and we ended up talking a bit about the history of the conflict. I mentioned that a few years ago I had listened to the “Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem” series by the MartyrMade Podcast. That series is a marvelous 23 hours of historical deep-dive on the events leading up to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. It is an INTENSE and DENSE series, with countless names, dates, quotations, and citations. ...

Triggers are not to be avoided. Triggers are instead designed to highlight those places in our hearts where we still are in need of growth, and where we still need God to walk with us towards healing. Don’t avoid triggers. Study them. Learn from them. Walk, grow, and heal through them. ~ Adapted from Debra Fileta

There’s an quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln that goes something like: If I had five hours to cut down a tree, I would spend the first four hours sharpening the ax. While it’s doubtful he actually said this, I find the implications of the quote to be useful, especially when it comes to thinking about self-development and self-care. There are countless tasks, challenges, and obstacles we navigate in our lives that involve just learning enough to get by. ...

Download Audio Blog It’s often pointed out that, in contrast to a majority of other religions and faith systems, the emphasis of the New Testament is what God has done for Humanity, instead of what Humanity needs to do for God. With rare exception, the idea of “striving” is basically not present in the exhortations of the Christian scriptures. Instead, the emphasis is on receiving the gift God has given, which no effort on our part could have accomplished. ...

I’ve been thinking about scarcity and abundance this week, and wanted to share some of those thoughts! To start, I’ve been slowly listening through Bible Project’s 15 hour course about Genesis 1. One thing I noticed come up a few times is the idea that, in the creation narrative on page 1 of the Bible, Elohim forms creation with a goal of setting up a place for humanity to thrive. He couldn’t call creation "very good" until humanity was given abundant food, meaningful work, a commission to have kids and raise families, and a purpose in the form of the commission to steward the world and all its inhabitants. ...