Writings

It seems like every year we get more stressed, more scatter-brained, need more exercise and less screen-time. At least, that seems true for myself. So I wonder, what would it be like if there were a remedy to all that, which, in one single action could reduce your stress, clear your mind, give you some enjoyable exercise, and get you away from your screen, all while probably making you live longer and lowering your risk of chronic disease? ...

There was a lot to be pessimistic about regarding cars 120+ years ago. 🚗 They were expensive. They were incredibly unreliable, needing repair on a sometimes daily basis. And roads good enough to drive on were exceedingly rare. There was little a car could offer you that a good horse couldn’t do much better. 🐎 Looking back on that time from today, the transition to primarily automobile-based transportation seems more-or-less inevitable. We can go unthinkably further and faster now using mechanical power than we ever could have with horses… and with a small fraction of the stink. 💩 ...

I find myself holding a couple aspirations in increasing value as the years go on: The first of these is the minimizing of “noise” — of distraction, of clutter, and of that which fruitlessly wastes attention. The other is the maximizing of “signal” — those rich and value-filled experiences, learning opportunities, content, and relationships. Pursuing these seem to be more and more challenging every year, but yet also more and more rewarding. ...

Have you ever thought about what in your life makes you hopeful? Or, what saps your hope? I realized recently that my mental health often appears to be pretty tightly tied to how hopeful I feel in a given season. That seems significant. It means stewarding hope and stewarding hopefulness is much more important than I’ve tended to give space for. Churchill’s words resonate. So, it’s worth asking “what fills your hope-meter?” ...

I’ve always tended to like math more than the average person. I was less a fan of arithmetic — the labour intensive process of adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing our way to an answer to a question that a calculator could figure out instantly. More so, I’ve tended to find myself intrigued by the tools that math gives us to help us understand the world better. Sometimes that involves making use of arithmetic, but often it can simply mean applying ideas from the world of math in order to make better sense of the world, or to help us make better decisions. ...

A couple years ago, a friend recommended to me the music of Steve Schallert. I actually included one of his songs in my first post on my website. Around that time, I probably listened to his album Songs of Sorrow / Songs of Hope on repeat like 50x in a row. Well, yesterday one of his songs came up after a long season without any of his music, and the last section of the song was especially powerful and moving! I’ve since found myself playing it on repeat again. 😅 ...

You already know how to do it. You’ve done it plenty before: that gift, that kind word, that “going out of your way” to improve someone’s day and show them they’re loved. Feels great to be on either the giving or recieving end of, and it makes the world just a little bit better. So, why not purposefully do something to make someone’s day today?

I’m an ever-growing fan of the webcomic medium. I love the diversity of styles. I love the jokes. I love reading the archives of a good webcomic and seeing the creator’s progression and improvement overtime. Maybe most of all, I just love getting a chuckle when a comic comes up on my RSS reader, and getting to share that chuckle by passing it on to a friend. (Dear friends, sorry about all the webcomics I send you. 😅 ~ Much love, Josh) ...

When we see something novel that we don’t understand, we have a choice: Shake our heads, note that it’s weird, brush it off as something we’ll never understand, and move on with our lives OR, stop for a few minutes, take a look, and try to understand it. Why do those people act that way? Why was this tool designed this way? Where did this weirdly spelled word come from? What’s its etymology? Its history? ...

I’ve given myself a bit of a challenge these last few years to migrate as much of my digital life as I can towards using open-source software and services. There have been many reasons for this — increased security/privacy, better performance on my aging devices, more control of what my devices are doing, less likelihood that a program critical to my workflow ends up breaking or being discontinued, etc. (I’m still frustrated by Google killing off Inbox and Reader, which were both integral to my daily workflow at the time of their demise 🤦🏻‍♂️.) ...