Do the hard thing, it’s probably the right thing.
~ Travis McGee
Thought for the day 09/12/2023
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Category Archives: living
Oh Gosh! Only 625 MB?
I just glanced at a program I have running in the system tray that keeps me abreast of system resources, and noticed that I only had 625 MB of RAM left available. I was rebooting Firefox to free up some more when I realized that (a.) there was still six-tenths of a gigabyte unused, and (b.) that unused RAM was precisely 1,250 times as much as I had in my first computer.
How quickly we get used to big numbers. First kilobytes, then megabytes and now we’re thinking in terms of terabytes (one trillion, 24 million bytes). It becomes meaningless, just like other big numbers: a billion dollars here, a billion there. A trillion for this war, two trillion for that one. A $900 billion annual defense budget that even the Pentagon admits is 25% bigger than it needs to be due to the support of programs that are already obsolete, or unusable in the conditions of modern warfare — or simply unnecessary.
Numbers are meaningless unless they’re our numbers. A couple of over-privileged kids from our town getting wiped out in daddy’s Beemer is a shame. One loved one sick or dying is a tragedy. Thirty thousand children worldwide dying of starvation every day is just a number.
Clearly this is a form of denial; an unwillingness to accept reality. Or maybe it’s tribe-centered. Who really cares about those others? I’m okay; we’re okay.
But what about when we’re not okay; I wonder if the others will care?
Thought for the day: 5 June 2023
No matter the space, water always makes itself fit. It can overcome fire. Over time, it carves out huge swaths of land, and it never stops flowing. Be patient, like water.
Trust Your Gut – Part 2
“I believe in intuition and inspiration. At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason why.” Do you know who said that? It was none other than Albert Einstein.
“Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect.” Any guesses? It was Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs.
Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs both attributed their extraordinary success to this personality trait of listening to their intuition. They have both been stated saying “it has never let me down.”
The article linked below was written with personal defense in mind. At first it might not seem germane to recovery — but think about it! What’s more pertinent to the recovery process than personal defense? Surely no one else is going to do it for us — keep us out of slippery places, warn us of situations or thinking that might lead us down the wrong path, give us that feeling between our shoulder blades that lets us know that we’re maybe in something that’s over our heads?
As I wrote in the previous post, our gut is one of our most powerful tools, if we listen to what it’s trying to tell us. But addicts seem to be more interested in what we want to do (I want, I want, I WANT!), rather than paying attention to creepy feelings. The remarks in the article below can (and do) easily apply to many issues in our lives, from the urge to tell that fib to the feeling that someone may have messed with our drink. Read it and think about all the possible applications of “gut feelings.”
Oh…and don’t let the source of the article offend you. Shooting messengers is almost never good policy.
Thought for the day 03/19/2023
Ethics, in its most basic sense, is what you are willing to do, what you won’t do, and any situations where those answers may change.
What...Me Sober? 
