Jay Hoffmann

Tag: Four Thousand Weeks

  • #18: Letting Time Use You

    The feeling of being overwhelmed, blocked by stressors of the mind rather than by an immediate physical threat, is uniquely human. And so is the desire to provide some sort of order to that in the form of “time management.” Both of these concepts, born from human ingenuity, more often than not result in a rabbit hole of wasted time, exacerbating rather than alleviating and making everything worse.

    Whenever something like that occurs to me, I think about the book “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman, an insightful and profound meditation on the meaning of time, existing within it, and learning to except is finitude.

    And its not just phillosphy. It’s an insightful and practical guide to accepting the limitations of time. However, what I find most intriguing is Burkeman’s ability to completely flip around time in your mind (emphasis mine):

    There is an alternative: the unfashionable but powerful notion of letting time use you, approaching life not as an opportunity to implement your predetermined plans for success but as a matter of responding to the needs of your place and your moment in history.

    Burkeman suggests thinking about time a bit differently then we are often taught, and that endless blog posts and books about time management seem to recommend. Instead of viewing life as a canvas to execute our meticulously planned visions of success, he proposes that we should react to the demands of our surroundings and our unique place in history.

    It’s a reminder to focus on our desires, to embrace what we truly want, and to let go of what we cannot control. It’s not about fighting time, but about learning to dance with it, to let it lead us through the rhythm of life.

    And so, this week I feel overwhelmed. Which is simply my mind telling me to be present, to lean into what I want, and to just fucking let it go.

    You get about a halfway through the Count of Monte Cristo and you realize that it is not actually one novel or one story or one tale. It is many stories nested and layered on top of one another that builds the portrait of a man and his time, and the never-ending march of vengeance. And what stories. Such fun. And so many more left.

    I just got to the fulcrum of Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a reflection on the story of Cain and Abel and its potential meaning. After discussing it earlier, one of the characters of the book, Lee, recounts his own experience in subsequent years studying a specific sentence, and even a specific word, in the translations of the Cain and Abel story. It revolves around the Hebrew word tishmel, and refers Cain relationship to sin after he is cast out. In one translation, Lee says, the word “thou shalt rule” over sin, while in the another it is said that “Do thou rule.” In the former, a promise is made, and in the latter, an order is given.

    But after years of study, Lee and the scholars he refers to found a new meaning for that word. “Thou mayest.” Our ability to conquer sin, Lee says, is up to us. It is a choice.

    This is an essential part of the novel, and is a focal point for all of its various characters and motifs. And is interesting because of how profound it could be. But on the other hand, it is possible that it is not even true. All of which warrants some inspection I think. I’ll be reading up on this.

    The meaning of Tishmel in Steinbeck’s East of Eden. (Just an intro, I want to look into it more and write a proper post)

    little project in each area of his life at any given time. It helps prioritize and choose what to work on in that moment:

    I artificially limit myself to having one major and one minor active side project at a time, my agility goes up because I’m not doing ten projects at once, I’m doing one or two. When one project finishes, I move to the next best idea that fits the available slot. I will never be taking on too much and it’s easier to say “no” to new distractions if I have to substitute projects.

    I love the no nonsense approach. I worry that I allow “projects” of my life to go on for too long and simply become routine or habits. But maybe that’s a plus.

    And speaking of one thing, here’s one trick to help with decision making in teams: decide how to decide.

    John Burroughs on what it is to live life:

    We may fancy that there might be a better universe, but we cannot conceive of a better, because our minds are the outcome of things as they are, and all our ideas of value are based upon the lessons we learn in this world.

    Notes

    Add to Revolutions Podcast
    Finish goals as narratives post
    Scorecard review
    East of Eden Quotes
    Add to management and Async colleciton about everything going on with the team
    Read Brainpickings
    Monthly fiiiaces
    expese report
    Check Asana
    Clear out Reeder
    Check Inbox Note
    Read through emails
    Go through “To Sort” In Raindrop
    Set a weekly focus
    Publish Weeknote

  • Inspiring, really.

    I’m returning to the kinds of things you return to at the end of the year: focus and progression. I do feel as if I have had a handle on focus for quite some time, even more so since I’ve been able to process the lessons of Four Thousand Weeks. But that focus has been directed on minutia for the most part. Makes sense. Having two small kids has you swimming in a lot of minutia. But I do feel as if I’m in a good place to try and progress forward my focus. And that’s what I’ll be trying to do.

    Reading

    I read a post once with some incredible and straightforward advice about reading:

    Read fiction in as few sittings as possible, but take my time reading nonfiction. Immersive storytelling benefits from few interruptions. Nonfiction benefits from reading only short amounts at once and reading multiple books at once. Always have at least two nonfiction books going.

    So I’ve picked up two nonfiction books: The Bullet Journal Method and Drive.

    I first read The Bullet Journal Method back a little bit after it was published in like 2018. Of course, by then, the bullet journal was a pretty popular concept and there were lots of people doing that. Since then, I’ve pretty much always had a notebook around, but I’ve definitely tried out different digital approaches and apps. But I’m back to a notebook (and a single notes app)(it’s Obsidian)! And I’m reading the book as a refresher.

    Drive was recommended to me. I don’t know a ton about it, but I am very interested in setting direction and focus (there it is again) among teams. At this point, the introduction was worth the price of admission.

    And the always insightful Ryan Broderick on the current cycle of viral clips which are staged as podcasts and crafted on TikTok specifically to spark an outrage cycle on Twitter in a ruse that is so obvious it doesn’t even belong in a Bond film. Anyway, Broderick sums it up nicely.

    There are a few big takeaways here for me. The first, and funniest, is that X users have become so right-wing and reactionary that they’re spending their time raging over literal ads for porn. The second takeaway is how savvy new porn operations have become. They’ve built these labyrinthian networks of SFW viral content on major platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube that guide users to their OnlyFans pages. And the final takeaway for me is that at our current late stage of Web 2.0 everyone is having such a Bad Time Online at such a consistent level that you can build an entire media company off of short videos of young women saying random stuff that makes weird men angry. Inspiring, really.

    Watching

    Lupin Season 3. Constructed evenly and methodically as always, even as it raises the stakes. The threat of violence has been an incredible foil in every iteration of Lupin, because it is such a clumsy and vicious instrument. And Assane’s ability to weave around and manipulate violence, even when confronted with dire circumstances, makes him that much more of a hero. Always a blast to watch. The music is incredible.

    Notes

    Check Asana
    Clear out Reeder
    Check Inbox Note
    Read through emails
    Go through “To Sort” In Raindrop
    Set a weekly focus

    Week Focus:

    • EOS: Set everybodys rocks
    • Site Architect: Get demo up
    • History of the Web: send out nenwsletter
    • Keep setting up new bullet journal
    • Quality rock: kick off document where I’m trying to corral all this stuff

  • Being in Time

    It’s one of those chaotic weeks. Overscheduled. A lot going on. One thing goes wrong and it all goes down like dominoes.

    And yet it’s actually kind of fun. There is a lot of joy in activity and a quickened pace. It makes me wonder that my brain’s default setting always seems to try and seize on balance and routine. It’s easy to think of David Foster Wallace’s “this is water” parable in moments like these. But also, the way Oliver . Burkeman extended that story in Four Thousand Weeks (emphasis mine):

    Soon, your sense of self-worth gets completely bound up with how you’re using time. it stops being merely the water in which you swim and turns into something you feel you need to dominate or control, if you’re to avoid feeling guilty, panicked, or overwhelmed….

    Instead of simply living our lives as they unfold in time—instead of just being time, you might say—it becomes difficult not to value each moment primarily according to its usefulness for some future goal, or for some future oasis of relaxation you hope to reach once your tasks are finally “out of the way.”

    I’ll be thinking about that this week as I try to stay present. As I try to live my life and let it unfold.

    Reading

    A few articles I had some time to read.

    One was the original review of Infinite Jest in The Atlantic which offers a really fascinating perspective on the book that’s much fresher than what we have these days.

    Also, two articles that work well as a pair. Building an innovative agency (and why you might not need one) and what to do with your agency team about this whole AI thing people seem excited about. The key, it would seem, is one of those things that are painfully obvious once you see someone articulate it so clearly, as Nicholas does. You need to set up the preconditions for innovation to emerge so that when an opportunity presents itself, you are ready. Put another way, the worst time to innovate is at the exact time you want to be innovative. You should have already started.

    And I was really saddened by what Allie Nimmons had to say in her revealing and incredibly honest post about why she is leaving the WordPress community behind. It is a huge loss. Lots hit home, but especially this:

    There is a huge disconnect between the people making the “real” money with this software and the people who are trying to earn a fair living.

    Ursula K. Le Guin on what it means to write history:

    History is one way of telling stories, just like myth, fiction, or oral storytelling. But over the last hundred years, history has preempted the other forms of storytelling because of its claim to absolute, objective truth. Trying to be scientists, historians stood outside of history and told the story of how it was. All that has changed radically over the last twenty years. Historians now laugh at the pretense of objective truth. They agree that every age has its own history, and if there is any objective truth, we can’t reach it with words. History is not a science, it’s an art.

    Notes

  • Consuming films like Coca-Cola

    Reading

    The conclusion of two books: Sculpting in Time and Just Keep Investing.

    On Sculpting in Time I will say that it is an incredibly unique perspective and view of cinema—recognized by Tarkovsky as a wholly artistic pursuit and a unique medium focused on the compression and rhythm of time. And these are accurate, and well thought out, though perhaps a bit dated these days, as the cinema has receded into the narrative over form in greater and greater strides over the last few decades. This has caused more than one person to lament lately about the state of content, but thankfully Tarkovsky precedes that view and entirely rejects it.

    He concludes the book with a look at the responsibility of the artist. The responsibility is, of course, to represent one’s own personal vision faithfully. But, there is also a responsibility to create true art, even when it is challenging, rather than popcorn movies for pure consumption:

    People cease to feel any need for the beautiful or the spiritual, and consume films like bottles of Coca-Cola. The contact between film director and audience is unique to cinema in that it conveys experience imprinted on film in uncompromisingly affective, and therefore compelling, forms. Th e viewer feels a need for such vicarious experience in order to make up in part for what he himself has lost or missed; he pursues it in a kind of ‘search for lost time’. And how human this newly gained experience will be depends only on the author. A grave responsibility!

    I found it interesting, when talking about Stalker, how bothered he was when people asked him what the mysterious “Zone” at the center of the film was:

    People have often asked me what the Zone is, and what it symbolises, and have put forward wild conjectures on the subject. I’m reduced to a state of fury and despair by such questions. The Zone doesn’t symbolise anything, any more than anything else does in my films

    I wonder what he would think about Star Wars and Marvel movies, where every offhand storyline requires a huge backstory and every plot thread needs resolving.

    Just Keep Investing more or less reiterates the title over the course of many chapters. It’s good advice though.

    Watching

    I saw an interview with Karim Lakhani about the future of AI. I think in many ways it represents well the popular view, and presents a nuanced vision for what’s to come. One thing that gave me pause was when Lakhani pointed to AI as a place to substitute whenever one is doing tasks that require thinking. This is a useful starting point, but I think that it hides the technology and makes AI feel too much like magic.

    Final Note

    I was reminded of this excellent quote by Oliver Burkerman (in Four Thousand Weeks) from this week’s Marginalian:

    Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster. Nobody in the history of humanity has ever achieved “work-life balance,” whatever that might be, and you certainly won’t get there by copying the “six things successful people do before 7:00 a.m.” The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control — when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about.

    Notes

    Meal Plan: Meatloaf + Breaded Chicken using new breading

    Focus