Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.
Unknown
Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Over 20 years ago this was the quote I used in my high school yearbook. I’m not sure how serious I was, but it is a good one.
Recently I heard a variant of it, and think it’s better – but I may just have an odd sense of humour.
Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day,
Terry Pratchett
but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.
One of my favorite nerdy activities is visualizing data; helping to communicate numbers and ideas in an accessible way. I made this chart below to showcase the stages of a banana ripening, and the usage zones. It was inspired by my dad (Opa to my kids) who is very picky about his bananas!
Like a blind dog in a meat market*
- Running around completely out of control
I don’t recall where I heard this phrase, but it immediately stuck. I think it’s because it sometimes accurately describes my children (especially the youngest).
* Yes, its more than one word. See why here
Sitting in our garden on a sunny summer day, I am reminded of what an amazing space it is, nature in the city. The breeze causes dappled sunshine to break through the leafy canopy above me, busy bees flit from flower to flower, and wasps scratch at the cedar posts. I also hear the hum of the nearby road, and the sound of neighbours – music, talking, and washing dishes.
Getting away from busyness to spend quiet time with Jesus is vital for our faith. Yet we don’t do that apart from the people we’re called to be in the world, sharing Jesus’ love tangibly with those around us.
Being in the garden gives a blend of both, a quiet place to read, listen, and pray, but also to remember where I am, in the midst of a city with millions of souls created in God’s image. My call is to be a light here, not to everyone, but to everyone God leads me to. The garden reminds me to find that balance between stillness & quiet, and work in the real world.
I saw this sign while camping a number of years ago and was sadly excited that I could get connectivity … then I realized it was just an amphitheatre icon.
Unfortunately with ever expanding WiFi and cellular coverage, it is harder to unplug.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
TS Eliot, The Rock
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
This quote from TS Eliot’s play, The Rock was written in 1934, but seems even more relevant today. We are amassing an ever increasing amount of information, and can now get an answer for anything from AI (though not necessarily the right one). However, we forget that the value is not just in the information but the wisdom that it took to gain it.
How can we be people that value the hard work of gaining wisdom in an age of instant gratification and ease? How do we push back against hoarding information without truly understanding the world in which it belongs?
No. AI* isn’t coming for your job.
Don’t get me wrong, many jobs are disappearing, especially at the lower levels, but AI isn’t some sentient being plotting your destruction.
Continue readingI consider the success of my day based on the seeds I sow, not the harvest I reap.
Robert Louis Stevenson
This is how I want to evaluate my days. Not based on my output, but if I invested my time in the right things. It may feel less productive, but that is okay.
There is this silly game my wife and I play, we take a sentence and put air quotes around a random word – the goal being to change the meaning and make it much funnier.
This request for feedback does the same thing, making me question whether they “actually” want my input 😂
I spotted this in Sayulita, Mexico. I love how they committed to painting the rolling shutters to perfectly frame the plant (at its current size).
A friend of mine bet that if I did a back flip with a cup of water, the centrifugal force would keep the water in. You be the judge 👇
Starting today you will see this little icon on the bottom of every page. Nothing on this site was, or will be, generated with AI. No images, no videos, and most importantly, no writing.
I’m not opposed to AI (well not fully) – however, besides the obvious environmental and human concerns, using AI to generate content for this creative outlet completely defeats the point.
My goal is to learn, grow, and challenge myself – and document and share my thoughts and findings along the way. The hard part of writing or editing or capturing is the good part. I don’t write just for the output; the process of taking my random thoughts and making them coherent is where I improve.
For example, Post-Snob was an idea I’d been playing with in my head for at least a few years, however it took time and multiple drafts, iterations, and sketches, before it came together into something I felt was worth sharing.
As AI develops, and the uptake and implementation of it grows, my stance may change. However, I firmly believe that creativity is one of our core human values, and outsourcing it to a machine means we lose more than we gain.
The Bible is full of gardening analogies that spoke to the mainly agrarian culture of the time. My favorite of these is in the Gospel of John, where Jesus calls us to abide (or remain) in him, summing up the secret of the Christian life.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5 ESV
Although I have known and studied these verses for years, it recently got a fresh meaning for me.
In our garden there are two grape vines that I am beginning to care for more earnestly. I cut off one of the branches, but left it in place. The next day, all the leaves were completely withered and dead; I was surprised at the speed.
This immediately made me think of the verse above. When Jesus says apart from him we can do nothing, he doesn’t mean we can limp along on our own, but without him and the life he provides as the “vine”, we wither quickly and completely.
Compare the before and after of my grape branch below 👇
In our consumer-driven society it seems like you can become a snob about almost everything. I don’t mean this in a purely negative sense, but rather the idea that you can get increasingly obsessed and aware of more subtle nuances of anything. This might be sports cars, coffee, or vacuum cleaners – every category of thing can be an area of specialization and opinion.
I will fully admit that there are things in my life, namely coffee and wine, in which I am probably still in the snob category. But as I think about interests I’ve had in the past, and my journey into them, I have a theory I have been wanting to share.
Continue ReadingIf you join a zoom call with me, my background isn’t a perfectly curated bookcase or beautiful plants, its this flag …
I chose this, not only because it was hanging in the developers section of my first office job, but because it is the antithesis of how you build a good culture.
Sadly this mindset is all too common and so dejecting. I recall working at an office where the production team wanted their area painted (a small request), but the business team wouldn’t do it until revenue targets were met – something the production team was not even responsible for!
At StoryTap, one of our five values is Family. We want to support our team members personally and professionally, proactively helping them so they can do the best job possible. We haven’t always got this right, but seeing that flag behind me is a constant reminder of how important team morale is and how I don’t want to operate.
Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
This quote is a good reminder of how every thing we do, especially the small things, show our true character and what we actually believe. What does your life (and my life) say?
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
Psalm 98:7 ESV
the world and those who dwell in it!
As I travel through a somewhat turbulent North Pacific ocean, with nothing but water as far as the eye can see, the verses in the Psalms that speak of the seas are seen in a new light.
I am in awe of their size and power, and my own insignificance and lack of control in comparison. And yet, these verses are a comfort, as they tell us that these seas are created by our God, that they (and all in them) worship him, and that his love for us is as vast as the ocean!
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
Psalm 90:17 ESV
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
Establish comes from the Latin word meaning “to make firm” – and as I read this prayer, it resonated deeply with me. It feels like so much of the work I do is ephemeral or fleeting. What is important today is forgotten tomorrow, and even the “good” things I have built are mostly digital, simply 0’s and 1’s that could be erased and never seen again.
I long to have the work I do make a meaningful impact, or at the very least, not be a total waste of time and effort that could have been better spent. The truth that God will establish our work, he will make it solid and of lasting value, is so encouraging, even when it doesn’t feel significant.
CS Lewis captured an aspect of this idea well in The Great Divorce, when he pictured the good work we do here on earth reflecting the heavenly truth that is so much better. So yes, our work here is just a reflection, but when done well, it reflects heaven to those around us.
When you painted on earth – at least in your earlier days – it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape. The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too. But here you are having the thing itself.
CS Lewis, The Great Divorce
Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.
Ted Chiang
The tools we use can easily become crutches that inhibit development and even cause atrophy.
These tools all have a use and can be beneficial, but they cannot be evaluated apart from their impacts. And they actually impact different groups unequally.
The first group is those who have already gained the skill or technique, but use the tool to become faster or better. They know the “hard” way because they had to learn it. For them the danger is not progressing in a skill, and even atrophying.
The second group is those who have never known the skill, but learned with the tool. They have never had the chance to learn the “hard” way, and are stuck without it.
As we think about AI tools like ChatGPT, for us who’ve already learned to write an essay, or draw a picture, or write code, using AI may mean our skills get rusty, but at worst, we could still get along without them. But for the next generation who have not, they will be hopelessly lost without it, dependent on AI tools – and those who own and program them, to complete the basic tasks in work and life.
Though these tools are being crammed into every product by the tech firms that dominate our lives, we can choose not to use them, and to keep our human-defining skills like writing and making music and art, even if it means taking longer or thinking harder, that’s the point.
And for those who are learning, remember that though AI may be able to answer your question or complete your assignment, every time you use this tool you are giving it more control and reducing your future independence.
