5.0 KiB
Meditations and Idea Capture
Sunday school
There has to be a better way to do this other than forcing a few immature young boys to read something. Getting rid of the table and chairs and just being on the floor would be a good start, I feel. Using the bible is a great thing as well - let's get back to doing that. Flipping through pages and being comfortable navigating it, initiating them to it, is so wonderful. Sit back and wonder. Encourage the wonder. Play with the ideas and stories. They want to do that, too! Don't overthink it; rather, just prepare your mindset better.
Career pivot
New Polity Press - https://newpolity.com/blog/against-automated-work
Technology is a way of approaching the world; a mode that human beings enter into in order to get something out of it. It does not take shape of its own accord, but according to who we think man is, what we think he needs, and how we think he ought to live. our technological devices have a telos beyond their immediate purpose: they enable man to flourish, yes, but according to a contingent vision of what flourishing entails. Constantly laboring on his monotonous task within the chain of production, the worker loses skills that are irrelevant to his job. He is dehumanized and atomized into a machine-like character, losing his “intellectual, social, and martial virtues,” and becomes an individual made for his one task.
While innovations can certainly prove advantageous to laborers and ultimately the common good, this appears unlikely within our social order. It would require sincere consideration for the particular and personal. It would require technological devices which actually enable and dignify labor as their first end, rather than merely enabling more profits In contrast to liberalism, the Catholic tradition instructs us to prioritize the subjective nature of work over the objective. The reason we work, the reason we produce things at all is, first and foremost, for the flourishing of the workers.
Dignity
I would be proud to design these sorts of innovations that enable and dignify labor. But what does that look like?
Does it look like a faster horse, or is it a completely different sort of technology? Is it a better hammer, or a fly press?
What does it even mean to dignify labor? It is to make it appear noble. To make labor associated with the higher pursuits of life - intellectual consummation with the world.
Some self-reflection
I have always associated play with construction. LEGO. I like being able to tear something up and wrestle with a design. What I love about objects over people is the fact that I can completely destroy them and cast them aside if they do not fit their purpose, and I can put back into place something new and lovely.
A person or a plant need to be handled delicately. Even wood is a little finnicky - it requires an attentiveness to the particular that I am not inclined to; I am attentive to the theoretical; the ideal; the teleological. Confronted with the real embodiment, I struggle often.
This often causes problems. I'm trying to overcome these problems, but it's a difficult process.
What sort of life, then, would I be proud to lead?
A life where I make the capital equipment that help my fellow laboring men do their tasks more effectively.
I feel way too divorced from the really productive pursuits to do this effectively. It seems like most really good ideas come from being engaged with a particular subject matter and then going from there. I need an entry point.
Do I have some role models?
- Essential Craftsman
- Fireball tool In these cases they had a primary job but developed something out of the side and from working hard. Things developed organically. They didn't try-hard.
Stop trying-hard for the spark. Let it happen. Forced ideas suck.
OKAY, BUT...
A day job where you work for local and real and particular people would be incredibly rewarding and encouraging. And being able to leverage the skills I have for the direct benefit of my neighbors - how glorious would that be?
Quick distinction
When capital is centralizable and labor is interchangeable and impersonal - there is no relationship that must be built up - labor suffers. Frankly, unskilled labor always suffers. Skilled labor brings men above the ashes reliably. Even building a product and collecting the rent from its production is not a long-term sustainable path.
Skill - no, relationship - is at the core of dignity.
Recollection
Refer to the Orarion +/-/>
Brass Tacks
Weather Report
35/66 / Sunny
Arise
- Clean up
- Stretch / Exercise
- Get ready for the day
- Byzantine Matins
Work
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[x & ->] Push hard for board nominations
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Listen to MED ep4 / Nate's concerns
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Echain channel
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Frame FEA
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Vac table spaceclaim
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Call atlantic industries
Evening
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Make Marissa's gun parts
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Learn to sharpen chisels
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Check up on Corey
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[->] Fix sunglasses
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[->] 401(k)
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[=] Self-Authoring
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[->] KofC - join local council