Category: Philosophy

Grow in the Open Air

~ George Crawford ~ Leave a comment

growintheopenairsm

“Here is the test of wisdom,
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it,
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.

Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.”

Get out, travel, earn your wisdom, ignore lecture-room philosophy and religion…

Live life. It’s later than you think.

Where is Your Study? By a Creek in the Woods

~ George Crawford ~ 1 Comment
Potůček v lese / Creek in the woods, 1900, Březina Václav. Czech (1862 - 1906).
Potůček v lese / Creek in the woods, 1900, Březina Václav. Czech (1862 – 1906).

When a traveler asked Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered “Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.”

The “Our Next Life” Series // Time to Join In!

~ George Crawford ~ Leave a comment

Planning for your next step in life? Tired of being a drone with just enough well to keep it together while working for an ungrateful boss or company? You can escape. The good folks at “ournextlife” offer some excellent advice and lessons learned along the way. I read every post they make and am generally better off for it. Have a look:

Tanja Hester's avatarOur Next Life by Tanja Hester, author of Work Optional and Wallet Activism

our bloggy buddy steve, who writes think save retire, started the about series a few weeks back that all bloggers are invited to continue, and more recently wrote a series on his own blog that he dubbed the “our next life” series. we love the name, obviously, and thought — why not also make it a series that we all contribute to? so this is our take. and we’d love for you to write your own and link back! who’s in?

our take on the series may be a little different from steve and courtney’s, but our idea is to do a little daydreaming about what your next life will look like, after you reach whatever you’re planning for, whether it be early retirement or financial independence, paying off debt, saving for some other major goal, or achieving a major personal milestone.

some questions you may…

View original post 1,449 more words

Apologies

~ George Crawford ~ 1 Comment

Some plum good advice from one of my favorite literary craftsmen P. G. Wodehouse.

“It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”

From: The Man Upstairs and Other Stories.

Color-tinted image of P. G. Wodehouse in his prime.
Color-tinted image of P. G. Wodehouse in his prime.

About himself and his career, he took the humble path.

“When in due course Charon ferries me across the Styx and everyone is telling everyone else what a rotten writer I was, I hope at least one voice will be heard piping up, ‘But he did take trouble.'”

From: Wodehouse on Wodehouse, 1957.

Our Resolutions for Retirement: Six Habits to Kick When You Escape (that you can start right now!)

~ George Crawford ~ Leave a comment

Some great advice from a couple heading for early retirement. They have a great blog and give some good, down-to-earth advice. Here are a few tips in today’s post.

  1. Stop sleeping with the phone right next to the bed.  The phone is a tool, not your jailer.
  2. Get dressed in the morning.  Just because you aren’t going to work, you can still put in a little effort to get dressed for the day.  This sets the mood that you may actually DO something.  And for everyone’s sake, don’t go shopping in your pajamas!
  3. Stop treating lunch like a frantic scramble.  Despite the feelings of guilt dished out by bad employers, you deserve a break once in a while.  Enjoy your time because life is short.
  4. Stop eating at your desk.  Again, get out.  Take break.  You are not a prisoner.
  5. Stop waking up at unreasonable hours. This is hard to avoid, but waking up to your own rhythm is something we can all benefit from.  Electricity, artificial lighting, internet, and television encourages us to stay up too late for our schedules.  Get some sleep!
  6. Stop neglecting fitness.  This should go without saying.  However, many of our jobs either hurt us by giving us too little activity or beat us up through tough repetitive movements.  When we get home, it’s too easy to lay down, have a cocktail, snack, eat, and recuperate from the day.  Find time to treat yourself right.

ALL GREAT ADVICE.  Read the rest and much more at the “Our next life“.

Tanja Hester's avatarOur Next Life by Tanja Hester, author of Work Optional and Wallet Activism

happy monday, friends! anyone else hoping for a less volatile stock market week? we’d love to just coast into labor day weekend without thinking about the markets. let’s see if we’re so lucky! and now for our regularly scheduled blog post…

lately we’ve been noticing more of the bad habits that are part of our lives because of work, the things that would otherwise be invisible to us if we weren’t paying attention. work is in a busy period for both of us at the moment (don’t our clients know it’s august?!), so we’re spending even more time than usual daydreaming about what life will be like when we can say sayonara once and for all to our careers. a top priority for us then will be to change our habits, replacing the bad ones with good, healthy ones.

but of course it’s so easy to be blind to our…

View original post 671 more words

Thoughts on Children

~ George Crawford ~ Leave a comment

A bit of perspective on this Philosophical Friday morning.  One of my favorite quotes from Socrates (Σωκράτης).  Our experiences are more shared than unique.

Palermsoc
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”  Socrates

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Attributed to Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.)

“The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise”

~ George Crawford ~ 6 Comments

WaldenScan

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Life, Destruction, and Incidental Use

~ George Crawford ~ Leave a comment
rainforest
Every creature, large and small deserves a chance to survive. As a species, we can  do better than this.

“A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead human carcass is a man. Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale? Can he who slays the elephant for his ivory be said to have “seen the elephant”? These are petty and accidental uses; just as if a stronger race were to kill us in order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones; for everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use. Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine-trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.”

From: The Maine Woods, Henry David Thoreau

Henry_David_Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau

This particular quote seems appropriate for my personal new year resolution of extreme conscientiousness in all consumption.  I am far from perfect but nothing should needlessly suffer on my account; especially for luxury and comfort.

GTC