Ziklag 4.3
I don’t want to waste your time.
Periodicals are bad for you. Don’t subscribe to them. Unsubscribe from as many as you can. Your time is worth more to you than one more email about X blogging down your inbox with the Pile of Fog.
Ziklag is not a periodical, so I pray you stick with me. Peer over my shoulder with exclusive access to my notes. This may be the only time these words are ever published. Time is ticking away. Tomorrow may never come. What good are tomes when the world is at an end?
I worked on these things today for you. Be the fly on the wall of my office. Watch what happens to pass here. See how it comes together.
There is a lot on the Stack, so you and I both want to get Smart about this now, not later. None of us can finish every great idea. None of us can prepare for everything. But we can share small wins. We can build each other up.
The sun and the moon will run along and let tomorrow be.
“The die is cast,” quoth Julius Caesar.
“His eye is on the sparrow,” the Carpenter notes.
Easter Sunday Sermon 2024 was One of My Best
SOS Discipline - Daily Proverb and Red Letter Reader
Once the conscience is lost, there is little to no man left. cf Pr. 28:17
If not to worship and trust, what do you imagine a God is for? cf Mt. 6:30
Fortune passes by. Viscosity remains. cf Sun Tzu 4.2 (updated)
Opportunity strikes. Reliance is grown. cf Sun Tzu 4.3
From Today’s Stack
Let’s get Smart together.
Right now my primary projects are shepherding my family, SP815 and the Hebron Collegium through the magically-real 2024 minefield of humanity’s collapse. After that, I have three primary publications I’m excited to give my attention to until they are done. The first is the thorough rework of my 2020 Smart Noting experiment Talk Them into It. The second is the long awaited I Will Teach You to Be Smart. The third is any one of my endless drawer of stories.
Bits of these stories will all end up here. When they do, I plan to include the label f in the heading. Likewise, I hope to place a t for Talk Them In, and a s for Smart.
There are other works in the pile. There are more concepts of the Stack. One of the primary insights of the Luhmann method is that you do your best work when you work on what you are driven to do. Resistance to a project means personal insight into it’s level of obsticularity or obscurity. This may be sheer sloth, or it may be your hunch that today is a bad day for this for any number of subconscious reasons.
You are free. That is what Jesus said. I think the first step in getting Smart is to believe that he meant it.
What even is “Smart” anyway?
Smart is the capacity to enter any school at any time and participate in such a way as to the enhance the learning experience of all.
You want some of that.
Smart is not so much knowing a lot about a little, but a little about a lot, many times over, and, oftentimes, all at once, or, at least, when it’s needed and at the right time.
Everybody wants some of that.
The beauty of Smart Noting is that it is not a panacea. It is a discipline. It is a practice, a procedure which powers self-control over the information spigots in your life. It will not solve your work overwhelm. It will give you the grit to say No to the things that are overwhelming you. Smart Noting will teach you to teach yourself what and where those monsters are.
Some of that is what you’re about to get right here.
Stay tuned….
from Talk Them In
You Can’t Converse If You Don’t Listen
In a friendship, there must be a give and take. For an exchange to take place, there must be two to begin with. In the same way, every excellent conversation requires that participants both listen.
The first rule of listening is: ask good questions.
After talking about the weather, most conversations dwindle into tedium because no one is interested in anyone else. This is a shame because just about everyone alive is interesting. But none of us is that interesting all alone. All of us are more interesting together. Together, interesting questions become unexpected answers that spur genuine dialogue all on its own.
Even when someone is hostile to Jesus Christ, it is the integrity of the questions you ask that build your platform for faithful witness. Genuine curiosity in the opposing heart, willingness to hear and understand the other view, is the unexpectedly gentile pathway to connecting with that right moment so that your witness shines bright as the day.
Like all forms of friendship, good conversation is built on listening. It takes time. It requires patience, and it is totally worth it.
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