There is a Super Duper sale of e-books going on. You get 17 (seventeen) guides to minimalist freedom for an ultra minimalist price of $27.
Minimalism does not ask you to dump your stuff. It helps you focus on and enjoy what you love by removing the tangible (things) and intangible (thoughts and distractions) away from it.
via my post on by the river
I was walking Laya through Memorial Park this evening. This is an old park built on the river and close to the business hub of Riverside. Many people visit the park during the day. The usual suspects are fishermen, dog walkers, joggers and the occasional photographer. I saw one such photographer today with his subject, a young female model. The young model was perched on the wall against the river and the photographer was using the backdrop of the river and the bridges as his canvas. I paused by the wall to feel the cool breeze coming off the surface of the river and let Laya sniff around. I was only a few feet away from the photographer and heard his directions. “Look Here”, “Look Away”, “Relax”… a typical portrait photographer.
As we continued walking and passed the duo, the girl happened to glance towards Laya and broke out in a simple smile just as a few strands of her hair wandered onto her face in the breeze. The photographer noticing the distraction stopped focusing his camera and waited for us to pass. Then continued, “Look here, relax your face…”. He missed the best moment of his model’s expression, a genuine smile.
A genuine smile is hard to come by. Even more difficult it is to replicate. It is one of my favorite human emotions to capture. I capture it by being patient in a crowd (hence the above picture).
The photographer resisted thinking out of his channeled procedure of work. His procedure: look at light, adjust shutter speed and aperture, focus camera, give directions, take picture, next pose, repeat…
Is your procedure of work interfering with the quality of your work?
Did you create that procedure?
Can you change it?
Even more important, does your manager empower you to change it?
Back in the day when I was considering a drastic career change, everyone told me what to do based on what procedure they have been following for years. My uncle told me this and only this, “Life is like driving a car on the highway. You grip the steering wheel only so tight, not too tight, not too loose”.
Blog posts and news articles contribute information and spark discussions. The quality of discussion depends on the people who comment and also the content of the blog post. Comment moderation keeps spam comments out. Some times a low quality comment straddles the line of becoming spam. It is left to the moderator’s discretion to remove the comment. After this addition and subtraction of comments to an article, the net comments add content of the original article.
Imagine a time before the internet. Random people at a coffee shop or bar read a news article in the evening paper and start a discussion. Sometimes, that discussion gets loud depending on the sensitivity of the issue. This isolated discussion does not have the power to change the course of the topic by itself. It really depends on the people discussing. No matter what the outcome or volume of this discussion, one thing is apparent: each participant can see other participant’s face. They may even know their name. This exposure in identity helps maintain a level of honesty through accountability that anonymous comments in a blog post does not.
The anonymous commentator may or may not share their true views. It is the lack of accountability coming from their anonymity that adds noise to a new reader of the article. At least it adds to the noise when I read. Recently, I got into a lengthy discussion on Bikejax about segregated bike paths. I always sign my comments with my real name and a link to my website. My website shows you my face and gives you a way to contact me directly. The person I was debating with simply signed their name as David. There was no link and no last name. It might as well say ‘Anonymous#1′. I might as well have been talking to a wall!
I will switch off comments on all my blogs. You may email me or find me on twitter to discuss each post. On posts not hosted by me that harbor comments, I will comment with my full name and link to my website. I will only respond to those commentators who show some kind of a link to their web presence. Commentators who are either anonymous or have a name that I cant identify personally will be treated as noise.
Seth Godin – Why I Don’t have Comments
Everett Bouge – 7-ways-to-invest-your-time-besides-commenting-on-blogs
ProBlogger – Should Blogs Have Comments?
