Liberal Arts Blog — Three Basic Units, Four Qualities, Three Modes, Seven Character Traits, Three Goals
Liberal Arts Blog — Monday is the Joy of Math, Statistics, Shapes, and Numbers Day
Today’s Topic: Three Basic Units, Four Qualities, Three Modes, Seven Character Traits, Three Goals
My challenge is how to come up with a reasonably simple, reasonably complete, reasonably organized and reasonably prioritized set of principles and practices with which to lead a maximally productive, joyful, and responsible life.
Historically, this has been the function of religion in human societies — a kind of glue keeping the whole thing together, a distillate of the wisdom of all past generations of humanity.
So, my self-imposed challenge is to isolate the hard core of all religions, discarding the mumbo-jumbo. I need all the help I can get.
Today, a “periodic recapitulation” post rather than a “something new and cool I learned today” post.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THREE BASIC UNITS, FOUR QUALITIES, THREE PHYSICAL ANALOGUES, THE SEVEN CHARACTER TRAITS — who is your time management guru?
1. The three basic units of life are the breath, the day, and the week.
2. Each must to structured in a way that maximizes the four qualities of simplicity, completeness, organization, and prioritization.
3. The seven character traits to be maximized are: gratitude (#1) , courage (#2), common sense (#3), hard work (#4), excellence (#5) curiosity (#6), and fun (#7)
NB: The breath should start with the smile, the physical analogue of the first and second commandments (in secular terms, gratitude and kindness) and be accompanied by optimal posture (the physical analogue of courage). and a deep, diaphragmatic nasal breath (the physical analogue of prudence, patience, and common sense)
THE SEVEN JOYS, THE SEVEN DAYS, THE THREE MODES — how to learn something new and think a tad more deeply every day (below Franklin’s calendar of virtues)
1. Humans crave joy. I have never met a human that does not get deep joy from at least one of the following: sports, music, art, food, humor, travel, literature, science, or math.
2. In order to maximize your power to spread joy to others, it makes sense to harness the “divide and conquer” principle — assigning to each day of the week one of the categories of joy that inspire joy in others and deepen your own appreciation for it. You could also call this the “division of labor” principle.
3. Continuity is key to depth of joy and knowledge. To consolidate joy and knowledge verbalize it, quantify it, and visualize it. These are the three modes of expression, distillation, and consolidation of joy and knowledge.
NB: Education, at its core, is the process of transmission from one generation to the next of the most beautiful verbalizations, quantifications, and visualizations of all past generations. This is what schools K-12 and universities should be doing but are not. Let’s fix this.
THE SEVEN ISSUES OF THINKING CITIZENSHIP — if not now, when? (below — Ben Franklin, without whom no French alliance, without which we’d still be a British colony)
1. Time is limited. I will never know everything I would like to know before I have to make a decision in the next election.
2. But what I can do every day is go to sleep a little less stupid than I was when I woke up by learning something new related to one of the most important issues facing our country and the world.
3. As thematic continuity is key to depth of thought, it makes sense to assign to each day of the week one of the seven most important issues that every thinking citizen should weigh in their decision making at election time — foreign policy, economic policy, climate change, social justice, health, education, and political process reform. Is this list reasonably complete? I think the list must be limited to seven. Substitutions?
NB: And as reading without writing is like eating without digesting, reading is not enough. Do your best to extract the essence of it. And publish what you come up with to get feedback. The more diverse the group of fellow students in terms of age, ideology, and every other category, the better.
Thinking Citizen Blog — Why I Am Running for US President in 2024
Thinking Citizen Blog — The Party of We and Yes (Part II)
QUOTE OF THE MONTH — Have you made your own Bible yet?
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
Last four years of posts organized thematically:
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to math, statistics, or numbers in general.
Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to math.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And to consolidate in your memory something you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
