I never read fiction. I read to learn and I’ve always felt the ROI on nonfiction was so much greater. Also, I find it hard (and a bit foolish) to immerse myself in imagined worlds intended to entertain children. Maybe I’m too distraught when good things come to end and so I don’t let myself warm up to fiction, but from what I gather, the HP series are remarkable works of imagination and narrative. There’s so much to learn there. How does that much creativity and coherence come out of one person? It’s staggering.

Much has been written about Rowling, but my favorite part of her real life story is her date of birth (1965). She started writing the HP manuscript at age 30 and was published two years later. Creativity and genius are always associated with precocity, but the story doesn’t have to end there (Gladwell 2008). Brilliance can come at any age. This, more than anything, gives me hope.

I dread aging. It feels so unfair. So far, life has been a series of improvements - in mind, body, tact, class, esteem, acumen, generosity, love, patience, wisdom… and while I could cultivate intangibles forever, the body eventually breaks down; taking passion and energy with it. Fires slowly dying, remember? This is where adversity comes in, something to light a fire under your ass. Rowling got it when she realized she was the biggest failure she knew - divorced and penniless, unable to support her child. Rock bottom seems a cruel ‘foundation for success,’ but so it goes.

From what I saw in the final HP movie, there doesn’t appear to be a heavy handed theme of fate or destiny in the story. I love that. We have our guides, but the journey is up to us. There is no ‘meant to be,’ only what is. That feels like the type of story that would come from a woman unsure of coming success, ignorant to the mammoth role she’s about to play in history and culture. Harry Potter is many things, but the idea of Potential is most relevant to me. The HP story is about what might be and how one can get there despite both mundane and significant obstacles. One reads through 7 books because there seems to be no predetermined outcome, but Harry’s potential greatness looks like it might be just around the corner. The reader only knows as much as Harry knows and therefore can’t judge his decisions based on knowledge of future events. And it’s not just Harry either, the entire series; every character, every setting, every gimmick, is built on potential. What might happen if? And when “it” happens, “it” simply is. There are no judgments to be made. It happened and that’s the way it is now. Turn the page.

Life imitates art imitating life. There is no causality dilemma (chicken or the egg?), life comes first. Art is born from life. Real life: pain, joy, failure, success, mediocrity, loss, fear, loneliness, love - art lives there. I’ve just gotta find it. No more judgments; simply live. Make decisions and run with it, if it looks like you may have fucked up, try running a different way. Just keep moving, that’s the key. Maybe we’re only in Year One at Hogwarts - there’s always next year. Just keep moving. Turn the page.

All this without having read a single HP book. I’ve got a lot to learn, apparently.

This is my favorite music-related read in the past 5 years. 

You can’t fix it. You can’t make it go away.
I don’t know what you’re going to do about it,
But I know what I’m going to do about it. I’m just
going to walk away from it. Maybe
A small part of it will die if I’m not around
feeding it anymore.

“Port au Prince was falling. It was riotous, with widespread looting. A group of us had gone to the port. The thugs with guns didn’t want us there. We snapped from the waist, trying not to make it obvious. We decided to go over the wall. One thug offered me “protection”. As we jumped the wall, I saw this boy, and was like, “This is what it’s come to.” It was my first digital assignment and I was amazed to be able to look at my shots. I did for a second; when I looked up, everyone had run off. It was just me and the thug. It was like a dog that smells fear. He began pushing and threatening me. Then I was surrounded. One of them hit me. I had a few dollar bills in my trousers, and put my hand there. They began tearing at me, fighting over the bills. I waited 30 seconds, started to walk away, then ran and scaled the fence. On the other side, I tried to breathe.

I began shooting one guy a metre away. He screamed and pulled a shotgun. I saw the barrel, then he shot the man next to me – I had blood on me, brains. I was crying, shaking. I ran to the car horrified; I was a mess. I love Haiti, but every time I pass the port, I carry some of that fear.” - Saul Schwarz

Unreal read of the day. More at the Guardian. 

YES YES AND YES! Written by Mr. Y:

It is time for America to re-focus our national interests and principles through a long lens on the global environment of tomorrow.  It is time to move beyond a strategy of containment to a strategy of sustainment (sustainability); from an emphasis on power and control to an emphasis on strength and influence; from a defensive posture of exclusion, to a proactive posture of engagement.  We must recognize that security means more than defense, and sustaining security requires adaptation and evolution, the leverage of converging interests and interdependencies.  To grow we must accept that competitors are not necessarily adversaries, and that a winner does not demand a loser.  We must regain our credibility as a leader among peers, a beacon of hope, rather than an island fortress.  It is only by balancing our interests with our principles that we can truly hope to sustain our growth as a nation and to restore our credibility as a world leader…  

Inherent in our children is the innovation, drive, and imagination that have made, and will continue to make, this country great.  By investing energy, talent, and dollars now in the education and training of young Americans – the scientists, statesmen, industrialists, farmers, inventors, educators, clergy, artists, service members, and parents, of tomorrow – we are truly investing in our ability to successfully compete in, and influence, the strategic environment of the future.  Our first investment priority, then, is intellectual capital and a sustainable  infrastructure of education, health and social services to provide for the continuing development and growth of America’s youth. 

Our second investment priority is ensuring the nation’s sustainable security – on our own soil and wherever Americans and their interests take them.   As has been stated already, Americans view security in the broader context of freedom and peace of mind.  Rather than focusing primarily on defense, the security we seek can only be sustained through a whole of nation approach to our domestic and foreign policies.  This requires a different approach to problem solving than we have pursued previously and a hard look at the distribution of our national treasure.  For too long, we have underutilized sectors of our government and our citizenry writ large, focusing intensely on defense and protectionism rather than on development and diplomacy.   This has been true in our approach to domestic and foreign trade, agriculture and energy, science and technology, immigration and education, public health and crisis response, Homeland Security and military force posture.  Security touches each of these and must be addressed by leveraging all the strengths of our nation, not simply those intended to keep perceived threat a safe arm’s length away.

Mr. Y is a pseudonym for CAPT Wayne Porter, USN and Col Mark “Puck” Mykleby

It’s thrilling watching someone call out the solemnity of the celebrity interview, and Charlie Sheen is loudly calling it out as the sham it is. He’s raw now, and lucid and intense and the most fascinating person wandering through the culture. (No, it’s not Colin Firth or David Fincher or Bruno Mars or super-Empire Tiger Woods, guys.) We’re not used to these kinds of interviews. It’s coming off almost as performance art and we’ve never seen anything like it—because he’s not apologizing for anything. It’s an irresistible spectacle, but it’s also telling because we are watching someone profoundly bored and contemptuous of the media engaging with the media and using the media to admit things about themselves and their desires that seem “shocking” because of society’s old-ass Empire guidelines. No one has ever seen a celebrity more nakedly revealing—even in Sheen’s evasions there’s a truthful playfulness that makes Tiger’s mea culpa press conference look like something manufactured by Nicholas Sparks.

Read more

newyorker:

today:

Many Sea Org volunteers find themselves with no viable options for adulthood. If they try to leave, the church presents them with a “freeloader tab” for all the coursework and counselling they have received; the bill can amount to more than a hundred thousand dollars. Payment is required in…

Lawrence Wright’s piece can be found here.

The American Society of Magazine Editors has this yearly conference where they all get together and jerk off and talk about where they are and where the culture is. So they invited me down a few years ago and asked me to talk about the Esquire covers and tell everybody to stop doing terrible covers, or something like that. I was like, “So you want me to come down and bust balls? OK.” Just about every editor and publisher in America was there, and I just ripped their eyeballs out. Every magazine except maybe Vanity Fair and the New Yorker was complicit in the Iraq war. I gave them the whole thing about weapons of mass destruction and said, “Every one of you sons of bitches is complicit in what’s going on over there.” They were all, “Oooohhhh.” Ten minutes later I did a little bit more of it [mimes clapping his hands together to demonstrate their applause], and then half an hour later I really ripped into them about the war and I got a standing ovation. 

Read the rest at Vice Magazine: GEORGE LOIS - Vice Magazine 

by Ricky Gervais for the WSJ Blog

Why don’t you believe in God? I get that question all the time. I always try to give a sensitive, reasoned answer. This is usually awkward, time consuming and pointless. People who believe in God don’t need proof of his existence, and they certainly don’t want evidence to the contrary. They are happy with their belief. They even say things like “it’s true to me” and “it’s faith.” I still give my logical answer because I feel that not being honest would be patronizing and impolite. It is ironic therefore that “I don’t believe in God because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for his existence and from what I’ve heard the very definition is a logical impossibility in this known universe,” comes across as both patronizing and impolite.

Arrogance is another accusation. Which seems particularly unfair. Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know. It bases its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence -­- evidence that is constantly updated and upgraded. It doesn’t get offended when new facts come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn’t hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition. If it did, you wouldn’t get a shot of penicillin, you’d pop a leach down your trousers and pray. Whatever you “believe,” this is not as effective as medicine. Again you can say, “It works for me,” but so do placebos. My point being, I’m saying God doesn’t exist. I’m not saying faith doesn’t exist. I know faith exists. I see it all the time. But believing in something doesn’t make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn’t make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.

Why don’t I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer. You started all this. If I came up to you and said, “Why don’t you believe I can fly?” You’d say, “Why would I?” I’d reply, “Because it’s a matter of faith.” If I then said, “Prove I can’t fly. Prove I can’t fly see, see, you can’t prove it can you?” You’d probably either walk away, call security or throw me out of the window and shout, ‘’F—ing fly then you lunatic.”

This, is of course a spirituality issue, religion is a different matter. As an atheist, I see nothing “wrong” in believing in a god. I don’t think there is a god, but belief in him does no harm. If it helps you in any way, then that’s fine with me. It’s when belief starts infringing on other people’s rights when it worries me. I would never deny your right to believe in a god. I would just rather you didn’t kill people who believe in a different god, say. Or stone someone to death because your rulebook says their sexuality is immoral. It’s strange that anyone who believes that an all-powerful all-knowing, omniscient power responsible for everything that happens, would also want to judge and punish people for what they are. From what I can gather, pretty much the worst type of person you can be is an atheist. The first four commandments hammer this point home. There is a god, I’m him, no one else is, you’re not as good and don’t forget it. (Don’t murder anyone, doesn’t get a mention till number 6.)

When confronted with anyone who holds my lack of religious faith in such contempt, I say, “It’s the way God made me.”

But what are atheists really being accused of?

The dictionary definition of God is “a supernatural creator and overseer of the universe.” Included in this definition are all deities, goddesses and supernatural beings. Since the beginning of recorded history, which is defined by the invention of writing by the Sumerians around 6,000 years ago, historians have cataloged over 3700 supernatural beings, of which 2870 can be considered deities.

So next time someone tells me they believe in God, I’ll say “Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?…” If they say “Just God. I only believe in the one God,” I’ll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods, and they don’t believe in 2,869.

I used to believe in God. The Christian one that is.

I loved Jesus. He was my hero. More than pop stars. More than footballers. More than God. God was by definition omnipotent and perfect. Jesus was a man. He had to work at it. He had temptation but defeated sin. He had integrity and courage. But He was my hero because He was kind. And He was kind to everyone. He didn’t bow to peer pressure or tyranny or cruelty. He didn’t care who you were. He loved you. What a guy. I wanted to be just like Him.

One day when I was about 8 years old, I was drawing the crucifixion as part of my Bible studies homework. I loved art too. And nature. I loved how God made all the animals. They were also perfect. Unconditionally beautiful. It was an amazing world.

I lived in a very poor, working-class estate in an urban sprawl called Reading, about 40 miles west of London. My father was a laborer and my mother was a housewife. I was never ashamed of poverty. It was almost noble. Also, everyone I knew was in the same situation, and I had everything I needed. School was free. My clothes were cheap and always clean and ironed. And mum was always cooking. She was cooking the day I was drawing on the cross.

I was sitting at the kitchen table when my brother came home. He was 11 years older than me, so he would have been 19. He was as smart as anyone I knew, but he was too cheeky. He would answer back and get into trouble. I was a good boy. I went to church and believed in God -– what a relief for a working-class mother. You see, growing up where I did, mums didn’t hope as high as their kids growing up to be doctors; they just hoped their kids didn’t go to jail. So bring them up believing in God and they’ll be good and law abiding. It’s a perfect system. Well, nearly. 75 percent of Americans are God-­‐fearing Christians; 75 percent of prisoners are God-­‐fearing Christians. 10 percent of Americans are atheists; 0.2 percent of prisoners are atheists.

But anyway, there I was happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, “Why do you believe in God?” Just a simple question. But my mum panicked. “Bob,” she said in a tone that I knew meant, “Shut up.” Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong it didn’t matter what people said.

Oh…hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.

Wow. No God. If mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? Yes, of course, but who cares? The gifts kept coming. And so did the gifts of my new found atheism. The gifts of truth, science, nature. The real beauty of this world. I learned of evolution -– a theory so simple that only England’s greatest genius could have come up with it. Evolution of plants, animals and us –- with imagination, free will, love, humor. I no longer needed a reason for my existence, just a reason to live. And imagination, free will, love, humor, fun, music, sports, beer and pizza are all good enough reasons for living.

But living an honest life -– for that you need the truth. That’s the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, in the end leads to liberation and dignity.

So what does the question “Why don’t you believe in God?” really mean. I think when someone asks that they are really questioning their own belief. In a way they are asking “what makes you so special? “How come you weren’t brainwashed with the rest of us?” “How dare you say I’m a fool and I’m not going to heaven, f— you!” Let’s be honest, if one person believed in God he would be considered pretty strange. But because it’s a very popular view it’s accepted. And why is it such a popular view? That’s obvious. It’s an attractive proposition. Believe in me and live forever. Again if it was just a case of spirituality this would be fine.

“Do unto others…” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that’s exactly what it is -­‐ a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell.”

You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done. 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to ‘glorify God and enjoy him forever.’

Still we live meanly, like ants… Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!

From the 2nd chapter of Walden by Henry David Thoreau 

Mute your speakers. Watch the first 60-90s of this video, watch Bush’s eyes. Then skip to 2:30 and watch Clinton’s eyes. Legendary charm is no more than eye contact, personal space, and being fully present. 

Michael Ellsberg released a book on the Power of Eye Contact and recently wrote a post for Tim Ferriss’ blog. It’s fascinating. His breakdown of the 1992 Town Hall:

First point: In the initial seconds of the video, Bush checks his watch when the voter begins asking him a question. Presence? How about “How long do I have to listen to you before I can talk?” This was widely considered a “Dukakis-in-the-tank/Dean Scream” moment during the campaign, and among the worst gaffes in presidential debate history (up there with Gore’s sighs and eye rolls in 2000). And it all hinged on one moment of absent presence.

Notice Bush’s eye contact as he answers the woman’s question. It is sporadic, weak, drifting, and random. He hasn’t decided whether he’s talking to her, to the moderator, to the whole audience, or to the air in the room. In terms of personal space, he is totally unsure of how close he should stand; he walks closer to her, then backs off, visibly uncomfortable with the personal space aspect of the interchange. In all three factors of RDF we’ve talked about–eye contact, personal space, and presence–he’s clearly not making a personal connection with the voter.

At 2:30, when Clinton begins to answer, notice how he manages to simultaneously own the space and put the woman at ease. He walks up several yards closer than Bush did, making a personal connection in her space, without making her uncomfortable. His eye contact is clear, unwavering, and calm. There’s absolutely no mistaking whom he’s talking with. Clinton’s there in the room with two rival candidates, news media, other audience members, and a national TV audience of millions. Yet that feeling of “The only two people in the room” is palpable when he talks with the voter.

The result of this town hall debate? 58% of viewers declared Clinton the winner of the debate, 16% for Bush, and 15% for Perot. (In the previous debate, with a traditional podium format, 47% of viewers declared Perot to be the winner, with 30% for Clinton, and 16% for Bush.)

Look at the woman’s response at 3:22. Clinton completely has her.
Bush’s facial expression at 3:47 is priceless. He knows he’s been beaten. 

Malcolm Gladwell nails it in Blink: it strikes me how consistently our impressions of others come through snap judgments of unspoken cues and stimuli. There is no ‘natural charm,’ only good non-verbal habits. The best part: charm is an attainable skill. Just try not to look so creepy when you practice.  

Q: Do you believe in the 10 commandments?

Saatchi: An overrated lifestyle guide, unsustainable and largely ineffective, only succeeding in making people confused and guilty. For example: You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his house, nor his servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

This was always obviously a no-hoper of a Commandment. Coveting is all everyone does, all the time, everyday. It’s what drives the world economy, pushes people to make a go of their lives, so that they can afford the Executive model of their Ford Mondeo to park next to their neighbor’s Standard model.

And would you want to be married to someone who nobody coveted?

Absolute must-read for anyone with a brain. 

The big unsatisfying thing for me is when you have a bumper sticker that says, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” It doesn’t settle it for me. I was giving a talk in Texas a couple of years ago—this still circulates on the web—at McLennan University, which is a very interesting college near Waco and Crawford. I’d pointed out that it seems reasonable to me that whoever wrote Genesis, as translated into English, where God made the sun to light the earth and the moon to light the night, probably didn’t have the whole story. Because, first of all, the moon doesn’t always light the night. And even ancient Greeks realized that the moon was an object that reflected sunlight. So this woman in the audience picked her kids up by the wrists and dragged them out of the room, shouting, “I believe in God! Bill Nye, you are evil!” That may be, but the moon doesn’t give off its own light. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do there. And we all laugh at that, but what we have to do is find the story that is more compelling. And I think we can find that if, instead of focusing on the truth, we focus on the pursuit of it. We focus on the scientific method, the way to find the truth.