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Mon 04 Mar 2019 09:11:14 AM EST
Slept very fitfully from nine to six.
High of seventeen today.
Work:
- 10 AM demo of Ubiquiti video for Alltronics
Done.
- Approve Scott's PTO
Done.
- Work on unit types
Done.
Twenty-minute walk at lunch.
Cold.
A little snow, but amounting to nothing.
Home:
- Call Yvonne back about possible Thursday dinner
Done.
- Go to bed early
Done.
Left work an hour early.
Came home, and took a three-hour nap.
https://iai.tv/articles/uselessness-as-life-affirmation-a-daoist-reflection-auid-1217
> Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi tells the story of a tree which enjoys being useless. This tree has grown to a vast size and is worshiped in the village. Its branches are “too twisted and gnarled to be used for beams or pillars”, while its trunk is “too splotched and split to be used for a coffin” (translated by Brook Ziporyn in his Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings). So one day when a carpenter encounters the tree, he believes the tree to be “worthless lumber”. Yet, the tree responds to the carpenter’s criticism by appearing to him in a dream and asking him:
> “What do you want to compare me to, one of those cultivated trees? The hawthorn, the pear, the orange, the rest of those fructiferous trees and shrubs – when their fruit is ripe they get plucked, and that is an insult…Thus do their abilities embitter their lives. That’s why they die young…They batter themselves with the vulgar conventions of the world.” (Ziporyn’s translation)
> In this story, the carpenter’s view is in modern western terms utilitarian. Regardless of the size of the tree or its being worshipped, to the carpenter the tree is nothing more than a waste of space. The existence of the tree serves no purpose. However, the tree feels blessed by its uselessness: it survives, while other “useful” trees are cut down, to be used as wood, or damaged by such violence.
Servings: grains 3/6, fruit 2/4, vegetables 4/4, dairy 0/2, meat 2/3, nuts 0/0.5
Breakfast: carrots, banana, cucumber, tomato, mandarins, turkey burger, coffee
Lunch: chicken shawarma wrap
Afternoon snack: mandarins
Dinner: turkey burger
129/82
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