Observation

Marie Kondo’s rule that you should only keep thirty books, that you should only keep those that you personally want to read or enjoy is a silly rule because it encourages people to limit their scope and perspective on the world.

People studying at the British Library with a small selection of books behind them

Childhood

One memory of my childhood is being surrounded by books and being able to look through hundreds of books, whether at home, in libraries or even mail order catalogues. As a child I loved the opportunities that books represented. One of my favourite shops in London is Waterstone’s near Piccadilly Circus. I loved browsing the current affairs sections, the documentary film section and others. I often wanted to buy entire sections but I had to limit myself to what I thought I would read.

When I lived by the seaside in England I was told by one of my flat mates that they had seen a rat go into my room and I don’t remember how I felt about it. Rat traps were soon placed to catch them. A few years later I saw a flat mate have the comic book reaction of fear upon seeing a mouse and I found it deeply amusing. I was also surprised by how ugly that mouse was. 

If you’re a french speaker you will probably remember that scene from Les Visiteurs where they say “OK” over and over again. You might also remember it from films like “The Right Stuff” when they speak about things being a-ok. The history of the word dates back to the 1800s when people would say “all correct”, then “all Korrect” and because they liked abbreviations it eventually became OK. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UnIDL-eHOs

Knowing this has no effect on the quality of our lives but it is nonetheless amusing since it has moved from English through two or three centuries and across languages so that “ok” is recognised in many languages. It is also how we agree to installs for certain applications and programs.

This summer I was thinking of buying a car until I found out that my contract break was for six months rather than three. As a result of this my ability to buy my own car vanished. I used the scooter, my feet and eventually the bike to travel thousands of kilometres. 

I rode the scooter for at least four thousand kilometres and I cycled for around 1000km. I also hiked 

https://vimeo.com/198306286

Originally they meant to go out to have an adventure. They interviewed an individual about how the glacier’s rate of retreat has been increasing over the years. “I used to come here with a snow plow. Now I need a lawnmower”. 

Global warming is visible around the world. Rockfalls have made hiking dangerous. There have been rockfalls at “Les Cosmiques” as well as along one of the routes I walked last year near Zermatt. 

A few days ago I went towards the lake to take pictures. The wind was strong and cold. The temperature was close to -9°c. The last time we had such cold weather the lake side became beautiful as the porcelain ice formed around boats, trees, over grass and cars. As this only occurs every few years it is a rare treat. 

No Swimming sign with ice

A post shared by Richard Azia (@richardazia) on Feb 26, 2018 at 4:25am PST

Seven Minute Workout for 36 days

For about six weeks I have been trying to do at least one seven-minute workout every single day. I eventually fell out of the habit for a few days because I had to fight a little virus. I’m feeling better again. Time to see if I can beat my old maximum of 36 days.

At least one circuit a day

The Seven-minute app I was playing with is by Perigee. The app provides you with the opportunity to train for fitness, for strength or to lose weight. I tried to last for seven days on the Fitness program and suffered. I managed to stick with the routine for a week once as a challenge. Now I choose the routine that I feel I am most in the mood for. On some days I choose a stretching routine and on others I choose to push myself. I tried a chest workout and I found it hard. Yesterday I went for an animal routine and it was easy.

Why We Sleep

Sleep is something that we do almost every day and yet explore it only superficially. We either say “I should go to sleep” or “I wish I had slept longer”. Recently I read “Why We Sleep”. It’s an interesting book because it explores the topic in such depth. I learned that birds sleep on power lines and the birds on the right and the left of the group are sleeping with one eye open. Half of their brain is sleeping whilst the other half is awake. Half way through the sleep cycle they hop around and the other eye is opened and that half of the brain takes over. Sleep is a fascinating topic.

Chloe Gilbert - 7 Jan, 2018

I’m finding that I’m doing the same these days. Twitter has become a torrent of noise and nobody seems to be really conversing these days. I had a lot of value out of early Twitter, and made some good friends as well as getting support for things like programming and events etc. Lately as you say it’s become useless. Facebook for me was always a way of keeping in touch with close friends and family, as well as getting support and organising events. But in the last few years it’s got worse and gone from a time sink to a toxic mess. I like blogs, they’re honest, you can make longer articles and people are guaranteed to see them if they want, and they’re longer lasting. Blogs will be around long after Facebook has gone away.

Finding time for Long Form Writing

This morning I read twenty percent of a book whilst sitting in the car waiting for shops to open. In the process I occasionally looked up to see private jets and airlines fly over me. A few years ago in the same situation I would have been staring at my phone. I would have been refreshing twitter and Facebook looking for conversations. These days social media marketers and others are using social media as if they were Really Simple Syndication feeds, RSS. The problem with RSS feeds is that there a low signal to noise ratio. You need to skip hundreds of pieces of content for one or two worthwhile posts.