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Author: matt

Now live properly

Now live properly

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“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Or, what about this:

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

Romans 6:6

Aurelius is not at all far from Christian thought when you translate the wording. What Aurelius would call living ‘improperly’ would be what Christians called ‘sin’. What would ‘living properly’ look like to Aurelius? He would likely have been pretty close to the Greek philosophy of living virtuously. Something that required a well developed understanding and the self control to pursue the good while rejecting bad.

For the Christian, living ‘properly’ would be living as Christ taught – a life of love, service to others before self, and radical conversion of heart and mind. In the case of the Christian though, you do not need to do this alone. By forming a relationship with Christ over time, He takes upon himself the pain of your sins, paying for them with his own sacrifice, and then leads you to live a new life in grace and conversion via his teaching – with forgiveness when you fail. For the Christian, living a new life is not something you do alone. You have a companion always there to pick you up, find forgiveness, and start anew on the path to conversion which leads to true happiness for all eternity; as well as other travelers along the same path leading to the same truth.

AI Jesus

AI Jesus

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We started with the AI based show about nothing, then AI Spongebob. Now we have a live streaming AI Jesus. The video, audio, and what he says is all generated by AI. What’s surprising is that it accepts a lot of different questions – and often answers them with a higher degree of accuracy than I would have thought (though I would certainly NOT take any of your religious formation from the AI version).

I think it’s more revealing the kinds of questions people ask. While some are clearly humor others are quite serious and reveal the depth of things people are struggling with.

I guess it’s only slightly better than when some Lutherans let chatGPT run an entire service with a sermon.

No Mavericks, no martyrs

No Mavericks, no martyrs

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This is one of the best talks on leading and setting expectations on a creative, collaborative production group that I have ever run across. It was given during GDC 2022 by a director at Obsidian Entertainment who clearly came with years of likely painful learning. I loved this quote:

We must bust the myths that equate ‘passion’ with overwork and aggressive ownership, and we must normalize collaborative, sustainable habits.

As she described the work situations and the martyr and maverick worker types, I found myself finally hearing in words many things I experienced but didn’t know how to express. I have personally seen the destruction of many extremely talented teams by just a few divisive elements. They could even be rockstars, but they end up cratering the whole production and driving people away from those teams. Carrie Patel does an amazing job describing how even well intentioned mavericks/martyrs damage the team. This is true to the point that hiring less technically good people that are good teamworkers produces consistently better results than extremely talented people that can’t work with others.

Are mavericks and martyrs inherently bad? No, but they absolutely can be if they are not managed properly. That requires being aware of how their behaviors affect the long-term success of the team.

As it turns out, this is not new learning. Other organizations have learned these lessons long ago.

Special forces teams as well as Mark Cuban point out these same learnings for business and sports teams. People who work more collaboratively and think of the entire team’s impact when making individual choices produce far more productive teams than rockstars/martyrs do. Special forces teams often do not look for the absolute best person – they look for who works in the team. This doesn’t mean you can’t have rockstars or martyr types, but what you want to find and reward is behaviors and an environment that encourages sustainable and truly collaborative teamwork.

Stair Quest!

Stair Quest!

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Do you love the gorgeous CGA/EGA graphics of classic Sierra adventure games like King’s Quest? Do you miss the madness inducing moon logic puzzles? But above all, do you LOVE the frustrating Sierra trope of dying on the most simple staircases?

Relive that pixel-perfect, madness inducing, ‘adventure’ going up and down stairs that will kill you with the slightest misstep with Stair Quest!

Here’s a guy that went through the pain:

With a collective gasp

With a collective gasp

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How did the WWDC audience react to the $3499 price tag of the Apple Vision Pro? It wasn’t the usual gasp of wonder, but it was a collective gasp. 🙂

https://twitter.com/sondesix/status/1666052657751158785
Drawing on an acrylic lightbox

Drawing on an acrylic lightbox

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RCLifeOn created a 2D drawing lightbox from an old 3D printer, a marker, and some LED lights to draw patterns on acrylic. Even more interesting, he did it live on Twitch.

Like many creators, they’re finding a tremendous amount of free software to complete projects without needing to invest long hours developing their own software. They’re creating increasingly more amazing stuff from off the shelf parts.

Some of his software tools:

Reflections of a visionary

Reflections of a visionary

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It sometimes happens that we make light of little things [in the spiritual life]. There is nothing little in the spiritual life. Sometimes a seemingly insignificant thing will disclose a matter of great consequence. Many spiritual undertones are concealed in little things.

A magnificent building will never rise if we reject the insignificant bricks. Sin depends on the degree and light within the soul. Sometimes we consider these faults as sins only in the strictest definition (discounting them as trivial). This is also true in [what seems like mild] imperfections. Yet these petty things are of great importance to a soul that is tending towards sanctity. They should not be treated lightly, but with patience and kindness to open the way to the innermost secrets of the soul.

St Faustina Notebook I – entry 52

For those willing to dig deeper, I find the modern world is continually re-discovering the inner truths that Christianity has known for millennium. St Faustina is describing an element of what we today would call emotional intelligence, self-awareness, etc. For those seeking improvement, self awareness comes from reflecting on ourselves (prayer and reflection), paying attention to even our little behaviors, getting feedback on how we’re behaving (measuring our actions against standards of behavior/sin), and then hold ourselves accountable for change (via confession). While the world does this to it’s own constantly changing standards, the Christian measures themselves against the teachings, example, and living relationship with Jesus.

Despite hundreds or even thousands of years, just about every historical document from humanities earliest days shows the same human frailties exist. Most are just as true today as a thousand years ago. Just like the equations of gravity that rule the orbits of our planets to the tensile strength of certain kinds of steel, we can put our complete faith and trust into what they tell us. We trust our planet won’t fly out of orbit to our doom and build bridges out of steel will hold the cars we drive over it. In the same way, this is the true shocking meaning of putting your trust in the teachings of Christ. They do, and have, worked through all time. Two thousand years of proof is pretty compelling.

In reading this quote from St Faustina, I found the observation to seriously consider even the small bricks as important when building a beautiful edifice to be really worth reflection. We all have likely seen something that has been put together by masters. One of the hallmarks of a master is the amazing attention to the smallest details.

Yet, in today’s very distracting world, many of us rarely attend to our inner and spiritual lives because we’re too busy distracting ourselves with near constant, often largely pointless, ways we waste our time: music/noise, travel, careers, money, buying new things, clothes, popularity, consuming social media, etc.

If there was one thing I can recommend to this modern age, it would be this: slow down, viciously defend your quiet reflection and prayer time, and listen to the inner voice of your soul. It is only there that real peace will come.