My Tasks ToDo tracking list has 28 items. Starting at the top row, it’s nice to know, without having to decide, what’s to be worked on next.
All 28 tasks in the sequence can be done in one day, but completing the entire list, even at nine minutes per item, would be 252 minutes, or 4.2 hours out of the 16 available to me.
No, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Martin Luther King, Jr (1963)
–Neuharth
Mark Singer: Is there anything you’ve been able to draw upon, David? Is there comfort in the past?
David Milch : I feel the past falling away and the attachments of regret for what wasn’t done or was done badly or was done without sufficient sympathy, and it was for that reason that our granddaughter’s visit was such a redemptive and compelling occurrence. Everything is an adventure for her and a delight and a surprise, an opening up, and that’s a big gratification.
Mark Singer: I’ve never thought of you as a sentimental person, but maybe I misread that. How would you characterize yourself?
David Milch: As an unsentimental person.
Third Act by Mark Singer (New Yorker May 20, 2019)
A man walks upright. For him it is strenuous to climb a steep hill, because he has to keep pushing his own vertical mass upward and cannot gain any momentum.
The rabbit is better off. His forelegs support his horizontal body and the great back legs do the work. They are more than equal to thrusting uphill the light mass in front of them.
Rabbits can go fast uphill. In fact, they have so much power behind that they find going downhill awkward, and sometimes, in flight down a steep place, they may actually go head over heels.
WATERSHIP DOWN (1972) by Richard George Adams
Seven older gentlemen of various political persuasions gather in the courtyard under the squawking birds to politely discuss and examine, in regulated heartbeat, the current issues and events of the week.
High-school classmates, both living & dead, unknown to others outside of Los Gatos, they also like to talk about.
Exclusive club it is.
Clambering up and down a muddy hillside was what we wanted to avoid, so this trail was ideal: a completely paved path along a level shoreline. We doubled back at the 2-mile mark to get just enough exercise.
Scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter for the future, to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.
-Nikola Tesla
Never had an idea in my life. I’ve got no imagination. My so-called inventions already existed in the environment. I took them out. I’ve created nothing. Nobody does. Genius hangs around the laboratory day & night; if anything happens, he’s there to catch it.
-Thomas Edison