Finished reading: Maintenance of Everything Part One by Stewart Brand

This is a beautiful book, like the actual materiality of the book is really nice, cover has kintsugi veins of gold, page layouts with interesting margins for captions and commentary, blue highlights whose meaning and function gradually dawn through reading. Some of the marginalia comes from people who helped Brand during the writing of the book by reading and commenting through a public drafting website tool called books in progress. Just seems like innovative, well considered book design.

The reading of the book was nice. Yet the shape of the argument or maybe just the shape of the content felt weird to me. Banger first chapter of three interlocking stories about solo boat racing (and maintenance). Then a much longer, more varied, subdivided second chapter, nominally about vehicles, but full of (well labeled) digressions… Good fun, but no feeling of beginning, middle, end, or where it’s going. No conclusion, i guess because it’s only part 1, but neither any cliffhanger or much effort to tease future parts.

Abstractable quotes:

“Just owning and using something is not yet mastery—we need a basic intelligibility of our possessions.” (58) That’s Crawford (Soulcraft) quoted by Brand. Ouch… so few of my possessions do i understand well enough to fix or maintain

“The power to maintain is the power to improve.” (63) Means that knowing how to maintain something means knowing how it works means seeing opportunities for improvement.

The developmental path of mass production is the development of precision manufacturing, which went: government guns, private guns, sewing machines, bikes, Ford autos… And i want to pair that with the rise of advertising (attention merchants).

So much of this book was about military history, which makes sense for the topic but also makes a different kind of sense after learning Stewart Brand was “a professional rifleman in the early 1960s, serving for two years as an infantry officer teaching basic training.” I had to update my model of him cause i had only ever heard him talk about himself as a flower child.

”Old systems fail in familiar and prepared for ways. New systems fail in unexpected and unprepared for ways.” (112 and 27)

Sustainability is a concept built around aspiration for the future. In contrast, sustainment is about getting to work now. (165)

“The opposite of maintenance mind is neglect mind. Neglect mind is part laziness, part ignorance, and part surrender to fantasy. Maintainers are realists.” (179-180)

“Sustainment is everything it takes to ensure prolonged endurance of capability.” (180)

Finished reading: Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke

Compulsive overconsumption. That’s the phrase. That’s what we do with almost everything now, including digital drugs like youtube and “social media.”

Dopamine is used as a scientific currency to measure the addictive potential of experiences.

The companies that benefit from our addictions exploit our brain chemistry. ”Dopamine Economy” and “Limbic capitalism.”

The way to find balance again is to abstain or at least self-bind, so homeostasis of our pain-pleasure equilibrium resets.

Hedonic set point. Strangely, hedonism leads to anhedonia. Even frequent exposure to “natural highs” is related to anhedonia. Hamster wheels are addictive (pump tracks are a drug).

Binding ourselves is a way to be free.

“Compulsive overconsumption of high dopamine goods is the antithesis of human attachment. Consuming leads to isolation and indifference.”

Interesting stuff at the end of the book about “club goods,” which are the rewards of belonging to a group with strict rules that reinforce “pro social shame.”

Finished reading: A System for Writing by Bob Doto

This is a very helpful primer on how to make notes that lead to writing.

Number Five, from the Twelve Theses on Attention:

An attentional path is the trace left by a free mind. To submit to the attentional path of another, to retrace it, is a form of attention. Retracing the attentional path of a free mind is one of the keenest pleasures we can take in each other and in the world.

Concrete examples of retracing attentional paths: transcribing solos of jazz musicians and transcribing Feldō Awareness Through Movement Lessons.

I just gave a lesson at the Stroke Support Group at Lutheran Hospital in Denver, my first time presenting Feldenkrais to adult stroke survivors, who seemed to enjoy the lesson, and the broadest idea I shared was: We, as a community, can set aside time to do less and try softer, and it’s worth it.

Went on a hike this morning then vibe coded a map making script that puts together gpx and heart rate data.

I just finished reading: Shu Ha Ri by Richard Griffiths @writingslowly

I liked how short it was. I think it would fit in well with other books from Tracy Durnell’s In praise of the hundred page idea.

Shu Ha Ri is about learning through lineage, then keeping lineage alive. I liked the weave of examples from different ways (dōs) that run through the book. Most touching was the story of Jigoro Kano, founder of Judō, whose final request in life was to be buried wearing his white belt. I had already heard a fair bit about Kano because Moshe Feldenkrais studied with Kano, so Kano feels like an ancestor in the Feldenkrais lineage I’m practicing in. But I had never heard this detail about Kano’s intention to maintain beginner’s mind even after going through death.

I also appreciated the explanation of Keiko, a word for training that includes reference to 10 generations of practitioners before. It had me thinking about how lineage holders actually want an endlessness for their practice, for the “living knowledge” or the meme of the practice to go on and on.

Attention is Precious

I’m thinking about retro-actively assembling my personal website as an archive of lots of previous stuff I did, including stuff I already posted online, which is what Lisa Charlotte Muth did bringing everything back to her website, but ALSO maybe some stuff I haven’t posted before.

Esalen 3

Esalen 2 - Scanning and 5 Lines

One of my top contenders for 2026 slogan of the year (it’s early yet, but this does a lot of conceptual work for me).

Esalen 47 - Public Class Sitting Twist

Esalen 32 - Measuring

Esalen 30 - Bridge

Esalen 29 - Toes

Esalen 26 - Foot Above the Head

Mia and Gaby SF Evenings 1978 - 1 - Coordinating Flexors and Extensors