Jul 30, 2017

Issue #31: Psychological Diarrhea

Revue

Jeff Howardz | facts of my existence

July 30 · Issue #31 · View online

Weekly digest of things I find interesting, useful, funny, thought provoking or absurd... mixed with some wise ass short observations of my own.

“There is only one road to true human greatness: the road through suffering.”

~ Albert Einstein

Why do you say that?

This just in…something irks me. That something is the way homo sapiens shorten phrases through pop culture and memetic disillusionment into something totally meaningless.

Farm-to-Table: Almost everything is farm to table. The only difference is in the number of intermediaries getting it from the farm to the table. If you want this to be meaningful say Farm DIRECTLY to Table. Otherwise you are talking about everything we eat.

Going “Tempo”: Several years ago football teams started running offenses in a very UP tempo manner (i.e. faster than normal). Some broadcasters stopped saying “up tempo” and just started saying that an offense was “going tempo” whenever they sped up their play calling. Everything has a tempo. Saying the offense is going tempo is like saying all the players are breathing. It means nothing. Either say UP tempo or don’t say anything at all.

Did you know?

An American commits suicide once every 12 minutes. Around the world suicide is responsible for more deaths than war and murder combined.
85% of plant life is found in the world’s oceans.
Each time you see a full moon you always see the same side.
Honey is the only natural food which never spoils.
The sentence “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter in the English alphabet.

Things that make you go hmmmm

Do twins ever realize that one of them is unplanned?
If poison expires, is it more poisonous or is it no longer poisonous?
Which letter is silent in the word “Scent,” the S or the C?
100 years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars. Today everyone has cars and only the rich have horses.
If you rip a hole in a net, there are actually fewer holes in it than there were before.

More Concussions, More Sadness

Those of you who know me closely know that I suffered from a number of concussions playing high school football. I have been following the studies about head related injuries and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) since it became a deal a few years ago. Here is yet another article with research linking football related head injuries to CTE - the side effects of which are dementia, depression, and memory loss. This is truly scary if you have a child playing sports where repeated head trauma is possible.

110 NFL Brains out of 111 had CTE (NY Times)

One Line Wisdom

All come from the book “Resilience” by Navy SEAL Eric Greitens

Our most important battles are the ones we fight for self-mastery.
The worst form of stress is the absence of stress, because the feeling that there is no life before death gives rise to a despairing feeling of emptiness in the face of the void.
The deprivation of purpose is as destructive as the deprivation of sleep.
What you will become is a result of what you are willing to endure.
Being hurt by life does not diminish our duty to others.

May you grow back stronger at all your broken places,

Jeff

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