No Snivelling

I was just organizing/cleaning up my desk at home, and found this passage -- I love re-reading this often -- I hope you enjoy it too.



Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is not affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition.

I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old person asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it.

I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart?

All paths are the same, they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. "Does this path have a heart?" One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

The trouble is nobody asks the question: and when a person finally realizes that they have taken a path without heart, the path is ready to kill them. At that point very few people stop to deliberate and leave the path.

A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.

For my part there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length.

And there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.

Labels: don juan, path with a heart, yaqui

OK -- my blogging has been... err... intermittent. I get it. But, I've been busy -- really, I have. OK, get the violins out -- I'll tell you what I've been up to. In addition to lots of TeachStreet stuff, Karen and I rented a house in Friday Harbor (in the San Juan Islands, a bit north of Seattle). The idea was to get away as often as possible for weekends and maybe find a week or two to get away. Well, the latter idea never really happened, but we had a fantastic time popping up for weekends. The house we rented was fantastic (cozy, in-town, wi-fi, hot tub, no TV, etc.) and we actually made a bunch of new friends throughout the summer.

What that's meant, though, is that it put our Seattle life on hold a bit -- weeks were always busy (trying to work long hours to feel a little less guilty about heading north on weekends) and with the drive & ferry, most weekends ended pretty late on Sundays.

We look forward to seeing Seattle-folks a bit more... but we're also sad that we'll be seeing Friday Harbor and new friends a little less.

That said... we did some research today, and found two pet-friendly hotels, to accommodate more regular (monthly?) trips to Friday Harbor -- I, for one, have gotten a bit hooked on the lifestyle :-) If you're interested in making a long weekend, and would rather bring the dog along, check out Elements and Tucker House Inn, both in downtown Friday Harbor.

Labels: friday harbor, san juan islands

Watch for my guest appearance at the end of this election's big JibJab extravaganza -- and, after it's over, add yourself as well!

Labels: barack obama, bill clinton, campaigning, dick cheney, george bush, hillary clinton, jibjab, john mccain

I've been telling folks that Twitter doesn't work for me -- I just realized that the primary reason for that was because I signed up for several early Twitterers who post extremely frequently. That makes it pretty much impossible to use, since my friends' posts constantly get buried by 40-50 posts a day from those news-spammers, as I kindly refer to them. Since they're often linking to stories or blog posts of their own (I'm sure it helps drive great traffic for them), I figure I can just catch up with those on TechMeme or in my feedreader.

So, good bye to many of my early Twitter subscriptions... hello to newfound Twitter usefulness :-)

Labels: best twitter, news spam, unsubscribe

I've posted frequently about Unitus (if you're passionate about solving a great world problem, poverty, I highly recommend that you get involved with Unitus).

This summer, The Police are promoting Unitus during their summer tour; as part of that, the whole team came up on stage during sound check, and they then invited a Unitus employee, Jessica Ketola, to come and sign with Sting -- amazing!

Labels: gorge, microfinance, police, poverty, seattle, sting, the police, unitus

Had a great weekend in the San Juans (OK, I worked on TeachStreet stuff almost all weekend... but it was quite peaceful, really!). Saw a fox, many deer, some Alpacas, and just had gorgeous weather -- got a jog in with Zach the Dog, and had two great/long sleeps -- can't get much better than that :-)

Here's a quick pic from the ferry terminal in Friday Harbor -- snapped this right before Zach the Dog and I got back on, to head back to Anacortes.

Labels: friday harbor, san juan islands, seattle

Wow -- what a journey -- the TeachStreet site launched today, and humbly, I think it looks great. I'm so proud of the team, and what we built.

More on the TeachStreet blog (including some photos from launch celebration!).

Also some great coverage today from John Cook at the Seattle P-I, Mike Arrington at TechCrunch, ParentMap, and more -- really really awesome.

Thanks to friends and family -- I love you!

Dave

Labels: teachstreet

Today was really awesome -- we've got our launch bugs in front of us, and the team went at them with focused intensity -- the list has fallen steadily, with all hands on deck. We even managed to laugh a few times, eat some half decent Thai food, and spot a meth smoker across the street in their Chevy Citation. Really, an eventful day all around.

The last several weeks (months, really) have been a really hard push for myself, and the TeachStreet team. We've seriously been pushed to the extreme. But, the beginning (the launch) is near, and with that we'll move to our next stage as a company, and as a team.

These are the great days -- the hard days -- the days that we remember later on. These are the days that most people aren't willing to rise to. We did. I'm so proud of the team.

Now, we're off to sleep, to prepare for another day of battle :-)

Labels: bugs, launch, startups, teachstreet

A good friend's mother passed today -- her name was Claudia Glassman and she was born in 1945 -- Claudia blogged about her battle with cancer and her son posted this final entry, this morning. Reading it made me very sad... it made me cry. I recommend reading it, and then calling your Mother...

http://web.mac.com/claudiaglassman/Going_Forward/Claudia_Blog/Entries/2008/3/21_Saying_Goodbye.html

Labels: claudia glassman