Learning
😌
I started indexing the lists of mnemonic substitutes in my new sources. I worked from Mnemonic Techniques by Hoff and Remember It! by Dellis. Early on I tried entering the lists themselves, but that took too much time for the number of lists there were. So I decided to put off the data collection and instead locate and categorize the lists I cared about so I could fill them in as I needed them. Along the way I made some observations and clarified some concepts I hadn’t quite picked up on, like how the Person-Action-Object system actually works and how memory athletes memorize long numbers. It felt good to finally gain some momentum on this project.
Spirituality
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Bishop Kallistos Ware’s The Jesus Prayer gave me some good guidance on how to practice this prayer. I’ve found myself praying it a lot this year, especially during my health insurance crisis, and I wanted to fill in my spotty understanding of how it’s usually done. Ware’s book was a helpful, brief overview. A couple of key points for me: (1) Pray it when you have attention for it rather than literally continuously. (2) The wording can vary, but the most important feature is Jesus’ name. I tend to get hung up on asking for mercy or acknowledging my sinfulness, but the goal of the prayer is loving communion and contemplation of Jesus.
Nature
🙂
Saturday I flew down with my brother to visit our parents, watch the solar eclipse, and later drive out to our sister’s wedding. The weather for the eclipse may not cooperate as well as last time, but in any case it’s nice to get away and visit our old stomping grounds again. And the flight in had its own spectacular views.
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I texted some friends in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who sent me videos of the eclipse. I also watched it on NASA’s site.