Tag Archives: blogging

Saying it again

Today I was going to write about the benefits of increasing protein in my diet, especially as I age. I came up with the title, ‘The Power of Protein’, but that sounded familiar so I searched my blog and found a post by that name, on this topic, written this past January. Then I thought about writing about ‘rinsing and repeating’ old ideas, but that seemed familiar. A quick search of my blog led me to ‘Rinse and repeat’, but I wrote that over 4 and a half years ago, in February 2020.

I ended that post saying,

“I’m sure this will happen again. I will have moments when my creative juices are flowing and I’ll share fresh ideas… or at least fresh ideas to me. And I’ll have moments when I end up recycling or repeating older ideas. The process of writing every day will lead to some repetition, hopefully though, the ideas I choose to repeat are worth reading and thinking about again. I probably won’t re-share this idea of sharing my repeats again even if I catch myself, but if you catch me doing this, please feel free to let me know.”

But I think enough time has gone by to be able to bring this topic up again. The reason is a bit of a realization (in two parts). First, I think some ideas are worth emphasizing. Saying or thinking something once doesn’t always sink in. Sometimes I need reinforcements, and the writing process reinforces my thinking. For example, while I eat more protein than I did a year ago, I still don’t eat as much as recommended by people like Dr. Rhonda Patrick or Dr. Peter Attia. So writing about this again makes me think about increasing my intake.

Secondly, I’m not some guru that knows a lot about everything. I have passions and interests and that’s what I enjoy writing about. So when I’m writing about some topic yet again, I’m ok with that… Because I’d rather write about something I’m passionate and interested in, rather than forcing myself to write about a topic I’m less interested in, just to add more variety to my writing.

It’s more of a ‘rinse and re-emphasize’ rather than repeat. So, despite previous saying, “I probably won’t re-share this idea of sharing my repeats again even if I catch myself.” I just did it anyway. And I’m doing it to emphasize a different point: I will repeat myself! But when I do, I’ll do my best to emphasize some aspect a little differently. I’ll attempt to enlighten rather than digress… to rinse out new ideas, rather than just repeat them.

Playing with Google NotebookLM

Today I added all the posts on my Daily-Ink blog, from the time I started blogging daily in July 2019 up to yesterday, into Google NotebookLM. The first thing I did was to ask it ‘What does David Truss write about on his Daily-Ink Blog?’ I’ll share the response below, but what I really wanted to do was to create an Audio Overview, a ‘Deep dive conversation’ that is basically two AI ‘personalities’ discussing the content I shared.

I didn’t know what to expect, and this is the Deep Dive Conversation into Daily-Ink that was generated.

I am blown away by both the conversational aspect of this AI dialogue as well as the way it stuck to a single theme of habits while covering a fair bit of the things I wrote about.

I’m going to be playing with this tool a lot more in the future… and this is just the beginning of the use of AI to summarize and help us learn from large amounts of information. Think of the possibilities to come!

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As I mentioned above, the first question I asked on Google NotebookLM was, ‘What does David Truss write about on his Daily-Ink Blog?’ and this was the response:

David Truss writes about a variety of topics in his blog Daily-Ink, but common themes include:
● Education: This is a frequent topic for Truss, who is an educator. He has blogged about topics like inquiry-based learning and teaching, blended learning and distributed learning, leadership and innovation in education, and student voice and choice. For instance, in one post, he discusses his visit to Inquiry Hub Secondary, a school where “students design the school” themselves.
● Technology: Truss often discusses technology in his blog posts. Specific topics of interest include blended learning, distributed learning, and artificial intelligence. He also used his blog to document his experiences using new technologies. For example, he has written about Dall-E, an AI image generation software and Bing Copilot, an AI assistant.
● Personal Reflections: Beyond his professional interests, Truss also writes about his personal life, sharing reflections on topics such as relationships, personal growth, mindfulness, and daily routines. For example, he writes about the challenges of maintaining routines during the pandemic and reflects on the value of taking walks. He also frequently documents his journey with archery and maintaining an active lifestyle.
● The Blogging Process: Truss seems to view blogging as a personal practice and frequently shares his thoughts on the writing process itself. He sees writing as an art form and his blog as his canvas. He discusses his commitment to writing daily, the challenges he faces, and the satisfaction he derives from it.
In addition to these recurring themes, Truss also uses his blog to:
● Share Links and Resources: Truss frequently shares links to articles, videos, and other resources that he finds interesting or valuable. He often provides context for these links, explaining why he finds them noteworthy and encouraging his readers to explore them further.
● Engage in Conversations: Truss uses his blog as a platform for engaging in conversations with his readers. He actively responds to comments, asking for feedback and acknowledging different perspectives.
Overall, David Truss uses his Daily-Ink blog as a space for reflecting on his experiences, exploring his interests, and connecting with others. He is open about his process, his struggles, and his growth, offering a glimpse into his life and his thoughts.

 

 

Good pushback

Yesterday I wrote Winning is Everything and on LinkedIn I got a couple really good comments that (justifiably) pushed back on this idea. Here are the comments and my responses:

Manuel Are:

Thought provoking!

While the mindset of “winning is everything” can drive success and achievement in various contexts, it’s important to balance this with ethical considerations, personal well-being, and long-term sustainability. Sometimes, focusing on personal growth, collaboration, and enjoying the process can lead to more fulfilling outcomes than solely prioritizing winning.

Is this the cultural condition of the times? Is this the societal and cultural pressure that we have now? The standards of the time? The psychological satisfaction?

What about if we teach the future of the value of losing? Of ethical perspectives? Of relationships? Of outcomes?

What if I gained the world but loses my humanity in return?

Dave Truss:

Yes, so true. I work at a school where we show the value of learning through failure. I describe a bit about this here: Educon 17 Conversation

You’ve probably read enough of my blog to know that this is not a typical post for me. I’m very focused on collaboration, teamwork, community, and belonging. This post might seem out of character for me and invited the wonderful counterbalance that you shared…

But I think sometimes we push too much on being ok with just doing our best, and the message of striving, pushing, and thriving from going the extra mile is somehow undervalued or missed.

While collaboration and teamwork are essential life skills, I don’t think we should teach these at the expense of those individualized skills that winning athletes all seem to exude… these too are attributes that help people get what they want out of life.

Mona Haraty:

Doesn’t it serve us all better to believe that everyone can be a winner if they engage more in non-zero-sum games in their lives? It’s easy to lose perspective in zero-sum games like sports.

Dave Truss:

Yes… and no. We do so much in our schools to promote collaboration and teamwork, and we spend a lot more time praising students for what they can do. But how often do we put students into competitive situations where they have to push themselves farther than they think they can go?
We see kids getting ‘A’s all through high school who can’t hack 1st year university because they never understood how to push themselves despite their glowing marks.
This is a bit of a push-back post. Most of my readers will disagree, and I value the time and attention it takes to comment (thank you)… Most of what I do as a school leader is contrary to this philosophy, but I think the pendulum has swung a little too far. We (also) need to praise students who seek individual accolades and who put themselves out there to be the best… while also teaching non-zero-sum games and activities.
Not everyone wins, but most who do win know how to push beyond most who don’t… do we teach that at all these days? Do we let students shine far above others who can’t?
Again, I’m not disagreeing with you, but I wonder if sometimes we aren’t crushing the excellence out of high performers?

Mona Haraty:

I agree that we should definitely encourage excellence, and that we are crushing the excellence out of high performers precisely because they are being compared to their classmates using the same tests or challenges. I tell my kids that if the problems they are working on are too easy, they should skip them because there’s no learning in that—there’s no point in getting an A without being challenged.

Once we encourage excellence and take into account the level and growth of each student, grades become even less relevant.

As you said “most who do win know how to push beyond most who don’t” and we can help students build perseverance and resilience by challenging them at their own appropriate level.

I love this kind of professional learning dialogue. This is the kind of conversation that pushes thinking. This is the kind of dialogue I used to see on my Pair-a-Dimes educational blog regularly 10-15 years ago. The pushback is framed positively, and the intent is to shed light… and learning. I don’t see a lot of this on social media anymore. In fact, I seldom even go to comments on other’s writing anymore. For that reason, I truly thank Manuel and Mona for taking the time to question what I said, and to invite further conversation.

When I wrote ‘Winning is Everything’ I fully intended on following up with a post titled, ‘Winning ISN’T Everything’ to counterbalance it with points shared in the comments above. However, to me the better topic is that others beat me to the punch. Their comments and my responses did more to counter balance, to provide pushback on, yesterday’s post than I could have done on my own.

So please, I invite feedback and pushback whenever I say something that doesn’t resonate with you… or simply to ask a clarifying question. And like Manuel and Mona, it can be on a platform besides my blog. While I like blog comments because then the comments are archived with my post, I also appreciate the feedback wherever you are willing to share it.

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*UPDATE* – One more comment and response came in on LinkedIn, which is like to add here: 

James Linzel:

I’m glad you describe the importance of collaborative skills. An excellent argument can be formed that winner take all systems dominate our society. Schools are literally designed to rank humans rather than maximize potential. Sports focuses on winning. Politics has become winner take all by leveraging voter blocks. Nationalism is given more importance than humanism.
I’d like to see a 180 from the present competition focused society to a more equity, collaborative, competency based society. I’m not saying eliminate competition, but prevent it from having the pedestal its presently given.
When your original post claimed winning is more important than sportsmanship, then I cannot agree. That position leads to the worst in humanity.

Dave Truss:

Excellent points.
I have competed in sports at a fairly high level. I’m not a natural athlete and had to work my butt off at every level, and was never the best player playing. But I had games and moments where I felt that drive and that competitiveness that pushed me harder than I thought I could go, where winning the game was everything, and the hours of hard practice paid off. That’s not something you can easily achieve in an environment that doesn’t foster competitiveness, and those moments are powerful memories of achievement through hard work… that’s what I was trying to describe in my post.

But in reality, I think your points are extremely relevant. I think people like Andrew Tate and many others including a particular political leader, glorify the idea of selfishness and being first, or being losers. Your point that, “Nationalism is given more importance than humanism,” is so on point, and strikes a counterpoint that I wholeheartedly agree with.
I invite you to see my follow up post: Good pushback

I have now included your comment and this response there as an update.
Thank you for sharing your insights!

Disposition over position

Listen to this wonderful quote by comedian Jimmy Carr:

“Disposition is more important than position”

I’ve only ever known Jimmy Carr as a one-liner comedian. His podcast with Steven Bartlett on Dairy of a CEO has changed my mind. There are so many gems that he shares and it’s worth taking an hour and a half to listen.

It’s fitting that wisdom like this comes from an unexpected place. Even with Steven’s glowing introduction my bar of expectation was still low and I was very pleasantly surprised.

Yesterday morning I listened to the last 30 minutes while on the treadmill, and when Jimmy said this it really hit me.

“You are not the worst thing you’ve ever done.” ~ Jimmy Carr

How many people are measured on social media by the worst thing they have said or done? I’ve written around 2,000 blog posts since I started sharing online 18 years ago. I think I have a pretty decent record of being a pretty decent person, and yet I am keenly aware that I’m one careless sentence or one unpopular opinion away from potentially being ‘cancelled’… of being attacked as rude, biased, or some other derogatory adjective.

I’m not famous and it might not be that big of a deal to others, but it would matter to me. I remember years ago when I was attacked in a comment for being racist. It was very upsetting. Ironically it was on a post that I still consider one of my favourite things I’ve ever written, and to this day it’s the only non-spam comment I ever deleted. But before I did, I checked with people to see if I was off base. I really questioned myself and my perspective. I found out later who wrote that comment, even met him, and I believe changed his mind, but that’s a story for another time.

Going back to the podcast, I enjoyed listening to this enough that I’ll probably end up listening to Jimmy’s book. He really is a fascinating guy and I think I have more to learn from him. On that note, take some time to listen to the Diary of a CEO podcast. Steven interviews some fascinating people and he is an excellent interviewer.

And finally, back to the quote above about disposition, I am reminded of another quote, “It’s not what happens, it’s what you do that makes the difference.” I learned this in an NLP class over 30 years ago, but it actually dates back to Epictetus: “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

We all have an incredible ability to create our own reality… to take what happens to us and frame it in a way that is positive, that teaches us, that helps us grow.

“Disposition is more important than position. ”

Having AI write my blog for me

This is NOT something I plan on doing. I was just interested in seeing what Chat GPT (on the Bing interface) could write in my style. The first blog topic it suggested wasn’t great. It suggested: The Rise of Micro-Entrepreneurship: Empowering Individuals in a Digital Age”

The article was just that, an article, not a Daily-Ink, a ‘let me tell you about this topic’ essay. So then my next prompt was: ‘try a lighter topic please’. (I tend to use ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in my prompts.) This was what Chat GPT came up with:

The Art of Finding Joy in the Little Things

In a world that’s always racing to the next big thing, it’s easy to overlook the small moments that make life truly special. But what if I told you that the secret to happiness might just be hiding in those tiny details we often take for granted?

Take a moment and think about the last time you paused to watch a sunset, or how you felt when you caught the scent of fresh rain on pavement. Remember the warmth of a cozy blanket on a chilly evening, or the infectious laughter of a child. These instances may seem insignificant, but they hold the essence of joy.

It’s in these moments that we find a connection to the world around us. A beautiful melody, a kind word from a stranger, or the perfect cup of coffee can uplift our spirits and remind us that joy doesn’t require grand gestures; it’s all around us, waiting to be noticed.

So, let’s celebrate the little victories, like finding a forgotten bill in your pocket or hitting all green lights on your way home. Let’s find joy in the everyday – in the quiet morning hours before the world wakes up, in the pages of a good book, or in the comfort of our favorite shoes.

Life is a collection of moments, and the happiest people aren’t those who chase after extraordinary experiences, but those who find delight in the ordinary. So here’s to the little things – may they continue to inspire us and bring a touch of magic to our everyday lives.

Embrace the little joys, and watch as they transform your perspective on life!

There are a couple parts that feel like my voice, but not enough of it that I’d mistake this as my own writing. Still, this is much better than ‘The Rise of Micro-Entrepreneurship’… and more in line with a few topics I’ve written about.

I find myself using AI a lot more, but I won’t be using it to write my Daily-Inks. I want this space to be one where I express my thinking, my learning, my voice. For me, the art of finding joy is in a little process called writing, not prompting.

Message in a bottle

Write a note, put it in a bottle, cork it, and throw it into the ocean. The tides move the bottle from one shore to another and the message is picked up randomly by a stranger who isn’t expecting the message. An audience of one.

Today, the internet lets us toss our message into a cyber ocean. As I write this, I have an idea of some of the people who will see it, but I also know that it has the potential to be picked up by some random person somewhere far away, opened up and read at random, without me ever knowing where my post, my message in a bottle, landed.

And this might happen today, or even a year or 5 years from now. As long as I pay for my domain and hosting, the message lives in this cyber ocean. Most of what I write will be ‘lost at sea’, just a small message in a bottle surrounded by millions of bottles. But every now and then one of my bottles of information will be picked up. An unknown audience, in an unknown location. Not an audience of one, but rather of one more…

Fear to share

I’m pretty honest when I write here. I have written about challenges with my headspace, about how hard it can be to write every day, and when things haven’t necessarily gone well for me. I’ve even ranted a few times about things that drive me nuts. But if you were to look back at my 1,600+ blog posts since I started writing daily, I think you’d see that I’m a pretty positive person.

And still I find myself struggling to share that today was a crummy day for me. Nothing bad happened, I didn’t get any bad news, I just had a crappy, unhappy day. I was in a funk and I couldn’t get out of it.

I recognized it enough to ask a friend to connect with me after work, and he gave me some good advice. So I stayed off my phone other than listening to a podcast in my hot tub. And I’m in bed at 9pm writing this so that I can set it to publish in the morning and sleep in a little later.

It bugs me that I wanted to hide this melancholy feeling and pretend that everything is ok. I am thinking about the problem with the happy lives of Instagramers, who put only the happiest, most perfectly posed photos on their stories, and who hide every blemish, ever disappointment, and every mundane experience or feeling. I don’t want to replicate that. I think it’s ok to say, ‘today sucked, I’m not feeling like I’m in a good place,’ without making people worry about me, or question my happiness at work or at home.

We stigmatize sharing mental health challenges and simultaneously glorify our best lives on social media. No one wants to be seen as ‘broken’. So a simple bad day gets tucked away. And a selfie with a pet and a smile goes online.

Today was not a good day. I’m privileged enough to be able to say that because I have 1,600 other things I’ve written that normalize me and don’t make me look fragile or weak. But how many people hide it? How many smiling Facebook and Instagram posts are masks hiding darker, unshared feelings? How many people would benefit from sharing but don’t have a friend or partner to rely on, or a space to share their feelings and feel safe rather than vulnerable and exposed.

Tomorrow will be a better day for me, I know this already. I’m lucky, I have good coping mechanisms figured out and I’m told by many I have an ‘even keeled’ disposition. Those who know me aren’t going to be concerned about what I’ve written.

But what about those who aren’t ok? Who don’t have good coping strategies, and who have a fear to share? How hard is it for them to see the happy, smiling social media posts, oblivious that some of those posts mask the same feelings they have?

Not everyone is as fortunate as me to be able to share a crappy day and not feel judged.

almost free

The internet needs a makeover. I remember when I wanted to make a fun certificate or a personalized card, I could just do a Google search and find a free resource. Now when you do it, the top 10+ sites found in the search all require you to register, login, sign up, or sign in with Google or Facebook. Don’t worry, your first 30 days are free, or you’ll need to put your email in to get promotional spam sent to your inbox.

I get it. It costs money to run a website. I know, I pay to keep DavidTruss running and thanks to some affiliate links I’ve made about $35-$40 over the past 15 years. Add another $15 if you include royalties from my ebook, which I give away free everywhere except on Amazon where I couldn’t lower the price. This is my sarcastic way of saying that I don’t make any money off of my blogging and I actually have to pay to keep it running. That’s fine for me, I don’t do this for an income, but most websites need a flow of cash coming in to keep them going.

But no matter how you look at it, things on the internet have gotten a lot less free over the past decade. My blog’s Facebook page doesn’t make it onto most people’s stream because I don’t pay to boost the posts. Twitter, since it became X, has been all about seeing paid-for blue check profiles and my stream feels like it caters to ‘most popular or outlandish tweets’ rather than people I actually enjoy following. Even news sites are riddled with flashy advertising and gimmicky headlines to keep your eyes on those ads.

There needs to be a way to keep things ‘almost free’ on the internet, while not inundating us with attention seeking ads, or making us register and give away our email address to be spammed by promotional messages we don’t want. I think it will come. I think there will be an opportunity to choose between ads or micropayments. Read the kind of news you want or listen to a podcast for a penny. Like what you read/hear? Give a dime, or quarter, or even a dollar if you really like it.  There are already people donating this way on Live events on YouTube and Twitch and other similar sites, it just needs to get to the point where it’s happening on any web page. I’d rather pay a tiny bit than be inundated with ads. It’s coming, but not before it gets worse… we now have ads coming to Netflix and Prime. They want us to pay MORE to avoid them. The model is still about exploitation rather than building a fan base. Subscriptions will dominate for a while and so will models that upsell you to reduce the clutter… but eventually, eventually we will see the return of the ‘almost free’.

Dead links

I started my Daily-Ink blog in China in September 2010, but this name and site came a little later than the original blog. Originally it was created using a blogging platform called Posterous, which you could use via mail. Simply send an email to your personal blog address and it automatically added any pictures, links to videos, and your writing to a post with the email Subject as the title of the blog. Living in a country with a very challenging filter wall, this was a simple way to get a small blog post out without actually having to access a blog or having to upload pictures etc. It was a great tool. But then it died and I just started using WordPress, like I do now. However, I guess I didn’t follow the process to preserve my data and now all the links for images and videos are dead. So this is what my May 2010 archive page looks like.

But it’s not just my blog that’s the issue, it’s the blogs of others as well. The first post seen above, ‘Memorize This’ has links to two other bloggers, Joe Bower and Will Richardson. The link to Joe’s blog just goes to a “HTTP Status: 404 (not found)” page. However the link to Will’s page goes to this:

That is NOT the Will Richardson post I was looking for! I did a search on his updated blog location and found the post, “Is it Really Learning?“. I also went to my post and changed it there so I no longer link to this web-address stealing essay site, instead I link to the correct and intended post.

But realistically, I’m not going to go through my entire blog to do this. Even if I did, I’d probably spend more time trying to replace my own work, and not links to other sites. Because as I shared in my “Goodbye Posterous” post 11 years ago, “I decided to move my little-used Posterous site to this [‘Daily-Ink’] address, as a place to easily upload photos of what I thought would be a daily hand-written journal“, and the only record I seem to have of any of my journal writing is the screen shot I took of my first hand-written daily-ink for that post.

And while I’d love to recover all of these hand-written posts and the videos and pictures that I shared of ‘TIC’ – This is China moments, the reality is that most of them are gone forever.

And that makes me wonder, where will all this go in 20 years? In 50 years? I know I can find my original Pair-a-Dimes blog on the Internet Archive… is that where this blog and my current Pair-a-Dimes blog are destined to go? I guess so. I’ve paid for DavidTruss.com for another decade, but I haven’t paid the web host for that long. How long until this is just a series of dead links? I really haven’t given it too much thought, I just know that for now I plan to keep writing, keep sharing, and keep my links alive a little longer.

Not so techie

I’ve shared before about how I’m not as tech savvy as most people think. The reality is that I’m just willing to spend a lot of time getting to the bottom of an issue, and so my savviness has more to do with patience than with prowess. That said, I’m getting very frustrated with the technology challenges that seem to be coming my way that I can’t solve. A couple days ago the WordPress App stopped working. I could no longer save anything on it and so I couldn’t write posts on my phone. I deleted and re-installed the app, I tried logging in with my back-up access account, and then I gave up and finally moved to the Jetpack App that I have been begrudgingly avoiding. I didn’t want to make the switch because it forces block editing, which I think is clunky and works against me, rather than helping me with my writing. Now that app won’t work with my blog either. Maybe that’s a good thing because I wanted to write on my laptop rather than phone, so this might be the push that I needed.

Still, this wasn’t my only technology challenge this week or today. My wife is with her parents and her dad can’t access his Shaw mail. It’s an issue on his computer because my wife can access it on her phone and I can access it on my computer, so it has to be an issue with his machine. But the account uses web-based access and I suggested updating Chrome, and then we tried Firefox and while he can log into the account, he can’t click on any of the items in his inbox to read them on either web browser. The fact that I’m trying to give support over Facetime doesn’t make it an easier. I have Teamviewer (to take over a computer remotely) on my mother-in-law’s computer, but not on my father-in-laws, and while I’ll set that up soon, I didn’t feel like doing that for what I thought was a minor issue, and with my wife there, the support itself went fast, even if we couldn’t figure out the issue.

So here is my little rant, why does it seem that there are a lot more things breaking rather than working these days? I have to manually share my blog posts on social media because the tools I try to use (and have even paid for) don’t seem to work consistently. My wife gets a new phone and I spend a week updating issues that come up that were not a problem with the old phone. I upload a new plugin (after the issue with the WordPress login – yes I thought about that being an issue already), and it takes an hour to move from the free version to the paid one. I get stuck on a technical issue and google searchers seem less helpful than they used to. I buy a new toaster oven and the extra features make it harder to use and less convenient than the old one. I can’t decide if I’m getting old and curmudgeonly, or if things are being made less convenient and harder to repair?

In any event, I’m not feeling so techie right now. I seem to be coming across issues that are too hard for me to fix, and my patience is thinning. Cue the memes about old people not understanding technology… I hope that’s not me despite my little rant.