All posts by Mark Watkins

Books, Music, The Hawaii Project

Can you hear me now?

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Sugai Ken in “concert”

So, I’m working on my nearly-finished first release of my book tracking app, TBR. 

Did I mention I had shoulder surgery back in January? I’ve been doing rehab exercises every day, three times a day, since January. It’s become something of a habit. But I keep reminders, because otherwise I get caught up in things and forget. I started with the simple iPhone todo list app, but awhile back I switched to the Not Boring Software’s Habits app. A game-like experience for forming habits, or as the founder Andy puts it, the World’s Most Satisfying Checkbox. And it kinda is…. animations, 3D models, and sounds. And it’s pretty. Just won one of Apple’s App Design Awards. 

Face-palm. My app has no sound! (for that matter, neither does my existing app Bookship). Duh. 

I’ve never done it before, so I start reading. In my head, my app is making bookish noises like a page turning, etc. As I read I learn that audio UX has similar design styles to visual design, and “Skeuomorphism” (things sound like / look like what they are), may not be the best approach for sound ux. And more importantly that sound design is another path to creating a compelling brand.

Just as there is a place for visual designers, who can create something beautiful and connective, the same is true for audio. There are firms that do nothing else, for example. 

OK well I’m not ready to belly up to the bar and hire a composer, and my needs are pretty modest. So, I go digging for sound effects. Well. There’s a lot of them, and a lot of places to look. I poke around a bunch of sites (Freesound, SoundSnap, Mixkit, Artlist.io etc), talk to my son-in-law game developer, who recommends Pond5 and reminds me to make sure I get licenses for everything. “Free is free, but sometimes it’s worth paying”. 

I poke around and prototype with 5 or so free sounds from different sources but realize they don’t hang together – individually good, but all different and kind of random, and the possibilities are overwhelming. I realize I need to take a step back and think about what I want.

What is this sound for? What am I trying to convey? What is my brand about? And then look for a package (a sound pack) of thematically consistent sounds.

Well, to me, books are about learning, and being transported; a means of adventure, and a place of peace and escape from all the noise out there. Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, your job, etc. ad nauseam. I want something tranquil, restful, non-invasive, almost kind of Zen. Yeah, that’s it. Zen. I start building a soundboard, googling and listening, of some concepts that have the feel I might want.

Turns out Not Boring’s Habits used a composer named Thomas Williams. Mostly games, but some utility apps and even some short films. Here’s a soundtrack he made for a game, it’s actually nice to just listen to.

Nice. Since I’m thinking Zen, I start googling for Zen sound effects, and stumble upon Ableton, which is audio editing software, and reading their blog. I find this article. Mentions a Japanese composer, Sugai Ken, who does field recordings and integrates nature sounds into his music.

Yeah. A lot of natural sounds, pings and echos, things that could be at home in a quiet app about books. I take that as a vector and run with it.

After about a million listens to random chirps and squeaks and pings (my wife says, “What the hell are you doing over there?” :)), I stumble on a few things that feel promising. 

After letting it sit for a day, seeing how the sounds feel after a lot of listens, and prototyping a bit, I feel like this one is the answer: Sound Ex Machina’s UI Sounds Musical. I found it on Artlist.io, when I go to buy it it looks like it’s $10 a month to subscribe. Fine. Go to subscribe, realize no, I need the premium version @ $15/month to get the rights. OK fine. Go again to purchase, get something that says, “Oh you want SFX?” That’s $20/month. Just enough annoyance and friction in the process to make me go looking elsewhere. I try to find their real website and see if I can buy it, it says “Down for Maintenance”. A few days later it still is. I wonder if they’ve gone under…anyway in the meantime I find a direct purchase on itch.io. Even better, the Artlist package only has ~30 sounds, but this “real” package has 300, and for about the same money. I go for it. At which point I learn that the sounds I bookmarked on Artlist have Artlist-specific names, so I have to go match up the ones I’ve chosen against the 300. No big deal, just realize, if you like a package of sounds, look for the original if you can – more sounds, better pricing, etc. 

The other bit of advice all the blogs give is, don’t do too much; it gets overwhelming or irritating pretty quickly. I try to restrain myself to key actions and errors. 

Anyway, after that it’s all downhill. Just integrating the code (I’m on Ionic, there’s a simple plugin for playing audio, which I use, and it’s all integrated in under a day). Oh. Don’t forget haptics too – vibrations, the “feel” of the app. I do that too. I don’t know if people will like all this or not, but the app just feels and sounds so much more real, more tactile, more professional. 

Fingers crossed :). 

Here’s a short sample of the sounds I’ve ended up using:

I hope you get a chance to check out the app, and our sounds. (Oh: bonus: the first sound you hear is a Ukelele, the native instrument of Hawaii where I live. Not a factor in my decision, just a happy accident.

Some background reading I found helpful as I was working on sounds:

And some sound resources, places to look for interesting sounds:

https://www.pond5.com
https://freesound.org/
https://www.soundsnap.com/
https://mixkit.co/free-sound-effects/
https://www.storyblocks.com/audio/sound-effects
https://www.artlist.io

Books, Ruminations

The Medium is the Massage?

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Did you ever have that word that you’ve been misspelling since junior high school, and just figured it out?

So, I’m wandering Manchester-by-the-Book, one of my favorite small bookstores (where I discovered one of my favorite books ever, James Salter’s Burning the Days), and I stumble on The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan.

Wait, isn’t it ‘The Medium is the Message‘?

Well, no. All my life I’ve thought the book was named after his famous saying, but no. Apparently, it’s a semi-intentional pun. The Medium “massages” us, manipulates us. Sound familiar?

But this is 1967, the internet is not really a thing, there are faint stirrings of Arpanet, but no Twitter, no web browser, no Facebook, no TikTok. There’s really just TV and Radio. I open to a random page and find:

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.

All
media
are
extensions
of
some
human
faculty-
psychic
or
physical.

OK so that is ahead of its time. The book is attractive in a 1960-ish way, all strangely formatted text, black and white photographs, illustrations on every page, pages you have to read in the mirror because they are printed backwards….sold.

I take it home and start reading more seriously. 

The older, traditional ideas of private, isolated thoughts and actions-the patterns of mechanistic technologies-are very seriously threatened by new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval, by the electrically computerized dossier bank-that one big gossip column that is unforgiving, unforgetful and from which there is no redemption, no erasure of early “mistakes”.

Ever posted something on TikTok/IG/Facebook you wanted to take back? Ever worried about the ever-growing Surveillance State, or Surveillance Advertising? McLuhan is on the case, in 1967 before it all existed. 

I’m about halfway through the book, and so far, here’s the money quote:

Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication. 

….

It is impossible to understand social and cultural changes without a knowledge of the workings of media.

The 24×7 outrage machine we call the internet: do you understand how deeply your worldview is shaped by what you read? Or don’t read? The news sources you visit, or don’t visit? The media you consume, or don’t? How deeply what you see is impacted by the monetary imperatives of the media? (ALL of them, not just the bad guys, whoever they are for you!).

As Ryan Holiday says, “If you start your day with social media, the news, or email, realize: you’re starting your day at the mercy of others.“

A lot of people are coming to realize that much of the modern internet really just isn’t good for us. And yet, can you get away from it?

The first step is being aware. That pretty much everything that comes at you has an agenda. Question it. Why am I being told this now? What is the (economic/political/marketing) motivation for them to tell me? Does it resonate with my worldview? If so, maybe it’s false – just a re-enforcing echo chamber? Question all that you read, watch and hear, especially if it re-enforces your worldview or agrees with your intuition.

And read a book now and then :). The Medium is the Massage is a fun way to start – fast, thought-provoking, and fun. If you want to really embrace the ambiance of this book, throw on Philip Glass’s soundtrack to the cult film Koyaanisqatsi.

Because getting a massage should be good.

Books, Travel

Rarer Monsters

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Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o’ the time:
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
‘Here may you see the tyrant.’
— Shakespeare, Macbeth

Just came back from an amazing trip to New York with our good friends T— and L—. We had a chance to see Daniel Craig of 007 James Bond fame play Macbeth in an off-Broadway production with Oscar nominee Ruth Negga. So we did. We also snuck in visits to the Metropolitan Museum to look at their Greek & Roman stuff, as well as their current exhibition of the French painter Jacques-Louis David (you will say that you do not know him, as I did….wait for it …. you do). And in addition we visited The Cloisters in uptown New York City, the best museum nobody knows about.

The Cloisters is the home of our semi-canine friend above, as well as amazing medieval art, stained glass and building elements from Europe. Indeed the entire museum is essentially created from spare parts from medieval Europe, including the famous Unicorn tapestry, illustrated manuscripts, gilded wine glasses, a delightful courtyard and nearly entire chapels.

We’re going to Greece and Rome in the fall, so we were excited to see the Met’s collection of Greek and Roman art and sculpture, as well as another visit to the Arms & Armory room:

Here’s some Greek stuff: Priam begging for his son Hector’s body, a grotesque, Hercules wearing a lion…

We took a walk on The Highline, which is very nice – a kind of mini-Central Park, near where our boat-based Architecture tour departed. Lots of interesting architecture including the new Hudson Yards.

The Macbeth was wonderful. Daniel Craig provided a fair bit of cognitive dissonance for me, as I know him mostly as Bond. His Macbeth was a wonderful far cry from his Bond. He seemed quite joyful and touched by the crowd’s response afterwards. Negga’s Lady Macbeth was absolutely outstanding.

The production was good fun. The stage at first glance appeared quite sparse and I expected a “small” Shakespeare. But soon the smoke was roiling, the lights were flashing, the walls were moving, and the play took on a much more cinematic experience than I expected. Much of the production was “modern” – the witches wear normal street clothes, Banquo is dispatched by a handgun, Bond (err, Macbeth) wears a fur coat that would not look out of place on a rapper…all good fun.

Since I was going to see Macbeth and hadn’t read it since high school (or never?), I decided to read it on my last plane ride. You may not have read Macbeth, but you probably know some of the famous lines, and the story itself: Macbeth, egged on by his wife Lady Macbeth and 3 Witches who foretell his future, kills King Duncan and usurps the throne, and embarks on a killing spree to cement his rule. I’ve captured some of my favorite lines below.

Oh, those witches:

Fair is foul and foul is fair,
Hover through the fog and filthy air

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes

Ray Bradbury did not invent that phrase 🙂

And of course the famous witches’ scene:

First Witch. Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

All. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

All. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

I love this rhyme, when King Duncan executes the Thane of Cawdor for treason and promotes Macbeth:

Go pronounce his present death,
and with his former title greet Macbeth.

and when the sentence is executed and the death reported back:

Nothing in his life
became him like the leaving it.

Macbeth:

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Lady Macbeth, when pondering her husband’s potential abandonment of their plan for pity of King Duncan:

Yet do I fear thy nature:
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness.

and…

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time, bear welcome in your eye,
your hand, your tongue. Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t.

Macbeth, on the assassination:

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly.

Macbeth after the crime, remorseful:

Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep’, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast,—

Which reminds of the last time we went to New York City and saw the interactive, participatory show Sleep No More, loosely based on Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth, after the crime, driven mad and to some extent remorseful:

Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why,
then, ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?—Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.

And Macbeth’s soliloquy lament on her death:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macduff, as he fights Macbeth to the death:

Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o’ the time:
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
‘Here may you see the tyrant.’

Macbeth in response:

I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet,
And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’

Books

My reading in 2021

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2021 was an interesting year in reading for me. Somewhat oddly, I felt a real challenge being interested to read this year. I say oddly because between the pandemic and what I do for work (Bookship, a social reading app), it should have been lab conditions for a great year in reading.

Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland

Still, I managed to read 36 books (45 in 2020, 41 in 2019). My reading in 2021 centered around a few themes: my book club reads (for the Greener Reader bookclub), my trip to Iceland and associated historical interests, and the usual dose of “Comfort Food” reading: some science fiction and thriller old favorites and new reads.

One of the highlights of my year was a trip to Iceland with Michelle and our old friends the Jensens. That lead to some focused Iceland reading: Jar City (Arnaudur Indradason) and The Darkness (Ragnar Jonasso), two thrillers by Icelandic authors, and the Book of Reykjavik, a collection of stories by Icelandic authors about Reykjavik. But we can’t go to Iceland without thinking about one of my long-term interests, the “Northern Thing” as Auden called it: the fascination with all things Viking, northern, Odin, Thor and all that. So together with my travel companions we read Grettir’s Saga, which I had been struggling with in past attempts. This time we read the Jesse Byock translation and it was a revelation: hilarious, scary, modern. I wrote more about it, here and here.

Cocktail I made in Iceland with hand-foraged crowberrries, and an Icelandic folktale book

While we were in Iceland, my friend Thomas recommended The Last Duel, by Eric Jagar, another medieval tale soon to be a motion picture starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck????, so we all read that together as well. The Last Duel was another revelation: a time portal to medieval France through the lens of the last judicial trial-by-combat, a duel to the death over an accusation of rape. A true story, and not a bad movie either. Continuing the Northern thing, I read Hrolf Kraki’s Saga again (Poul Anderson version, I dunno, 4th or 5th time probably). Then read Poul Anderson’s trilogy The Last Viking, about the life of Harald Sigurdsson, aka Harald Hard Rede, aka Harald Hardrada, who’s life would not be believable as fiction, it is so fantastical. Forced into exile in Russia after a disastrous battle at the age of 15, he landed at the court of Prince Yaroslav, where he remained until he sailed to Constantinople, joining and eventually leading the Varangian guard responsible for protecting the Emperor himself. From thence he crusaded to Jerusalem, led many battles and gained much wealth. He was imprisoned after a jealous Empress wanted to marry him, whereas he had eyes for someone else. Escaping back to Russia, he married Yaroslav’s daughter, eventually returning to Norway and became King. He then claimed, but was unsuccessful in actually obtaining, the Kingship of both Denmark and England. The latter cause led him to England in 1066, to his death at the hands of Harold Godwinson, who would himself shortly die at the hands of William the Conqueror. Crazy story.

Finishing up the Anderson series led me to read 1066, by David Howarth, a shortish book wonderfully recounting all the events that led to William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. That led to another grisly read, The Crusaders by Dan Jones, which I also read with, and at the recommendation of, my friend Thomas. Harald makes a minor appearance there as a Crusader, but really it’s the entire history of the Crusades in this book. If you think humanity has not improved in the last 1000 years, think again and read this book. It’s a litany of horror and cruelty on all sides. However bad we are, we’re not that.

Lastly, in the historical vein, my favorite author, Steven Pressfield, released A Man at Arms, a tale set in the holy land shortly after the death of Christ. Perhaps not as a good as Gates of Fire (one of my favorites), it’s still a great read.

Through the book club I am in, I read some wonderful fiction, much of which I probably would not have read otherwise. Kawai Strong Washburn’s wonderful mythical/modern Hawaii tale Sharks in the Time of Saviors, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Another Country by James Baldwin, and outside book club but via my book club leader, Justine Espiritu, the wonderfully cynical and scandalous Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan, about a wonderfully cynical French teenager. Infomocracy is a near-future sci-fi exploration of what a global democracy might look like. A good effort, although (un-intentionally by the author I am sure), it felt more like a 1984-inspired info-autocracy).

A couple of one-off books I really enjoyed, outside my major themes:

The Ministry of Truth: the Biography of George Orwell’s 1984. Last year I read, and was horrified by, 1984, which I’d not read since high school and seems so prescient about today’s media landscape (and I am not just, or even primarily, talking about our previous knucklehead-in-chief.). The Ministry of Truth explores Orwell and all the ways this book came to be.

How Music Works, by David Byrne. I’m thinking about, and have started work on, a new form of music discovery (read more here.) Looking for inspiration, I read How Music Works, by the former leader of Talking Heads. It is about how music is made, marketed, discovered, consumed, appreciated, taught, and more. I particularly loved his chapter on Curation, which, if you’ve read my other writings, is something you know I am interested in. I read this book with Thomas and another friend, and continue to be surprised at how much social reading improves my enjoyment of a book.

In the “comfort food” category, I re-read William Gibson’s seminal Neuromancer and Count Zero ( I love both but I think the second book is even better than the well-known first book ). I really enjoyed Midnight, Water City by Hawaii-based author Chris McKinney. I re-read Foundation in anticipation of the some-what disappointing tv series. A few of the notable thrillers I read: Dragonfish, by Vu Tran; I Am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes, An Honorable Man (Paul Vidich), and two Israel-focused thrillers: The English Teacher (Yiftach Atir) and A Long Night in Paris (Dov Alfon). The former was particularly enjoyable and felt like an Israeli version of A Perfect Spy, complete with a wonderfully realized middle-aged male self-deception. Victoria Dougherty’s Welcome to the Hotel Yalta was a fun collection of cold war Eastern Europe spy tales, a set up to her novels.

So, for 2021: social reading was a big win. The most meaningful books I read, I read socially. I plan to do more in 2022. As for what I’ll be reading? Well, I have a bunch of good books lined up through book club. Outside of book club, I hope to read Brave New World, Circe, and hopefully some good history. I’m already started on The Thin Red Line (fiction on battle of Guadalcanal), Two Years Before the Mast (historical sailing adventure), and The Windup Girl (for book club). And I hope to read more about music discovery!

Books, Ruminations

My shoulder. The Obstacle is the Way

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So, I’m having shoulder surgery in January, for a torn rotator cuff. Too much tennis, not enough outside strength training. I basically won’t be able to use my right arm for a month after the surgery, it will be in a sling. And tennis is probably 1 year away after rehab. 

The shoulder really hasn’t been right for some years now. While this surgery is seriously inconvenient, and likely painful for awhile, I’m looking at this at the path to getting my shoulder back to full health and full strength. Rather than looking at the downsides. As Ryan Holiday says, The Obstacle is the Way. 

To get myself ready, I’m collecting some of my favorite Marcus Aurelius quotes from The Meditations, the “bible”, if you will, of Stoic philosophy. These from the Gregory Hayes translation. (This is more for me than you :)).

The first one seems a bit too literal 🙂

Practice, even things you don’t expect to need.

Practice even what seems impossible.

The left hand is useless at almost everything, for lack of practice. But it guides the reins better than the right. From practice.

I’m going to be practicing left hand stuff for awhile!

Control your mind and attitude:

Don’t be overheard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.

Shorter, my adaptation: Never be overheard complaining – even to yourself.

How not to feel a victim:

“It’s unfortunate that this has happened.”

No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it. Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate? Can you really call something a misfortune that doesn’t violate human nature? Or do you think something that’s not against nature’s will can violate it? But you know what its will is.

Does what’s happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person’s nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

It’s not what happens to you. It’s how you respond.

Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed.

Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.

Control your mind, as well as your outward behavior.

From Apollonius I learned: to be the same in all circumstances—intense pain, the loss of a child, chronic illness.

Looking at events as opportunities, not problems.

That every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.

Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had weighed it out with scales.

Keep looking closely like that, and embody it in your actions: goodness—what defines a good person.

A visual to help you

To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.

Managing pain

[On pain:] Unendurable pain brings its own end with it.

Chronic pain is always endurable: the intelligence maintains serenity by cutting itself off from the body, the mind remains undiminished. And the parts that pain affects—let them speak for themselves, if they can.

Mental vacations

People try to get away from it all — to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like.

By going within.

Other people

What’s there to complain about? People’s misbehavior? But take into consideration: • that rational beings exist for one another; • that doing what’s right sometimes requires patience; • that no one does the wrong thing deliberately; • and the number of people who have feuded and envied and hated and fought and died and been buried.

. . . and keep your mouth shut.

and

Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.

The big picture

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

Peace

The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. (Is this fair? Is this the right thing to do?) < . . . > not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving.

Focus on essentials

Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.

Maintaining control of your emotions and reactions

 The best revenge is not to be like that.

How the mind conducts itself. It all depends on that. All the rest is within its power, or beyond its control—corpses and smoke.

Have purpose and chase that

Then what is to be prized? An audience clapping? No. No more than the clacking of their tongues. Which is all that public praise amounts to—a clacking of tongues. So we throw out other people’s recognition. What’s left for us to prize? I think it’s this: to do (and not do) what we were designed for.

The Obstacle is the Way

In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them.

But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us—like sun, wind, animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.

The impediment to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

The Obstacle is the Way.

( This article edited left handed 🙂 )