Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Compatible Life Philosophy

As faithul G:TB readers are no doubt aware, we believe that life's too short to take ourselves seriously. Courtesy of Fast Company, we have a new professional mantra to add to our compendium of words to live by (preposition intentionally dangled - the life's too short thing, and all). Caterina Fake, the founder of Flickr, posits that hard work is overrated, saying, "Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on." I found the following passage even more compelling:

Fake points to the salient example of Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA. They spent a lot of time lollygagging and goofing off, going to parties and bullshitting over coffee.
Interestingly, I spend a lot of time lollygagging and goofing off, commenting on G:TB and bullshitting over coffee and/or alcohol, depending on the time of day. Once, last April in New Orleans, both at the same time. I will now commence to discover something world-changing. Like a perpetual motion machine, or a cure for baldness.

(Note that I will disavow knowledge of any of this lollygaggery to my children at least until they have children of their own.)

23 comments:

d-train said...

anyone see espn's 30 for 30 documentary last night on the gretzky trade? good stuff...give it a watch.

TR said...

It initially aired last week and was pretty good. Gretzky looks waaaaay old these days. HD cameras don't help. Janet, on the other hand, still has her fastball.

This week's documentary on a marching band in Baltimore couldn't be less appealing. I don't care if both Barry Levinson and Bill Simmons swear it's great.

rob said...

barry levinson thinks it's great because he directed it. take that with a grain of salt.

TR said...

I did know that Rob. And Simmons is the Executive Producer on all 30 documentaries, so he's going to come out, talk every single one up and totally miss the point when folks take pot-shots at him for shilling for ESPN.

rob said...

ah, carry on, then. i was not aware of simmons' role in the docs. that's my learning for the day. i'm going to pack it in now.

Geoff said...

I fully subscribe to the theory behind this post. A reputation as an extremely "hard worker" can get you pretty far, but at certain points it can almost become a liability. Or at least that's what I've told myself.

d-train said...

and speaking of janet - they should go 31 for 31 and delve into the gambling ring she was apparently never involved with.

d-train said...

she is a little monkey woman though - will give her that

Whitney said...

It's a miracle Rob and I haven't discovered an alternate energy resource by now. I think we've been slacking off on our lollygagging in recent years.

Whitney said...

Didn't Zoltan already comment on the Gretzky 30 for 30 like a week ago? Or are we ignoring him?

Whitney said...

Yep. 10/6:

zoltan said...
So I watched the first "30 for 30" last night, and I think they gave the series this title because the show was about 30 minutes too long. Nothing happened. The Oilers traded Gretzky for financial reasons. Edmontonians were pissed. LA got into hockey for a while. The end.

Whitney said...

The only thing that resonated with me in the 30 for 30 was the final screen, where they tell you that Bruce McNall, the Kings owner at the time -- who seemed shady as shit the whole show -- "pled guilty to five counts of conspiracy and fraud, and admitted to bilking six banks out of $236 million over a ten-year period. He was sentenced to 70 months in prison."

And the Kings went bankrupt and he still owes the government $7 million. And he significantly helped raise hockey salaries to an unmanageable high, impacting the sport in not-so-positive ways. Hey, but at least movie stars had somewhere new to go in L.A. in the early 90's.

d-train said...

he looked pretty healthy...as in fat, for doing 6 years in the klink

zman said...

I stand by my opinion that the Greztky trade documentary was 30 minutes too long.

zman said...

I also stand by several other opinions I have previously expressed in this space. Carry on.

TR said...

Whit - We weren't just talking "any" movie stars here. We're talking John Candy, Michael J. Fox and Kurt Russell!

The photo of a drunk and sweaty Candy hanging out with Fox 20 years ago was pretty funny. Those Canucks stick together.

zman said...

Not only were Watson and Crick a couple of lollygaggers, they were scientific thieves too. Supposedly they swiped a big chunk of their DNA work from Rosalind Franklin without attribution. So there's another business model for us. Next time Shlara comes up with a good idea we'll swipe it.

TR said...

Swiper, no swiping!

zman said...

I had to google that. Things have indeed changed since 1995. I never expected lines from Dora the Explorer.

Dave said...

i haven't heard the word "lolly- gagging" since i was a goat and i sneaked into the chapter room during a clean-up to catch some shut-eye.

that's a lot hyphenated words.

rob said...

if it helps, lollygagging isn't actually hyphenated.

Geoff said...

Right now you can get the Chieves +6.5 versus the Redskins. I would recommend investing every available dollar in this once in a lifetime opportunity. By the way, Stephon Heyer is starting at LT and Mike Williams, who lost over 100 pounds in the offseason and prior to last week had not started an NFL game in 3 years (or been on a roster in 2), will be starting at right tackle. Chad Rinehart, who got his first start ever against the Bucs and subsequently was declared inactive for the next week's game, will be starting at RG.

zman said...

Mike Williams is fantastic. The #4 pick in the draft.