A Guiding Principle

Every productivity system lives or dies by its guiding principle. For North Star, the principle is simple:

Think on paper; let the server do the grunt work.

It’s not about chasing features or collecting apps. It’s about clarity—keeping the human work human, and the machine work mechanical.

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Why Paper Still Matters

We live in a world where typing is frictionless. But frictionless isn’t always better. Paper slows you down, and in slowing down, it sharpens your thought.

A practical, paper-first system that hands off to my server for capture, search, and publishing.

Meet Frank, a Creative Marketing Manager at a mid-sized company. Frank isn’t just using AI—he’s built it into the very core of his daily workflow. His personal toolkit includes ChatGPT Pro and Grok for market research, 4o and Ideogram for design, Magnific for image enhancement, and Higgsfield for video work.

The results? His campaigns get to market faster, his visuals are sharper, and his presentations carry that extra polish that makes clients take notice. But here’s the thing—Frank’s colleagues have wildly different reactions to his AI use.

“You always own the option of having no opinion.”
— Marcus Aurelius

Why this hits home

We’re pushed to react to everything—news, gossip, group chats, timelines. Marcus Aurelius cuts through the noise: you don’t owe the world a reaction. Choosing no opinion (yet) protects your attention and keeps your emotions from being yanked around by things that don’t matter or aren’t in your control.

What it really means

• Restraint > reflex. A pause gives reason a chance to show up.
• Discernment, not apathy. You’re choosing where your mind spends its time.
• Better calls, fewer regrets. Decisions made after silence age better than hot takes.

A quick, tactical guide

1. Pause before you react. Don’t reply right away; give it a beat.
2. Ask: “Does this require my input?” If not, let it go.
3. Use a neutral line. “I don’t have an opinion on that right now,” or “I’d need more info.”
4. Focus on what you control. Your work, your people, your actions. Let the rest drift by.
5. Keep a mental “quiet zone.” You don’t need to chase every headline or argument.

Back from Yelapa to a gray Monday—and a practical plan to make work travel with you.

Tell it like it is: growth isn’t a hashtag; it’s repetition with attention.
Keep the mind curious, the body capable, and the tools slow enough to think.

The Idea (short version)

Skip the motivational veneer. Real growth means compounding: staying with a subject long enough to see patterns, keeping your body useful for decades, and using analog tools to slow perception so thoughts can actually land.

This whole system runs on a weekly cycle with small daily touchpoints so you don’t burn out or drift.

Why Bother with the Linux Command Line in a GUI-Heavy World?

Sure, modern Linux distributions come with beautiful, polished graphical interfaces. You can click your way through almost anything these days. But if you stop there, you’re leaving a massive amount of power on the table. The command line interface (CLI) is where Linux really flexes its muscles — and if you learn it, you’ll move faster, automate repetitive work, and gain total control over your system.

For decades, the United States played nice in the global economy. We opened our markets, kept tariffs low, and welcomed cheap goods from all over the world. And what did we get in return?

• Empty factories
• Gutted small towns
• Lost jobs
• And foreign governments crying foul when we finally decided to push back

It’s hypocrisy, plain and simple.

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The Great American Trade-Off

We sold out American industry for low prices. Free trade sounded good on paper—cheap TVs, affordable tools, and more “stuff” for everyone. But behind that Walmart smiley face was a darker truth: our middle class was getting hollowed out.

We chartered a small fishing boat called the Yanet for a four-hour ride out of Yelapa—just the four of us: Ellen, Emma, Maya, and me, along with a two-man local crew who knew these waters like the back of their hands. It was one of those classic “let’s make a memory” decisions that comes with vacation territory—what I’d jokingly call forced family fun. And like most of those, it turned out to be something special.

Yesterday was my birthday — and this year, I spent it in Yelapa, Mexico: a beach town so remote you have to catch a water taxi just to find it on a map. No roads. No cars. Just jungle, cobblestone footpaths, and the promise of doing absolutely nothing — perfectly.

To mark the occasion, we set off on what was supposed to be a simple hike to the famous Yelapa waterfall. According to local legend (and several half-confident directions we got from a guy selling tamales), it was just a casual stroll through town and into the hills.