Through the Prism

After passing through the prism, each refraction contains some pure essence of the light, but only an incomplete part. We will always experience some aspect of reality, of the Truth, but only from our perspectives as they are colored by who and where we are. Others will know a different color and none will see the whole, complete light. These are my musings from my particular refraction.

3.13.2024

Life Is an Interim Whirl


My work organization has been going through a long, gradual reorganization of our structure--positions given new titles, job duties changed or tweaked, departments organized differently, that kind of thing. Gradual, as in years. The first part happened in 2020, with the intention of more to come announced right after. Finally, after anxiously waiting and wondering for years, on perpetual pause, afraid to grow in new directions, some of the next changes are getting implemented; I recently learned how my position is changing, along with all of my peers, and we'll transition to our new roles in the next couple of months.

Today we had a big meeting to step into some of these changes. It included talk of change management. How between the "current state" and the "future state" is the "transition state." How we're dwelling in the transition state. Where things are uncomfortable, but where good things happen. Etc.

Long ago in this process someone called too many things in a meeting "interim," then one of us said something about "we're living in an interim world," and now whenever I'm in one of these meetings I get an earworm, the Madonna song Material Girl, but with the word "interim" substituted for "material." Her little hiccup sounds and everything. It's stuck in my head right now.

Anyway, it's not original to say, but it seems lately that everything is change all the time. And the things that have come to my attention as worth collecting the past couple of weeks fit into that theme nicely.

We are living
in an interim world,
and life is an
interim whirl. 


I love this portion of the poem "Self, Family, Society, Earth," capturing a girl's dialogue with her mother, refugees recently fled to the U.S. from the Vietnam War.
 . . . Weren't you furious?

If I'd chosen anger,
I would have overflowed
days, months, years
and still not alter
war atrocities.

Instead I chose you children,
vowing to educate
your minds and hearts
so you would know the result
of your every action.

Choices to not
pick up a gun,
glorify a leader,
hide behind commands,
claim honor, blame others.

You would then
begin to create
a different history.

What if others don't change?

Contemplate on yourself
until you're a solid anchor,
then ensure kindness to family
then society then earth.

All that from me?

You start,
pass to your children
then their children,
who might be positioned
to direct fury.
Such a wonderful approach to life, to reacting to change with a long-term view toward making your own. It's from When Clouds Touch Us by Thanhhà Lại. Here's what I wrote for my review.

Lai continues the story begun in Inside Out and Back Again, that of a refugee family trying to make a new life in the United States after fleeing the Vietnam War. She again tells her story in verse, sensitively conveying the experience of starting over in a strange place with nothing. This time she focuses on how hard everyone works to build up from scratch and all the sacrifices they must make to get any momentum toward better lives--something especially difficult for a sixth grade girl who is tired of always standing out. Lyrical and moving.
Secret Age

Our chocolate cake
spans four saucers,
swirls in pink.
"Happy 11th Pam & Ha."

I'm already twelve,
having aged at Tet.

Mother suggested
we repeat the last grade
to cushion first-refugee year,
now I'm always older
as if held back a level.

No one at school
knows my secret age
so I'll never again
appear dumb.

Mother has chided
if my heaviest fear rises
from pointless judgment
then I rank low
on the ladder of suffering.

I must remember
to stop complaining
to an after-war mother.
Perspective.


The book I read right after that, Homebound (The Icarus Chronicles, #2) by John David Anderson, had a passage that mirrors Lai's nicely.
Leo helped his father take the sapling by the trunk and drag it toward the hole, nestling the roots into the welcoming space. The tree was barely as tall as his dad, with a trunk that Leo could easily encircle with his hands. Hard to believe it would ever grow as large as the one that had been here before. . . . 

"It's true that the last one died, but that's the thing about nature," he said. "It finds a way to adapt. To overcome. It evolves. Maybe not this tree or the next or even the next, but eventually one of them will learn the trick to fighting back against whatever's harming them. It will survive, and then it will pass that knowledge along to the next generation and all the generations after that, growing stronger and more resilient each time. But not if we don't do everything we can to give them that chance. Not if we simply give up. I'm not ready to give up, are you?"
Being successful in an interim world means constantly adapting to change.


A few years back, I wrote a very short post titled Entropy. So short, I'll repeat it entirely here.
I tried out the Warhammer fantasy role-playing game system as a teen when it was new, and even read a couple of the novels set in its world. One of the things that stood out to me as strange was that the struggle wasn't staged as a fight between Good and Evil, but between Order and Chaos. As the Wikipedia page says: "One of the most identifiable features of the Warhammer setting is Chaos. While the forces of Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy Battle are depicted primarily in the form of marauding dark knights and beastmen, Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is an insidious force gnawing at the fabric of society." And your heroic characters might hold off the forces of Chaos for a time, but ultimately the world is doomed and those forces will consume everything.

At the time I thought this was an odd and hopeless way of framing the world. Now, as a parent with two little ones, I completely understand.
I just came across an essay that wonderfully explicates everything I was implying in that thought.

The second law of thermodynamics states that “as one goes forward in time, the net entropy (degree of disorder) of any isolated or closed system will always increase (or at least stay the same).”

Entropy is a measure of disorder and affects all aspects of our daily lives. You can think of it as nature’s tax.

Entropy naturally increases over time. Problems arise: your house gets messy, your garden gets weeds, and the heat from your coffee spreads out. Businesses fail, crimes and revolutions occur, and relationships end. In the long run, everything naturally decays, and disorder always increases.

Disorder is not a mistake; it is the default. Order is always artificial and temporary. . . . 

Entropy occurs in every aspect of a business. Employees may forget training, lose enthusiasm, cut corners, and ignore rules. Equipment may break down, become inefficient, or be subject to improper use. Products may become outdated or be in less demand. Even the best of intentions cannot prevent an entropic slide towards chaos.

Successful businesses invest time and money to minimize entropy. For example, they provide regular staff training, good reporting of issues, inspections, detailed files, and monitoring reports of successes and failures. They ruthlessly seek out and eliminate the sediment of bureaucracy. . . . 

Entropy sows the seeds of destruction. . . . 

A balance must be struck between creativity and control, though. Too little autonomy for employees results in disinterest, while too much leads to poor decisions. . . . 

We have all observed entropy in our everyday lives. Everything tends towards disorder. Life always seems to get more complicated. Once-tidy rooms become cluttered and dusty. Strong relationships grow fractured and end. We grow old. Complex skills are forgotten. Buildings degrade as brickwork cracks, paint chips, and tiles loosen.

Disorder is not a mistake; it is the default. Order is always artificial and temporary. . . . 

Combatting entropy requires energy. When you clean a messy house, you use energy to return the house to a previous, simpler, tidier state. This is why entropy is nature’s tax. You need to expend energy just to maintain the current state. Failing to pay nature’s tax means things get more complicated, disorganized, and messier.

We cannot expect anything to stay the way we leave it. To maintain our health, relationships, careers, skills, knowledge, societies, and possessions requires never-ending effort and vigilance.

Now you understand why one of the hardest things in life is keeping it simple.

Disorder is not a mistake; it is our default. Order is always artificial and temporary. . . . 

The question is not whether we can prevent entropy (we can’t) but how we can curb, control, work with, and understand it. Entropy is all around us.
Disorder is the default. Order is always artificial and temporary. We are living in an interim world.


Many things lately, it seems, evoking sighs of resignation and testing the fortitude to keep adapting, keep fighting back the chaos and entropy.

The turnout gap between white and nonwhite voters in the U.S. is growing fastest in jurisdictions that were stripped of a federal civil rights-era voting protection a decade ago, according to a new study. . . . 

"What we found was that these jurisdictions fell back into their pattern of adopting laws and policies that made voting difficult for people of color," . . . 

According to the Brennan Center, states formerly covered in whole or in part under Section 5 have passed at least 29 laws that have made voting more difficult in the past decade.
Sigh.


Good news, but I have trouble not focusing on the bad.

About two-thirds of Americans reject or are skeptical about Christian nationalism despite its rising influence that's shaping education, immigration and health care policies, a new survey finds.


Some Republicans are openly expressing Christian nationalist views, which have ranged from calls for more religion in public schools to book bans and even suggestions that democracy should die.

This once-fringe ideology has become prevalent in some deeply red states at a time when the nation overall is increasingly diverse and less religious. . . . 

In five deeply red states, at least 45% of respondents said they were adherents or sympathizers of Christian nationalism: North Dakota (50%), Mississippi (50%), Alabama (47%), West Virginia (47%) and Louisiana (46%).
Sigh.


This once-fringe ideology has become prevalent . . . 
Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American


How religion and authoritarianism have come together in modern America was on display Thursday, when right-wing activist Jack Posobiec opened this weekend’s conference of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., with the words: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”
Sigh.


This is my county.

 . . . a fundraiser Friday night where attendees paid to kick and beat an effigy of President Joe Biden . . . 

The Biden-bashing antics were part of a Kansas GOP event in Johnson County, where rocker Ted Nugent and disgraced former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline were the main attractions.

A video posted by “MolonLabeTruth” to the far-right social media platform Rumble shows highlights from the event, which also included karate chops to blocks that read “Let’s Go, Brandon,” code for a profane insult of Biden.

The video shows several people at the event attempting a roundhouse kick to a mannequin bust with a Biden mask and “Let’s Go, Brandon” T-shirt. Another woman is seen beating the president’s face with a foam bat.

Kansas GOP chairman Mike Brown, an election denier who narrowly won the leadership position a year ago, touted the fundraiser event for weeks in official GOP emails . . . 
Sigh.


And don't forget the big picture.

Across much of America and especially in the normally chilly north, the country went through the winter months without, well, winter. Federal meteorologists have made it official: It's the warmest U.S. winter on record by far.
Sigh.


A poem.
Bob Hicok


Sky the color of warning. Well not red but pink,
now salmon, it innovates faster than I have words
to shape into clouds on their way to their new life
in the midst of their old. There’s no stopping,
no point at which a cloud kicks back
and smokes a cigarette, they’re all process.
Between typing “process” and looking at the plastic
dinosaur head sitting on my “Impressionist Masterpieces
Art Cube,” the pink disappeared where it had floated
like the idea of a tutu over Paris mountain
and I became bored with myself. So things change:
how exciting. Go tell the river, tell the cow
in the river. How about this: “Red sky at morning, sailors
wear condoms.” That’s more interesting.
I’ve never understood the claim by men that condoms
take the pleasure out of sex, it’s not
like you’re wearing a length of pipe.
When condoms were still the intestines of goats,
a man set stones into the ground outside his house
in Ravenna, where I’d walk with you in the tomorrow
I hope is coming this summer or next. We don’t have to talk
about condoms or clouds at all, we can talk about the deer
eating their way across draught, no rain in weeks,
no way I’m getting out of this alive, or none of that,
just the ocean, that bit of interpretative dance
on the horizon. Maybe the goal was to stand still
and whisper across 144 miles that the battle had begun
by waving flags, one signaler to another. That’s fine
for you and your Napoleonic wars, but what if wind
is who you want to go to bed with and you’re alright
with the fact that she won’t be there
even as you touch her? This ascription of gender
implies I know something
about secondary sexual characteristics
that you don’t, but I’m no doctor of change,
just a fan, same as any kid in the bleachers
cheering for the boredom of the third inning
to be interrupted by a reading of Proust. Madeleines.
How yum. This sky has cleared, by the way, of anything
but blue, and I suppose now I could pin
certain notions of clarity to the hour and feel
that I’ve honored what seems to be time
or the inclination to put language to work
putting up mirrors around the house. Even the feeling
I had at the start of this sentence has left town
already, and as another forms, part of me’s
still waving at the last as the balloon slips away.
If I could talk to fire, talk to wood
right before it burns, in the second flames
tumble across the grain, in the instant
before that second, when wood’s still wood
but the match is lit, I’d have, finally, a vocabulary
for being human, alive. This explains my pyromania
but nothing else.

Interim. Liminal. Ephemeral. Incorporeal. Intangible. Tenuous. Permeable. Changeable. Slippery and hard to hold onto. Tending toward chaos and disorder.
Even the feeling
I had at the start of this sentence has left town
already, and as another forms, part of me’s
still waving at the last as the balloon slips away.
If I could talk to fire, talk to wood
right before it burns, in the second flames
tumble across the grain, in the instant
before that second, when wood’s still wood
but the match is lit, I’d have, finally, a vocabulary
for being human, alive.

That's the thing about nature. It finds a way to adapt. To overcome. It evolves. Maybe not this tree or the next or even the next, but eventually one of them will learn the trick to fighting back against whatever's harming them. It will survive, and then it will pass that knowledge along to the next generation and all the generations after that, growing stronger and more resilient each time. But not if we don't do everything we can to give them that chance. Not if we simply give up. I'm not ready to give up, are you?

Contemplate on yourself
until you're a solid anchor,
then ensure kindness to family
then society then earth.

You start,
pass to your children
then their children.
Create
a different history.

On and on you persevere. Keep working on how we can curb, control, work with, and understand the entropy. How to live within it. And, through it all, ensure kindness to self, family, society, and earth.



3.01.2024

Feeling Around in the Darkness, Trying to Share a Glimpse of Myself


I have a reputation, I believe, for my humor. I use it to help everyone maintain awareness of life's absurdity. Sometimes I use it to break tension in difficult moments. Sometimes to avoid vulnerability, I'm sure. But sometimes I use it to create connection.

My work organization is undergoing a staff restructuring, with positions changed and redefined. In some cases, people are moving to new buildings and teams--it's a library system with 14 locations. I recently received word of my updated position, including who is in my small group of peers and who my new supervisor will be in a couple of months.

One of my peers sent out an email anticipating the work we'll be doing after everyone is shuffled, eager to get started, and was told to hold off until we have time to transition and get settled. I couldn't help sending the following to our new supervisor as a follow-up:
If there’s one thing I could throw out for immediate attention . . . I’ve seen this as an issue for a while now, but I haven’t been able to get traction with anyone else expressing concern. I’m hoping maybe, coming in with your fresh perspective, you’ll see it the way I do and take some steps to address it.

We have a designated spot for slow pedestrians to cross the driving entry lane into the staff parking lot and drive-through, but nowhere for fast (or even moderately paced) ones to do so. It creates some real confusion and logjams on the sidewalk out front. Thanks for considering.


(Again, welcome. 😉)
Their response:
I have been quietly informed that this wasn’t entirely serious, although I admit for a moment I did think about it… “Hmm… why doesn’t it just say pedestrian crossing… hmmm…”

I will work on my gullibility! 
I sent two short replies:
I used to be surprised when people would tell me they couldn’t tell if I was joking or serious, but I long ago, after hearing it enough times, I decided to embrace it and make it my identity. 😊

---

Also, I really appreciated the kids book I read a few years back—though at the moment I can’t remember which one—in which the two friends are so bothered by the “Slow Children Playing” sign on their block that one of them vandalizes it by adding a colon after the word “slow.”
And now, I hope, the new boss feels welcomed by the fact that I'm immediately engaging in play with them, breaking some of the ice right away.

Though I not sure if it's accurate to say my humor and earnestness are different even though they look the same; often they exist in tandem in the same thoughts.




Ever since I introduced the book in The Solace of Words, where I stopped reading with the mere introduction and afterwards, I have been ever so slowly, lovingly work my way through The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. I pull it out about once a week and read maybe three to five pages so that I can savor each new word and definition. Connect with them. Really feel them.
From "About This Book"

It's a calming thing, to learn there's a word for something you've felt all your life but didn't know was shared by anyone else. It's even oddly empowering--to be reminded that you're not alone, you're not crazy, you're just an ordinary human being trying to make your way through a bizarre set of circumstances.

From "On Gratitude"

Over time I began to get a sense of how much we all must secretly have in common. How many of us must be burdened by the same unanswerable questions, muttering the same thoughts to the steering wheel or the shower wall. And whenever I felt alone, or confused, or like a stranger to myself, I knew I was tapping into an undercurrent of humanity that connected me invisibly with so many others who feel exactly as I do, each in their own lives. That's the magic of expressing how you feel, as precisely as you can. If nothing else, it can serve as a powerful reminder to all of us that we're not alone.
On my most recent dip into the book I discovered a word that has been haunting me since, a word that hit home at a deeper level than any other I've encountered in it. While usually I note words I want to revisit and share because identifying with them brings me joy, this one I marked because it scares me so. My first instinct was to never share, it makes me feel so vulnerable.

n. a chilling hint of distance that creeps slowly into a relationship— beginning to notice them laugh a little less, look away a little more, explain away their mood like it’s no longer your business—as if you’re watching them fall out of love right in front of you, gradually and painfully, like a hole in the radiator that leaves your house a little colder with every passing day, whose only clue is a slow, unnerving drip—drip —drip.

Middle English riven, to rend, to cleave apart. Pronounced “riv-uh-ner.”
I often make reference to feelings of anxiety and insecurity, and rivener sits at the core of those feelings, a gnawing paranoia that I might experience it. I am irrationally attuned for potential signs of rivener, often, I'm sure, imagining hints of it where none exist. Rationally, I know I need not worry, but the emotion persists. Sometimes I can reassure myself on my own; sometimes I have to ask my wife for reassurance--though then I worry that voicing my worries to her will cause her to question why I'm worried and produce the exact result I'm worried about it, will cause her to think she's seeing signs of rivener from me. If anyone wants to know what I'm afraid of, it's this.

It's probably very much related to this:

n. the maddening inability to understand the reasons why someone loves you—almost as if you’re selling them a used car that you know has a ton of problems and requires daily tinkering just to get it to run normally, but no matter how much you try to warn them, they seem all the more eager to hop behind the wheel and see where this puppy can go.

Latin immerens, undeserving. Pronounced “ih-muhr-en-sis.”
I mean, I've experienced the drip—drip —drip of rivener before and constantly feel it for myself, so why wouldn't she?

And it extends beyond romance to most of my relationships in general, the hypervigilance for signs of rivener, to friends and colleagues and the like. If people I'm interacting with have unexplained apparent lack of happiness, I automatically hold myself responsible and start looking for things I done or said or not done or said that might be to blame.




On a more positive note, sometimes I think I live my life chasing the high of ambedo.

A Momentary Trance of Emotional Clarity

Sometimes when you’re alone and everything is quiet, you feel a certain placeless intensity that drifts in like a fog. It’s subtle at first, lingering somewhere between fidgety boredom and accidental meditation. Maybe you’re sitting up in bed on a dark morning before the day begins, staring blankly at a spot on the wall, thinking about life. Or you’ve arrived somewhere a few minutes early to pick someone up, and you turn off the car and find yourself alone with your thoughts. You take a breath and look around at the still life of the parking lot: a few shrubs swaying in the wind, the arrhythmic tinking of the cooling engine, the keys still swinging in the ignition.

You begin to sense that something is happening—as when you notice a movie pushing into a close-up but can’t figure out what it is you’re supposed to be taking from it. Details that usually strike you as banal now seem utterly alien. The stitching on your shoes, the tendons moving inside your wrists. The saplings, reaching. How delicate and fleeting it all seems, everything struggling just to exist. You feel a kind of melancholic trance sweeping over you. A rush of clarity, as if you’ve shaken yourself out of a dream. You are here. You are alive. You are in it.

You look around at all the other people who happen to share this corner of the world, and imagine where they came from, marveling that all of their paths managed to cross at this particular point in time. You think back to the series of events that brought you here, your choices and your mistakes and your achievements, such as they are. All the twists and turns over the years. It wasn’t what you thought it would be, and yet you can still look back on all the things you’ve lost, and the opportunities that came and went, and feel a pang of gratitude that it happened at all. And now here you are, feeling a kind of joyful grief for your life, in all its blessings and mysteries and chances and changes.

You look around with a new sense of gratitude, taking in the complexity of things: raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee. Everything falls quiet, and the words start to lose their meaning. It all seems to mix together, until you can’t tell the difference between the ordinary and the epic. And you remember that you too are a guest on this Earth. Your life is not just a quest, or an opportunity, or a story to tell; it’s also just an experience, to be lived for its own sake. It doesn’t have to mean anything other than what it is. A single moment can still stand on its own, as a morsel of existence.

But after a minute or two, you’ll feel your hand reaching for your phone or the car radio, eager to drown out your thoughts with distractions. Perhaps there’s a part of you that’s instinctively wary of lingering too long in any one moment. We can breathe this world in, and hold on to it as long as we can, but we can’t just stop there. We have to keep moving, digging around for some deeper meaning, hoping to find an escape hatch between one experience and the next. So we never feel stuck inside one little moment, one little life.

Latin ambedo, “I sink my teeth into.” Pronounced “am-bee-doh.”
That fourth paragraph, that's what I'm after. Those moments. When life makes sense. When everything makes sense; or, really, feeling contentedness that nothing needs to make sense. Those moments where existing is magical. They make everything worthwhile.




In a post a while back, I made reference to an article titled To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This. It described a process for jumpstarting intimacy with others. A key moment in that process is to stare silently into each other’s eyes for four minutes.
Staring into someone’s eyes for four silent minutes was one of the more thrilling and terrifying experiences of my life.
I've come across other sources with similar information, and have, as a facilitator, led groups getting to know each other in pairing off and spending 60 seconds holding direct eye contact with each other.

The Ambiguous Intensity of Eye Contact

So much can be said in a glance. You feel such ambiguous intensity, looking someone in the eye—it’s somehow both intrusive and vulnerable. Their pupils glittering black, bottomless, and opaque.

The eye is a keyhole through which the world pours in, and a world spills out. For a few seconds, you can peek through into a vault that contains everything they are. Catching a glimpse of their vulnerability, their pain, their humor, their vitality, their power over others, and what they demand of themselves. But whether the eyes are the windows of the soul or the doors of perception, it doesn’t really matter: you’re still standing on the outside of the house.

Eye contact isn’t really contact at all. It’s only ever a glance—a near- miss—that you can only feel as it slips past you. There’s so much that we keep in the back room; so much that other people never get to see. We only ever offer up a sample of who we are, of what we think people want us to be. And yet, how rarely do we stop to look inside, let our eyes adjust, and try to see what’s really there, the worlds hidden away in the eyes of others.

You too are peering out from behind your own door. You put yourself out there, trying to decide how much of the world to let in. It’s all too easy for others to size you up and carry on their way. They can see you more clearly than you ever could. Yours is the only vault you can’t see into, that you can’t size up in an instant. You’ll always have to wonder if someone might come along and peer into your soul. Or if anyone out there will put in the effort, trying to find the key.

We’re all just exchanging glances, trying to tell each other who we are. Trying to catch a glimpse of ourselves, feeling around in the darkness.

Greek όπιο (ópio), opium + -ωπία (-opía), of the eyes. The word pupil is from the Latin pupilla, “little girl-doll,” a reference to the tiny image of yourself you see reflected in the eyes of another. This idea was the origin of the Elizabethan expression to look babies, which means “to stare lovingly into another’s eyes.” Pronounced “oh-pee-uh
Though I probably wouldn't have shared this definition without that final paragraph. I love the poetry of it.
We’re all just exchanging glances, trying to tell each other who we are. Trying to catch a glimpse of ourselves, feeling around in the darkness.
That's the truth of the concept I was actually compelled to share. That's what it's all about.

The need for connection and the fear of failed connection.




Aye, too true:
Every reasonable creature knows that the worst thing any creature can do all day is think of themselves. If there are troubles in your mind, you should think first of the troubles of others; it is the essence of liberation. That is, freedom begins the moment we forget ourselves.

If only it were as easy as it sounds.



2.20.2024

The Ecosystem of Us


Everything is ecosystems.

You are a we.

There is no I.


The stories we tell matter.

They shape us.

They shape how we see the world.

They shape how we interact with the world.

How might our behavior change if we understood the extent to which cooperation within and among species undergirds the natural world and makes it thrive? If we looked for that cooperation? Could we begin to see ourselves as partners and helpers, part of a greater fabric of giving, instead of exploiters and colonizers and wreckers?

Sweet in Tooth and Claw, Kristin Ohlson
Life makes you believe in certain things, a certain order. A certain reality. The world is not simple. The world is not one place. It's the sum of an impossible number of incomprehensible things, and if you start out on any road in the world and follow it for any distance at all, sooner or later you enter into strange country.

So, the world is not simple, but it would be much, much better for us if it was. And we can sense that, even if we do not understand or perceive the full complexity of things. So we look for order.

-----

"It makes perfect sense to me, but I can promise you that what I understand is entirely different from what you do."

"Then I'm wrong, aren't I? I really thought . . . but . . . "

"You think just because you and I understand two different things, one of us has to be wrong?"

"Well . . . yes. If it's a book of instructions--well, there has to be a right way and a wrong way to read it. That's only logical, isn't it?"

"If there was only one was to read a book--any book in the world--if there was only one way to read and understand it, what would be the point of reading that book?” 

The Broken Lands, Kate Milford

In the introduction to her book Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World, Kristin Ohlson describes a small group experience she had. The facilitator instructed everyone in the group to look around the room, making a note of everything blue. After a minute, she told them to close their eyes. Then she asked them to name something in the room that was yellow. No one could. They had been so focused on seeing the blue things that they had been blind to the yellow ones--along with all the other colors that were not blue. They saw only what they looked for and nothing else.

He had made a mirror with the power of causing all that was good and beautiful when it was reflected therein, to look poor and mean; but that which was good-for-nothing and looked ugly was shown magnified and increased in ugliness. In this mirror the most beautiful landscapes looked like boiled spinach, and the best persons were turned into frights, or appeared to stand on their heads; their faces were so distorted that they were not to be recognised; and if anyone had a mole, you might be sure that it would be magnified and spread over both nose and mouth. . . . 

[The mirror] was dashed in a hundred million and more pieces. And now it worked much more evil than before; for some of these pieces were hardly so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about in the wide world, and when they got into people's eyes, there they stayed; and then people saw everything perverted, or only had an eye for that which was evil. This happened because the very smallest bit had the same power which the whole mirror had possessed. Some persons even got a splinter in their heart, and then it made one shudder, for their heart became like a lump of ice. Some of the broken pieces were so large that they were used for windowpanes, through which one could not see one's friends. Other pieces were put in spectacles; and that was a sad affair when people put on their glasses to see well and rightly.

The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen

I've written on this blog about how I like to take "awe walks," trying to see unexpected beauty to get myself out of my head, feel more connected to the world around, and into a state of appreciation. They help me move from seeing things in an egocentric way, distorted by anxiety, insecurity, and my other insular concerns. But it's not an automatic thing.

The other day I went for a walk after a work meeting that had left me grouchy with strong emotions. Within ten minutes, without trying, I found the following two faces looking up at me from the ground.



The world is a mirror, reflecting back at us what we feel and think.

The stories we tell ourselves shape how we see the world.


Ecosystems

Polycultures

Mutualisms

Cooperation

Biodiversity

Complexity


You can be sure the trees benefit from the squirrels equally. That's how mutualisms work.


In The Acme of Evolution, I shared extensively from This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution by David Sloan Wilson, including his primary point:
To paraphrase, evolution is groups working together to improve and grow through trial-and-error learning. From the level of genes and cells, bacteria and simple organisms, scaling up through plants and animals to humans and cultures, the lesson of evolution is “that the primary way to survive and reproduce [is] through teamwork.”
That leads nicely into the book I just finished, Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World by Kristin Ohlson. The quick description I wrote for my review:

The common narrative describes evolution as a competition, a struggle in which all parts of nature fight all other parts. Ohlson argues in this book that we see the natural world as such because that's what we've gone looking for. If we switch our perspective, though, to looking for cooperation, we can find just as much evidence to support a view that nature and evolution are a story of mutualisms, of diverse, complex, cooperative, polycultural ecosystems where lifeforms depend upon and help each other, stronger together. Cooperation is as much the norm as competition, if only we can see it.

This book is Ohlson's attempt to shift the narrative. Each chapter demonstrates a different realm of natural cooperation, where science has only recently come to understand the dynamics of the beneficial relationships at work--and of people putting that science into action in new and dynamic ways. Of how humans are learning to be cooperative partners with nature for mutual benefit. Her accounts are personal and narrative, as she spent time with each of those she writes about, even as she delves into the science involved. Her writing is meant to inspire readers to join in seeing and acting differently, and in that she succeeds eloquently.
How might our behavior change if we understood the extent to which cooperation within and among species undergirds the natural world and makes it thrive? If we looked for that cooperation? Could we begin to see ourselves as partners and helpers, part of a greater fabric of giving, instead of exploiters and colonizers and wreckers?
Other quotes:
I couldn't help but believe that every quivering twig, every lip of fungus curling away from a fallen tree, every sprightly tuft of moss--everything--was throbbing with a dance of life carried on by multiple partners. Science is just barely beginning to catch on.

-----

Scientists now find that just about every complex plant, fungus, and animal hosts a dynamic microbiota--a community of bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa, and other microorganisms that live in us and on us and are essential to our health, just we are essential to theirs. We are not individuals but ecosystems, each of us hosting a whirl of organisms busily interacting with us and with each other in a complex web of connection. The ecosystem of us lives within larger ecosystems--our gardens, our neighborhoods, our farms, our cities, whatever wilderness we have left--where we interact and overlap with other animal-plant-fungal ecosystems and the invisibles inside them as well as free-living microbes throughout the environment that aren't associated with hosts. Those larger ecosystems are nested within and interacting with even larger ones, on and on until they encompass the entire planet.

And if the rub-your-stomach, pat-your-head mental exercise of picturing those nested ecosystems isn't mind-boggling enough, consider that even our microbiota have a microbiota. Viruses and even small mobile "genetic elements" (meaning, things that move bits of genetic material around but don't meet the traditional definitions of life) weave in and among the bacteria in our guts, changing the affected bacteria's own genetic potential for harm or good.

-----

The Smiths offered to put their ranch up as an experiment in this new approach--it was the only thing they thought might save their cattle business, and besides, they were now excited about this whole new way of looking at nature. Amazingly, the state and federal agencies all agreed that it was worth a try. . . . Further, the agencies agreed that the Smiths could expand the herd from three hundred cows to a thousand because this new approach turned the old thinking about livestock on its head: instead of being a scourge, it held that well-managed cattle had a positive impact on the land and that you needed enough of them to do the job right.

-----

Johnson has found that as soil becomes richer in carbon, its microbial community has the energy to take on bigger and more varied tasks. . . . 

At this point, Johnson says, the bacterial colony can muster the kind of cooperative efforts that exist in human cities--the mocrobial version of traffic laws, hospitals, and community gardens. This large-scale cooperation enables them to use carbon more efficiently and can turn a piece of degraded land from one that's gassing off copious amounts of respired carbon dioxide into healthy hland that actually retains carbon. . . . 

"If you have a chemical view of soil, you just think of soil as a place to grow plants," Kloot says. "With that view, the only way to make things grow is to manipulate them chemically. But if you see soil as a living, mutualistic dynamic ecosystem that's changing all the time, that's full of microbes, it's a whole different view and it affects the way you do things."

-----

To create biophilic cities--and we are so accustomed to bleak and dystopian visions of cities that it's hard for us to believe that there can be soft and verdant ones--we need citizens who are that excited about nature.

-----

We humans expect much of our own ingenuity and cleverness, but we often fail to consider that many of the answers we seek already exist and are part of the greater creativity--and generosity--of nature.


A couple of weeks ago, I was throwing a frisbee around with my boys in the backyard. They kept apologizing for throws that didn't come perfectly to me. I responded that frisbees are hard to throw and almost never go exactly where you want them to. It's all part of the activity, so they didn't need to apologize or feel bad. "I never expect a frisbee throw to be perfect, so I'm never disappointed if I have to chase one a bit," I said. "So don't worry about what's not perfect, just accept that's how it works and enjoy the activity."

Even as I said it, I felt it was a good metaphor for relationships and people. I never expect a person to be perfect, so I'm never disappointed if they have flaws and make mistakes. It's not about having low expectations, though; it's about being accepting, non-judgmental, and understanding. Everyone's going to be tilted and wobbly at times, take curved paths, get pushed off-course by the wind and other outside forces, and miss the target. That's reality. There's no point being upset about the imperfections. Instead, focus on what's good and enjoy getting to be together. It's an orientation for interacting with others.


This bit is pretty tangential to the rest of the post, I simply share it because I love how well this piece of writing succeeds at the mantra "show, don't tell" when describing someone in a very unhappy place.
Her lifestyle is simple.

She launders her few black outfits without delay, shops for the minimum of groceries at the nearby store, prepares the minimum of food and, after eating, promptly tidies everything away. In the daytime hours when she is not occupied with those basic tasks, she generally sits unmoving on the living-room sofa looking out at the tall trees' verdant branches and thick lower trunks. The house grows dark when it is not yet evening. Around the time when the trees' contours grow black, she opens the front door and goes out. She passes through the apartment complex as dusk is falling, reaches the pedestrian crossing where the green light doesn't stay on for long and carries on walking.

She walks in order to exhaust herself to the point of no longer being able to walk. She walks until she is unable to register the quiet of the house to which she must now return, until she has no strength left to cast her gaze over the black woods, the black curtains, the black sofa, the black Lego boxes. She walks until, giddy with tiredness, she will be able to lie down on her side on the sofa and fall asleep without washing or tugging a quilt over herself. She walks so that she will not wake in the middle of the night even if plagued by nightmares, so that she will not toss and turn with her eyes open until dawn, unable to achieve sleep again. She walks so that, in those vivid dawn hours, she will not have to doggedly recall and piece together the broken shards of memories.
From Greek Lessons by Han Kang, which I described as: A sensitive, quiet story about two damaged people slowly, gradually emerging from their individual isolations to find consolation in connection with each other. Wonderful writing.


I've recently been enjoying the music album Signs of Life by Neil Gaiman & FourPlay String Quartet. As a librarian, I can't not love these words.
Credo

I believe that it is difficult to kill an idea, because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast.

I believe that you can set your own ideas against ideas you dislike. That you should be free to argue, explain, clarify, debate, offend, insult, rage, mock, sing, dramatise and deny.

I do not believe that burning, murdering, exploding people, smashing their heads with rocks (to let the bad ideas out), drowning them or even defeating them will work to contain ideas you do not like. Ideas spring up where you do not expect them, like weeds, and are as difficult to control.

I believe that repressing ideas spreads ideas.

I believe that people and books and newspapers are containers for ideas, but that burning the people who hold the ideas will be as unsuccessful as firebombing the newspaper archives. It is already too late. It is always too late. The ideas are already out, hiding behind people’s eyes, waiting in their thoughts. They can be whispered. They can be written on walls in the dead of night. They can be drawn.

I believe that ideas do not have to be correct to exist.

I believe you have every right to be perfectly certain that images of god or prophet or human that you revere are sacred and undefilable, just as I have the right to be certain of the sacredness of speech, of the sanctity of the right to mock, comment, to argue and to utter.

I believe I have the right to think and say the wrong things. I believe your remedy for that should be to argue with me or to ignore me, and that I should have the same remedy for the wrong things that you think.

I believe that you have the absolute right to think things that I find offensive, stupid, preposterous or dangerous, and that you have the right to speak, write, or distribute these things, and that I do not have the right to kill you, maim you, hurt you, or take away your liberty or property because I find your ideas threatening or insulting or downright disgusting. You probably think some of my ideas are pretty vile, too.
I believe that in the battle between guns and ideas, ideas will, eventually, win. 
Because the ideas are invisible, and they linger, and, sometimes, they can even be true.

Eppur si muove: and yet it moves.
You can read more words, sample music, and learn about the project at their website.


n. curiosity about the impact you’ve had on the lives of the people you know, wondering which of your harmless actions or long-forgotten words might have altered the plot of their stories in ways you’ll never get to see.
Be curious.

Know you're connected.

We are each an us.

Ecosystems are all there is.

Learn to see ecosystems.

Learn to think in ecosystems.


2.01.2024

The Blockbuster Video School of Life


I was in high school when I developed my Blockbuster Video model of decision-making.

A store full of videotapes available for rental. I saw some people who would walk into the store and start browsing, find a movie they were interested in watching, immediately rent it, and go home happy. They had a movie they were excited to see, so there was nothing else to think about.

Me, on the other hand, when I came across a movie I was interested in watching, I'd make a note but take no action. Yes, I wanted to see that movie, but there was still most of a store's worth of videos I hadn't even considered yet--maybe there was something among them I'd want to see even more than the one I'd already noted. I couldn't be sure until I'd considered all my options. So I'd have to browse every shelf, cataloging a list of potential titles to rent as I went, and only pick one after I'd seen everything.

That general principle applies to decision-making across the board. Some people see a good option and take it; some people need to consider all the options before taking one. Watch a person navigate a Blockbuster Video store and you'll gain a good insight into their basic approach to making all decisions.

The big hazard, for people like me, is not getting trapped in paralysis by indecision. There does come a point where further contemplation is simply stalling. There's no need to be rash, but a decision does ultimately need to be made before the night is wasted at the store.

The big complication came when people of different decision-making styles were trying to select a movie together. It was a difficult issue to negotiate, and didn't always result in everyone happy. Someone would end up bored and impatient or flustered and rushed, depending on how the power struggle resolved. Feelings needed tending and compromise needed accepting. Sometimes the movie was enjoyed by all, sometimes not. Thus is group dynamics.

At the Blockbuster Video school of life.


Some people might think you create needless complexity during discussions and may want you to make decisions faster than you do. Consider tailoring your approach; sometimes it’s better to keep it simple and go more in depth later.

You are best described by the serious care you take in making decisions or choices.

Because you take time to think carefully before making a decision, people might perceive you as forgetful, slow or afraid to act. Be prepared to explain that you are none of those things and that you are just considering all of the potential next steps.

Your objective and fact-based approach to decision-making may seem skeptical or critical. Keep in mind that others will have emotional, subjective and personal opinions — and that their input is just as valuable as yours is.

Always have at least three options in mind so you can adapt if circumstances change.


What is the biggest communication challenge you’ve faced in the workplace? How did you handle it and what did you learn about yourself?

I’m instinctively much more inclined to parallel play than group work, and find I’m more comfortable doing independent work that contributes to a team effort than true collaboration. I like to be given clear expectations for a goal, then given space to reach that goal in my own way—and I automatically assume others will operate in the same way, which means I’ve had to learn to pay better attention when others have different needs, whether more space or a more structured, closely engaged process.

I’ve also learned I am a very low-context communicator and have to avoid feeling frustrated with those who are high-context. I come from a Midwest nice, Mennonite background that was emotionally restrained and conflict-avoidant as a general rule, taught by osmosis to repress disagreement and negative feelings, to let things simmer and resentments build. While I retain much of that influence (one person I played games with called me “Captain Polite” and another nicknamed me “The Canadian), I’ve worked hard to be much more direct in my communication and to be comfortable with disagreement and dissent. Sometimes those I’m communicating with have differing needs. (Over the past week I’ve binged the first season of the TV show The Bear, and have been completely fascinated by their communication style—all cussing, yelling, confrontational—which is so different than anything I’ve known.)


I was recently asked the question above in a low-stakes situation at work, and that was my spontaneous answer.
 

So a bit of naval gazing to start things off today. I've been thinking about myself at work because we're in the midst of a reorganization, and part of that has been the purchase of our full results on the Strengths Finder Assessment tool. That's the source of the right-aligned phrases above.

We completed the assessment last year about this time and were given the report on our Top Five Strengths. I shared those results in Find the Thread of Love and Beauty in It All, beginning with this poem:
Input | Learner | Intellection | Connectedness | Individualization
This mental hum is one of the constants of your life.

A craving to know more,
gleaning information, inspiration, insights,
unraveling the mysteries.

The kind of mind that finds so many things interesting;
the world is exciting precisely because of
its infinite variety and complexity.

You will always be drawn to the process of learning.
The process.
Journey from ignorance to competence.

Alone with your books and your thoughts,
you continually seek wisdom,
reflect or wonder — about theories, ideas, concepts,
fascinated with the intangible and abstract aspects of life.

You link ideas, events, people.
We are all connected,
part of something larger,
not isolated from one another
or from the earth and the life on it.

You recognize how people are alike and how they are different,
intrigued by the unique qualities of each person,
you can draw out the best in each,
build productive teams.

You are a bridge builder for people of different cultures.
A collection of words and phrases, at least, if not properly a poem. They are not my words, but they are (I like to think) about me.

I'll share a lot of words from the full report lower in this post.


My #4 strength is Connectedness, which means I naturally see the connections between people and nature and things, that I understand everything as a system, and know that change in one part of the system impacts other parts of the system.

The big-headed ants’ coup disrupts a tight symbiosis, in which the trees furnish the native ants with food and shelter in exchange for defense. “We call them bodyguards,” Jacob Goheen, Kamaru’s supervisor at the University of Wyoming, told me. The main threat the native ants waylay is elephants—which, given the chance, will so aggressively chow down on trees that they end up stripped bare, even toppled, struggling to resprout. But the mere presence of native acacia ants is usually enough to keep whistling thorns upright: When elephant trunks snake into the trees’ branches, the insects zoom straight in, nipping at the flesh of their nostrils until the herbivores flee.

Big-headed ants offer no such defense, and in regions where they’ve invaded, elephants do five to seven times more damage to whistling thorns than they’d otherwise manage, Kamaru’s team found. And because upwards of 70 percent of trees in this habitat are whistling thorns, their disappearance is enough to effectively convert the savanna into a nearly open grassland.

On those newly remodeled plains, skittish zebras may gain a good 50 feet of extra visibility as they scour the horizon for predators, Goheen told me, “enough to mean life versus death.” In regions where acacias and their native ants remain intact, the researchers found, lions have little issue cloaking themselves behind trees to stage an ambush. But in big-headed-ant country, where the skyline is threadbare and lions stick out, zebra survival rates have close to tripled. After chasing a few too many zebras that elude their claws, the big cats have started to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

Big-headed ants aren’t yet an extreme threat to big-cat welfare. Lions in big-headed-ant territory are still making some zebra kills; where their diet needs supplementing, they’re filling in the gaps with buffalo. So far, the size of the lion populations in the regions that Kamaru’s team studies has not detectably dropped. But buffalo have always been a second-choice meat for a reason: They’re far larger and more aggressive than zebras, requiring more lions to take them down. They’re also apt to gore their attackers with their formidable horns. “They’re frightening animals, even if you’re a lion,” Kwasi Wrensford, a behavioral ecologist at the University of British Columbia, told me. Wrensford worries about what will happen if the big-headed ants continue their invasive advances—which they appear to be doing at a rate of roughly 160 feet a year, in a kind of slo-mo deforesting—and the region’s zebras become even harder to snatch. There may be a limit to just how much buffalo can supplement a big cat’s diet; eventually, lions might need to find yet another alternative, or starve. . . . 

The tale of the lions and the big-headed ants reads almost like a macabre children’s book in its walk through a disrupted food web. An unfriendly ant messes with its neighbor, harming a local tree; a hungry elephant gorges itself until it disrupts a bumbling lion’s dinner plans.
Cooperation is self-interest.


One of the interesting things about having access to the full report is getting to see the areas that are not so much strengths for me, my lowest scores.

The bottom two, especially. I want to see positive results, but I don't do that with Positivity, with "upbeat," "contagious enthusiasm." That's not me. The other four are in the "influencing" category. I'm honestly quite surprised to see Communication so low since it's something I value and work on, so I'm guessing it's low because I don't communicate for the express purpose of influencing. Since I see us as all connected through our networks and systems, Competition doesn't make any sense to me. Cooperation is self-interest. And I have absolutely no Woo.

I won't share the whole thing now, with all the research and reasons that back my conclusion, but I have a rant against the idea of trying to woo people into loving the library. Many in my profession like to talk about all those they encounter who are delightfully surprised when they discover just all the things libraries offer, and want to spend a lot of time helping non-users discover just how awesome the library is. I, however, don't believe we should be in the evangelism business, trying to convert people into library-lovers. We have more important things to do with our time, energy, and resources. I made this meme as a quick illustration.


The library profession in general is lower in the "influencing" realm than society as a whole. After all, at the core of our identity is the value of Intellectual Freedom, especially the Freedom to Read Statement. We're in the business of championing the right of people to think what they want, not persuading them to think a particular way. So no Woo for me.


This article isn't really related to anything else in today's post, it's just something that came across my feed that I find intriguing.

Chronic inflammation is relatively rare among people who don’t live Western-style lifestyles, and it is not inevitable with age. . . . 

The populations he studied grew up in rural, dirty areas where they were frequently exposed to infectious diseases. He hypothesizes that this less-than-sanitary life early on effectively calibrated their immune systems, tuning their inflammatory responses to properly react to threats. These days, children in Western societies often don’t have their immune systems regularly challenged. . . . 

Regimes of sanitation and hygiene that control lethal pathogens also reduce exposure to the harmless microbes that have been part of the human environment for millennia. . . . 

“In many ways, chronic low-grade inflammation can be considered another ‘disease of affluence,’ a mismatch between our evolved biology and historically recent societal conditions that extend average life expectancies but also increase burdens of non-communicable diseases,” McDade wrote.

McDade’s idea is closely related to the widely evidenced “hygiene hypothesis,” which blames overly sanitized conditions for increasing rates of allergies and other autoimmune disorders in developed countries.

Is there a remedy for widespread chronic inflammation? Proper diet and regular exercise can help, as they do for almost any ailment. But if McDade’s hypothesis is correct, a longer-term cure is providing the immune system with reasonable adversity early on. Parents don’t have to let their kids crawl around landfills, but a little more dogs and dirt and a little less hand sanitizer and antibacterials seem reasonable.
Life is meant to be dirty, I guess.


A few more statements from my full report, briefly showing how my top Strengths combine and influence each other.

  • As a natural student/teacher, you love the process of learning, and you are always looking for useful resources that can enhance learning. (input + learner)
  • Just because your thinking can be deep and philosophical does not mean that it cannot be practical and useful. (input + intellection)
  • You are a student of the world in which you live, and you are student of the world of thoughts that lives within you. (learner + intellection)
  • You assist those who aspire to spiritual health or personal well-being by sharing tangible and helpful resources. (input + connectedness)
  • You gather valuable resources, mindful of their usefulness. You share valuable resources, mindful of their relevance. (input + individualization)
  • You are glad there are some things that are beyond your comprehension. You love to study, but you hate to know it all. (learner + connectedness)
  • You are comfortable with the variety of life and the diversity of people. You are equally effective learning about things or individuals. (learner + individualization)
  • It is important for you to think deeply and personally about the global and spiritual nature of life. (intellection + connectedness)
  • Intuitive, you sense the essential nature of others. Self-reflective, you know yourself extremely well. (intellection + individualization)
  • You can see the whole forest of global humanity, but you can also identify the unique tree that is an individual person. (connectedness + individualization)
Input | Learner | Intellection | Connectedness | Individualization


This is a really good article, the only content of any real import in today's post.

Whether you’re on the MAGA right or the social-justice left, you define your identity by how you stand against what you perceive to be the dominant structures of society. Groups on each side of the political divide are held together less by common affections than by a common sense of threat, an experience of collective oppression.  Today’s communal culture is based on a shared belief that society is broken, systems are rotten, the game is rigged, injustice prevails, the venal elites are out to get us; we find solidarity and meaning in resisting their oppression together. Again, there is a right-wing version (Donald Trump’s “I am your retribution”) and a left-wing version (the intersectional community of oppressed groups), but what they share is an us-versus-them Manichaeism. The culture war gives life shape and meaning.

Social scientists have had to come up with new phrases to capture this set of cultural attitudes and practices. In 2015, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff identified “vindictive protectiveness,” which is what happens when an online mob rallies together to punish a perceived threat from an oppressor. Henrique Carvalho and Anastasia Chamberlen developed the concept of “hostile solidarity” to describe the ways that retaliatory action binds people against their foes. This mode of collectivism embeds us in communities—but they’re not friendly communities; they’re angry ones.

In this culture, people feel bonded not because they are cooperating with one another but because they are indignant about the same things. . . . 

In this way, pessimism becomes a membership badge—the ultimate sign that you are on the side of the good. If your analysis is not apocalyptic, you’re naive, lacking in moral urgency, complicit with the status quo. . . . 

But there is a giant gap between many of these negative perceptions and actual reality. . . . 

The current culture confers status and belonging to those who see the world as negatively as possible. . . . 

Liberals think the country is moving right; conservatives are convinced that the country is moving left. Whatever your perspective, everything appears to be going downhill. . . . 

The culture of collective negativity has had a deleterious effect on levels of trust: In 1964, 45 percent of Americans said that most people can be trusted, according to a survey by American National Election Studies. That survey no longer asks this question, but a University of Chicago survey asked the exact same question to Americans in 2022 and found that number is now 25 percent. Seventy-three percent of adults under 30 believe that, most of the time, people just look out for themselves, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey. Seventy-one percent say that most people “would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance.”

Human relationships have come to be viewed through a prism of power and exploitation. Institutions are assumed to be fundamentally illegitimate, rigged. . . . 

The problem is that if you mess around with negative emotions, negative emotions will mess around with you, eventually taking over your life. Focusing on the negative inflates negativity. As John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister note in their book The Power of Bad, if you interpret the world through the lens of collective trauma, you may become overwhelmed by self-perpetuating waves of fear, anger, and hate. You’re likely to fall into a neurotic spiral, in which you become more likely to perceive events as negative, which makes you feel terrible, which makes you more alert to threats, which makes you perceive even more negative events, and on and on. Moreover, negativity is extremely contagious. When people around us are pessimistic, indignant, and rageful, we’re soon likely to become that way too. This is how today’s culture has produced mass neuroticism. . . . 

The persistent gaps between how things are and how they are perceived are new, maybe even unprecedented. In case after case, the data show one thing; conventional wisdom perceives another. . . . 

We have produced a culture that celebrates catastrophizing. This does not lend itself to effective strategies for achieving social change. The prevailing assumption seems to be that the more bitterly people denounce a situation, the more they will be motivated to change it. But history shows the exact opposite to be true.  As the Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman demonstrated in The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, social reform tends to happen in moments of growth and prosperity. It happens when people are feeling secure and are inspired to share their good fortune. It happens when leaders can convey a plausible vision of the common good.

A recent paper by four economists reinforces the idea that the mood of a culture can directly effect material progress. . . . Doomsaying can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The thought of a second Trump term appalls and terrifies me. But to the more apocalyptic and Chicken Little–ish of my progressive friends, I’ll say this: You’re only helping him. Donald Trump thrives in an atmosphere of menace. Authoritarianism flourishes amid pessimism, fear, and rage. Trump feeds off zero-sum thinking, the notion that society is war—us-versus-them, dog-eat-dog. The more you contribute to the culture of depressive negativity, the more likely Trump’s reelection becomes.
The culture of collective negativity has had a deleterious effect on levels of trust.

Human relationships have come to be viewed through a prism of power and exploitation. Institutions are assumed to be fundamentally illegitimate, rigged.

Focusing on the negative inflates negativity.

Social reform tends to happen in moments of growth and prosperity. It happens when people are feeling secure and are inspired to share their good fortune. It happens when leaders can convey a plausible vision of the common good.

Cooperation is self-interest.


Finally, much information from my full Strengths report. I realize it's probably only interesting to me, but this is one of the places I collect and archive information, so here it is.


You lead with Strategic Thinking.

  • EXECUTING themes help you make things happen.
  • INFLUENCING themes help you take charge, speak up and make sure others are heard.
  • RELATIONSHIP BUILDING themes help you build strong relationships that hold a team together.
  • STRATEGIC THINKING themes help you absorb and analyze information that informs better decisions.

1. Input


People with strong Input talents are inquisitive and always want to know more. They crave information. They might collect ideas, books, memorabilia, quotations or facts. Whatever they collect, they do so because it interests them. They find many things interesting and have a natural curiosity. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. A few minutes spent surfing the internet may turn into hours once their curiosity takes off. They constantly acquire, compile and file things away. Their pursuits keep their minds fresh. They know that one day the information or things they’ve gathered will prove valuable.

HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You have a need to collect and archive. You may accumulate information, ideas, artifacts or even relationships.

WHY YOUR INPUT IS UNIQUE

Driven by your talents, you are quite comfortable having time to yourself to enjoy a favorite pastime: reading. Whether you are sitting on a quiet beach or in a crowded airport terminal, you create your own space with a book, magazine, newspaper, document, or correspondence. Gleaning information, inspiration, or insights from these sources can make your relaxation more pleasurable or your delays more tolerable.

Because of your strengths, you occasionally spend hours unraveling the mysteries of complicated procedures, routines, or systems. Perhaps your step-by-step descriptions help individuals understand how something operates.

Chances are good that you are willing to spend time sharing your ideas with intelligent individuals. Of course, you want them to tell you their latest thinking. Conversations that involve a lot of questions and answers stimulate your mind. You know you have spent your time wisely when you have a number of new ideas, theories, or concepts to somehow file away or remember for future use.

By nature, you continually absorb, integrate, or catalog new information with ease. Ever eager to expand your knowledge base, you read avidly. Because you can access your memory bank at any time, you are free to process writers’ or researchers’ ideas immediately or at a later time.

It’s very likely that you acknowledge that you sometimes reduce elaborate procedures, ideas, regulations, or systems to their basic parts. This partially explains why you can tell some individuals how certain things operate.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING INPUT

You seek and store information. Your pursuit of mastery and access to knowledge empowers you to make credible and well-informed decisions.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Keep exploring; always be curious.

 • Find out more about areas you want to specialize in. Consider jobs or volunteer opportunities where you can acquire and share information every day, such as teaching, journalism or research work.

 • Regularly read books and articles that motivate you. Increase your vocabulary by collecting new words and learning their meaning.

 • Devise a system to store and easily locate information you have found so you can access it quickly. Use whatever approach works best for you — a file for articles you have saved, a database or spreadsheet, or a list of your favorite websites.

 • Position yourself as an expert. Share your exceptional archive of facts, data and ideas with others when they need help or advice.

 • Seek out subject-matter experts who would be interested in knowing what you are learning and who would find it stimulating to hear about the questions and ideas you generate through your exploration.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • Unrestrained input can lead to intellectual or physical clutter. Consider occasionally taking inventory and purging what you don’t need so that your surroundings — and your mind — don’t become overloaded.

 • You might have a tendency to give people so much information or so many resources that you can overload and overwhelm them. Before you share your discoveries with others, consider sorting out what is most meaningful so they don’t lose interest.

2. Learner


People with strong Learner talents constantly strive to learn and improve. The process of learning is just as important to them as the knowledge they gain. The steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence energizes Learners. The thrill of learning new facts, beginning a new subject and mastering an important skill excites people with dominant Learner talents. Learning builds these people’s confidence. Having Learner as a dominant theme does not necessarily motivate someone to become a subject-matter expert or strive for the respect that accompanies earning a professional or academic credential. The outcome of learning is less significant than the “getting there.”

HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. The process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites you.

WHY YOUR LEARNER IS UNIQUE

By nature, you spend considerable time examining exactly why something has gone wrong. Whenever you experience a personal or professional loss, make a mistake, or experience failure, you tend to investigate. You are likely to be restless until you have answers to all your basic questions: What? How? When? Where? Who? Why?

It’s very likely that you treasure books and other publications because they are rich sources of information. You regard the written word as a gateway to a vast world of new ideas. Your quest to interpret events, grasp facts or understand concepts appears limitless. Frequently you read to broaden your perspective on very familiar as well as altogether unfamiliar topics.

Driven by your talents, you have little difficulty giving intense effort to projects, problems, or opportunities that capture and keep your attention.

Because of your strengths, you may prefer to enroll in demanding classes. Perhaps you thrive in situations where you can test your talents or your endurance to discover how much you can accomplish. You may need to “prove yourself to yourself” every now and then.

Chances are good that you routinely gather historical facts or artifacts — that is, pictures, tools, books, artwork, correspondence, or documents. You often wait to determine whether this information is useful. Your interest in history probably has no purpose other than to answer your own questions. You are simply intrigued by the past and its people. The future starts to take shape in your mind as soon as you begin to rummage through your collection of historic truths and objects.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING LEARNER

You love to learn, and you intuitively know how you learn best. Your natural ability to pick up and absorb information quickly and to challenge yourself to continually learn more keeps you on the cutting edge.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Use your passion for learning to add value to your own and others’ lives.

 • Become an early adopter of new technology, and keep your coworkers, friends and family informed. You learn quickly, and others will appreciate when you share and explain cutting edge developments to them.

 • Respect your desire to learn. Take advantage of educational opportunities in your community or at work. Discipline yourself to sign up for at least one new course or class each year.

 • Find opportunities to expand your knowledge. Take on increasingly difficult topics, courses or projects. You love the challenge of a steep learning curve, so beware of learning plateaus.

 • Be a catalyst for change. New rules, skills or circumstances might intimidate others. Your willingness to absorb new and different factors can calm their fears.

 • Keep track of your learning progress. If a skill or topic has distinct levels or stages of learning, celebrate your progression from one level to the next. If not, create them for yourself. For example, set a goal of reading five books on a new subject.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • You place a high value on learning and studying, and you may tend to impose this value on others. Be sure to respect others’ motivations, and resist pushing them toward learning for learning’s sake.

 • You love the process of learning so much that the outcome might not matter to you. Be careful not to let the process of knowledge acquisition get in the way of your results and productivity. 

3. Intellection


People with strong Intellection talents like to think. They like mental activity. They like to exercise the “muscles” of their brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused; for example, they may be trying to solve a problem, develop an idea or understand another person’s feelings. The exact focus will depend on their other strengths. The theme of Intellection does not dictate what these people are thinking about; it simply describes that they like to think. They like to let their thoughts go in many directions. People with strong Intellection talents are introspective. This introspection gives them time to reflect and ponder. Wherever it leads them, their mental hum is a constant in their lives.

HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You are characterized by your intellectual activity. You are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

WHY YOUR INTELLECTION IS UNIQUE

Chances are good that you designate a minimum of five hours a week for solitary thinking. You probably have figured out how to eliminate distractions and interruptions. You accept the fact that you have less free time to spend with family, friends, coworkers, teammates, or classmates.

Because of your strengths, you characteristically read books, periodicals, documents, correspondence, or Internet sites. You are willing to be mentally stimulated by thought provoking ideas, information, data, predictions, insights, characters, or plots.

Driven by your talents, you read to stimulate your mind, to broaden your perspective, and to explore familiar as well as unfamiliar subjects. Reading is a solitary activity, which is one of the reasons why you like it so much. You are quite comfortable being alone with your books and your thoughts.

Instinctively, you continually seek wisdom from people with whom you have intelligent conversations. You not only listen but also share your thoughts. In the process, you are likely to move beyond concrete facts. Your curiosity draws you to speculate — that is, reflect or wonder — about theories, ideas, or concepts. To keep your mind fresh, you frequently quiz individuals who are equally fascinated with the intangible and abstract aspects of life.

By nature, you are the ideal example of a person with an open and agile mind. Thinking consumes a great portion of your time. You like to exchange ideas with individuals who are as well-read as you are. Your passion for the written word fuels your thought processes and lays the groundwork for sophisticated conversations. When you are alone, you probably reflect upon the thoughts of brilliant writers or the findings of notable researchers.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING INTELLECTION

You love to think, muse and reflect. Your powerful mental processing and intellectual activity empower you to clarify and explain, regardless of the topic or situation.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Think deeply. Think often.

 • Set aside a few minutes every day to collect your thoughts. This reflection time will energize you, and your thinking will become sharper and more effective.

 • Get involved in big projects or initiatives in the early stages, before the action begins. You have the ability to follow a trail to see where it leads, and your insights enable projects to move forward intelligently and without backtracking.

 • Take time to write. Writing might be the best way to crystallize and integrate your thoughts. Make a list of your best ideas, and refer to it often. Revisiting your thoughts can give you valuable insights.

 • Give people time to think through the thoughts and ideas you present. Remember that they have not spent as much time as you have pondering, so they might not grasp your message right away.

 • Deliberately build relationships with people you consider to be “big thinkers.” Their example will inspire you to focus your own thinking.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • Because you are comfortable with silence and solitude, others might view you as isolated, disinterested or disengaged. Be prepared to tell them that solitary thinking is just your natural process and not necessarily a reflection of how much you care.

 • Some people might think you create needless complexity during discussions and may want you to make decisions faster than you do. Consider tailoring your approach; sometimes it’s better to keep it simple and go more in depth later.

4. Connectedness


Things happen for a reason. Those with strong Connectedness talents are sure of it. They have a powerful conviction that everyone is connected. While each person is responsible for their own judgments and actions, those with strong Connectedness believe everyone is part of something larger. This belief implies certain responsibilities. Their awareness of these responsibilities creates their value system. They are considerate, caring and accepting. Confident in the unity of humankind, they build bridges for people of different cultures. They give others comfort that there is a purpose beyond everyday existence. Their faith is strong. It sustains them and their close friends in the face of life’s mysteries.

HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You have faith in the links among all things. You believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has meaning.

WHY YOUR CONNECTEDNESS IS UNIQUE

Driven by your talents, you routinely isolate facts that link ideas, events, or people. You are especially sensitive to how one person’s optimistic or negative thoughts can affect the entire human family. This prompts you to pay close attention to what individuals and groups think and do.

By nature, you may be able to build bonds that unite different types of people. Sometimes their agendas clash. Perhaps your appreciation of everyone’s uniqueness frees you to help certain individuals direct their attention to what everyone has in common.

Chances are good that you may be guided by the notion that no one can live life without some help from others. Perhaps this idea compels you to consider how what you do and say affects people you know and individuals you will never meet.

It’s very likely that you might come away refreshed after conversing with future-oriented thinkers. Maybe you inspire them with your passion for projects or causes that benefit humanity or the environment. Sometimes you feel restless when your life lacks great and noble purpose.

Because of your strengths, you consider people more important than things. The value you place on humankind guides your decision-making. It also influences what you say and do as well as what you choose not to say and do.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING CONNECTEDNESS

You build bridges between people and groups. You help others find meaning by looking at the bigger picture of the world around them, and you give them a sense of comfort and stability in the face of uncertainty.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Help others see connections and purpose in everyday life.

 • Use your sense of connection to build the foundation for strong relationships. When you meet new people, ask them questions to find common ground and shared interests that you can use as a starting point.

 • Consider roles in which you listen to and counsel others. You could become an expert at helping people see connections and purpose in everyday occurrences.

 • Help those around you cope with unpredictable and unexplainable events. Your perspective will bring them comfort.

 • Show your friends and coworkers how they are connected to those around them. Point out specific examples of how their actions directly and indirectly affect others.

 • Help your teammates and colleagues better understand how their efforts fit into the bigger picture. When people see that what they are doing is important and part of something larger than themselves, they will be more committed to the goal, and your team will be stronger.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • You may react more calmly and passively to others’ bad news, frustrations or concerns than they would like. Be aware that people sometimes need to vent and will want you to validate their feelings more than they want a philosophical response.

 • Some may perceive you as naïve or idealistic because turmoil and upheaval likely trouble you. Remember that not everyone shares your connected view of humanity or believes that every negative event ultimately affects everyone.

5. Individualization


People with strong Individualization talents understand and are intrigued by others’ unique qualities. Impatient with generalizations, they focus on the differences among individuals. They instinctively observe each person’s style and motivation, how each thinks, and how each builds relationships. They keenly observe other people’s strengths and draw out the best in each person. Their Individualization talents help them build productive teams. While some search for the perfect team “structure” or “process,” these employees know instinctively that the secret to great teams is casting by individual strengths — so that everyone can do a lot of what they already do well.

HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You are intrigued with the unique qualities of each person. You have a gift for figuring out how different people can work together productively.

WHY YOUR INDIVIDUALIZATION IS UNIQUE

It’s very likely that you help individuals acquire knowledge and gain skills. You are a fine instructor, tutor, and/or trainer.

Instinctively, you repeatedly let people benefit from your sound reasoning and logical assessment of opportunities, problems, regulations, policies, or proposed solutions.

Chances are good that you enjoy being busy, especially when you can assist someone in need. You are likely to be a good partner at home, in the workplace, at school, or in the community. You tend to do more than is expected of you. Why? You probably worry about wasting time. This explains your habits of volunteering for projects and asking for extra duties.

By nature, you occasionally credit yourself with having a gift for seeing the unique talents that make people different from one another. You may have little patience for placing people into broadly-defined categories. Perhaps you describe individuals in specific and vivid detail.

Because of your strengths, you now and then pause to recognize how people are alike and how they are different. Maybe you know a lot about each person’s talents, interests, background, dreams, or limitations.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING INDIVIDUALIZATION

You notice and appreciate each person’s unique characteristics, and you don’t treat everyone the same. Because you can see what makes each individual unique, you know how to bring out their best.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Appreciate the uniqueness in each person you meet.

 • Become an expert at describing your own strengths and style. What is the best praise you ever received? What is your best method for building relationships? How do you learn best?

 • Ask your coworkers and friends these same questions. Help them create a future based on their strengths and what they do best.

 • See the talents in others, and encourage them to follow their dreams. Help individuals understand and maximize the power of their talents.

 • Study successful people to discover the uniqueness that made them successful.

 • Help your coworkers and friends become more aware of each person’s unique motivations and needs.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • You often know more about others than they know about you, and when people don’t naturally show awareness of your likes, dislikes, motivations and needs, this may disappoint you. Recognize that you will need to share your preferences with people, and don’t assume they will instinctively know.

 • Your natural impulse is to put individual needs and goals ahead of what is best for the group. To prevent the appearance of favoritism and bias, acknowledge that sometimes you will need to adjust your style for the greater good.

6. Ideation


HOW YOU CAN THRIVE
You are fascinated by ideas. You are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING IDEATION

You are fascinated by ideas. Because you enjoy looking at the world from different perspectives and are always searching for connections, you are a powerful and creative brainstorming partner.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Refine your creativity to inspire and energize yourself and others.

 • Make small changes in your work or home routines. Experiment. Play mental games with yourself. You likely get bored quickly, so these adjustments can keep you engaged.

 • Take time to read, explore and think. Others’ ideas and experiences can energize you and help you form new ideas.

 • Understand the fuel for your Ideation talents. When do you get your best ideas? When you’re talking with people? When you’re reading? When you’re simply listening or observing? Identify the circumstances when you get your best ideas so you can recreate them.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • Your limitless thoughts and ideas can sometimes overwhelm and confuse people. Consider refining your ideas and sharing only the best so others won’t reject them simply because they cannot follow your abstract thinking.

 • You might struggle to follow through on the ideas you generate. Think about collaborating with someone who can help you turn your best ideas into real results.

7. Deliberative


HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You are best described by the serious care you take in making decisions or choices. You anticipate obstacles.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING DELIBERATIVE

You are thorough and conscientious. Through your natural anticipation and careful thought process, you know how to reduce risks and prevent problems from arising.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Stop, listen and assess before taking action.

 • Rely on your good judgment, caution and conservative decision-making during times of change. Your ability to identify and reduce risk is a powerful advantage.

 • Be sure to set aside time for yourself. Try this: Reserve 20 minutes each day to sort through your projects, plans and ideas. Use this time to gather information on options, assess different situations or solidify choices you need to make. When you have the opportunity and freedom to calculate, you will make better decisions.

 • Help others think through what they want to do. Whatever your role is, you can become a valuable sounding board because you identify and assess potential risks that others might not see.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • Because you take time to think carefully before making a decision, people might perceive you as forgetful, slow or afraid to act. Be prepared to explain that you are none of those things and that you are just considering all of the potential next steps.

 • Your cautious and serious outlook on life might give the impression that you are a distant, private and unapproachable person who doesn’t give much praise. Keep this in mind, especially when the important people in your life need your approval and validation.

8. Analytical


HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You search for reasons and causes. You have the ability to think about all of the factors that might affect a situation.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING ANALYTICAL

Your natural ability to investigate, diagnose and identify patterns results in valuable insights that are logical and well-thought-out. Your critical thinking helps clarify reality and provides objectivity.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Use your logical, objective approach to make important decisions.

 • Identify credible sources you can rely on. Find helpful books, websites, experts or other resources that you can use as references.

 • Get involved in the planning stages of a new initiative or project so you can evaluate its feasibility and direction before it gets too far along.

 • Accept that sometimes you will need to take action before all the facts are in place.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • Your objective and fact-based approach to decision-making may seem skeptical or critical. Keep in mind that others will have emotional, subjective and personal opinions — and that their input is just as valuable as yours is.

 • Because you ask many questions, people may think that you always doubt the validity of their ideas, that you do not trust them and that you are tough to work with. Explain your analysis so they will be more likely to trust your process and your motives.

9. Strategic


HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, you can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING STRATEGIC

You quickly weigh alternative paths and determine the best one. Your natural ability to anticipate, play out different scenarios and plan ahead makes you an agile decision-maker.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Always have at least three options in mind so you can adapt if circumstances change.

 • Strengthen the groups you belong to by using your talent to discover the best path to success. Because you can do this quickly, it may look as if you are “winging it,” so explain yourself along the way to help others understand what you see.

 • Schedule time each day to think about your goals and strategies. Time alone might be the best way for you to evaluate all your options and to find the right course of action for each goal.

 • Trust your insights. Because you consider options so naturally and easily, you might not realize how you came up with a strategy. But because of your exceptional talents, it will likely be successful.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • When working with others, sometimes they may misinterpret your strong Strategic talents as criticism. Be mindful of what is already working well and what others have accomplished.

 • Because you evaluate patterns and pathways so quickly, others might find it difficult to follow or understand your thought process. Be aware that sometimes, you might have to backtrack to explain how you got to where you are.

10. Achiever


HOW YOU CAN THRIVE

You work hard and possess a great deal of stamina. You take immense satisfaction in being busy and productive.

WHY YOU SUCCEED USING ACHIEVER

You love to complete tasks, and your accomplishments fulfill you. You have a strong inner drive — an innate source of intensity, energy and power that motivates you to work hard to get things done.

TAKE ACTION TO MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Bring intensity and effort to the most important areas of your life.

 • Set challenging goals. Take advantage of your self-motivation with a more ambitious goal every time you finish a project.

 • Take time to celebrate each success before moving on to your next item or task, even for just a few minutes.

 • Limit your commitments to projects or assignments that align with your highest priorities as much as you can.

WATCH OUT FOR BLIND SPOTS

 • You might get frustrated when others don’t work as hard as you do, and they might see you as too demanding. Remember that not everyone has the same high expectations for themselves or is driven to work as hard as you are.

 • Your pressing need to get things done might cause you to take on projects or agree to deadlines before you know everything that’s involved. Before you commit to something, make sure you have the time and resources you need to do it right.

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11. Relator
12. Responsibility
13. Self-Assurance
14. Discipline
15. Belief
16. Developer
17. Focus
18. Maximizer
19. Context
20. Empathy
21. Arranger
22. Command
23. Harmony
24. Restorative
25. Significance
26. Includer
27. Consistency
28. Futuristic
29. Adaptability
30. Competition
31. Activator
32. Communication
33. Positivity
34. Woo


Two portraits of me from the same activity by different people at different work meetings.


The directions: you and a partner sit facing each other, each with a drawing implement and paper. You get 60 seconds to draw. You cannot look at your drawing; cannot look away from your subject. You cannot lift your pen or marker.

The idea being: just go with it, without overthinking or critiquing or worrying about perfection. Let go and have fun.


To close, a look back at a response from 13 years ago that  I recently recycled.

What obscure superpower would you choose to have?

The Synthesist

(Bringing together disparate: 1) ideas, to solve problems and mysteries; 2) materials, to address physical issues (MacGyverish); and 3) people, to overcome conflict.)