i read 12 rules for life so you don't have to, part 2

Hi folks,

Part two today of my introduction to Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life.

The rules I’m trying to follow (with varying degrees of success)...

Rule #2 – treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping

Any loyal reader (thanks for reading, by the way) who has read more than eleven syllables from my posts about running (really, thanks) will instantly recognize how this rule is a direct affront to my self-destructive streak. I’m also not very good at scheduling preventative health care appointments on their recommended frequency. However, my healthy eating habits – among many other routines – suggest I have the required mentality to treat myself like someone I’m helping.

Rule #3 – make friends with people who want the best for you

I probably could have moved this into the ‘already following’ category without controversy (which of my friends would argue?) but I acknowledge that I’ve never picked out my friends based on this criteria (or cut people out of my life for the reverse). I simply seem to have made friends based on other qualities (which I did not bother to figure out for today’s post).

How can you tell if someone wants the best for you? It's a hard quality to pick out when you meet someone new but I’m improving at it. For now, I’ll look for some evidence of generosity and go from there.

Rule #5 – do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

In hindsight, I think this is the single most powerful rule in the book. I don’t have any children so I've thought about how this rule applies in other contexts. To keep it really simple, you probably should’t let anyone you like do something that makes you dislike or resent them.

I have a spotty track record with my generalization (mostly due to biting my tongue when I hear or see a friend say or do something I know I’ll resent in the future) but as with the other rules I do feel like I’m making some progress. My experience with my most recent job suggests that merely trying to stop someone from such an action is enough to change how you feel about that person. Although I don’t recommend Calling Everything Out as the recipe for success in corporate America (at least in the context of climbing the specific ladder you might be on) I did find that telling my first two managers that I thought they were liars has kept me free of resentment towards them as people. In other words, even though they followed through and did the very thing that would otherwise make me resentful, simply trying to stop them changed my view towards them. I suppose the lesson here is that it’s hard to resent people who are simply trying to overcome their own incompetence.

Rule #6 – set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world

This one might be the toughest rule on the list (see comments above re: Rule #5). I’ve settled for now with merely learning to accept and live with my contradictions. I also don’t tell others to clean their bathrooms, but that’s another matter entirely. Mind your own shit.

Rule #9 – assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t

The phrasing of this rule is a challenge because I try not to make assumptions. However, if I play with the words a little bit, I can reformat Rule #9 – don’t assume you know everything. Sometimes I think back to recent conversations and realize that I’ve nodded along when I should have asked a follow-up question. In these reflections, I often realize that I didn’t ask because I thought I knew the answer.

Rule #12 – pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

This isn’t from a lack of trying – there just aren't that many cats wandering about on my streets.

tales of two cities - green light indicates bikes are secure, part 3 (solutions)

I’ve written in this mini-series about the challenges created by the Blue Bikes method of using a green light to indicate a rental closure. I thought today I would briefly look at the current solutions and try to offer up a couple of my own.

First, I should be clear about what I’m talking about in these posts. The green light system works as designed over 99% of the time. From my experience, it’s also very reliable in a long-term sense because if you get the green light the system does… eventually… close out the rental. Trust me, it always works... eventually. The issue is that the green light itself means nothing beyond confirmation that the bike was docked correctly. There is still the added step of linking the docked bike with the open rental. The green light confirms this communication will happen... eventually. It’s kind of like putting a letter into the mailbox. The problem I’m concerned with is that when this communication remains pending for long enough, I won’t be able to unlock another bike. The current setup blames the customer until the system fixes itself, a policy that based on my experiences wastes one hour per member per year. What I’m writing about is a way to get that number down to zero.

The current ‘best solution’ is entirely electronic – when a bike docks, an email comes in that confirms the closure. This is a great solution in theory but in practice the failures become obvious. The biggest issue is that emails can be slow. I’ve had experiences where the emails for a closed trip come in hours after the fact. Given that the problem involves knowing whether the rental is closed while I’m in front of the bike, a slow email will only mean more confusion and anxiety. Another way of looking at this is if the email is one minute slow sixty times a year, the minute I spend waiting at the dock for the email will add up to that hour of wasted time I referenced above. This would defeat the whole point of my rant.

The larger problem is that the emails are system generated whereas the area of concern here is at the dock level. If a bike docked correctly but the system didn’t read it, that email is never coming in on time. This is again the essence of why I project the current system wastes an hour or so of member time per year. When the email doesn’t come in, the only solution is to call in to customer service, and once more the wasted time clock begins ticking upward.

An SMS option would fail for the same reasons outlined above for the current email method. I’ve also experienced firsthand its specific version of failure. I was in Washington DC this past June and I signed up for a one-day pass with their Blue Bikes equivalent, Capital Bike. I opted in for the SMS notification to notify me when my rental closed out. Unsurprisingly, when I closed my trip, no SMS came (I’m still waiting). If this option isn’t working correctly by late 2019, it probably never will, at least in the context of the problem I’m concerned with at the moment.

The solution I casually mentioned in my first post – a printed receipt – is probably the closest thing to the best solution. The method would be very simple – after the bike docks and the green light comes on, a printed receipt confirms the rental closure. The docks already have printers installed in the kiosk so the infrastructure is ready. This feature would be immune to problems with specific docking stations because the docks read closure independent of their connection to the system (the bike communicates to the dock and the dock communicates to the system). If a rider experienced an issue with an ‘open rental’, the receipt would be useful to have on hand until the dock linked back to the system.

i read the prime of miss jean brodie so you don't have to

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (May 2019)

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Muriel Spark’s 1961 tale about a young teacher’s relationship with her prized pupils. There isn’t much I can say about this work, however, without ruining the plot so I will turn my attention here to some of the more interesting insights Spark scattered into the story.

The main idea behind the title is that the teacher, Jean Brodie, feels she is in her prime. The meaning isn’t perfectly clear to her handpicked students but over the course of the novel we see some suggestions about the expression. Brodie teaches based on a belief that goodness, truth, and beauty are the price for safety. The risks she takes in the name of these goals initially enchant her students. A similar predilection for art and religion ahead of philosophy and science place her once more at odds with her curriculum but, again, she finds ways to work her convictions into her job.

Broadly speaking, her students’ educations benefit from the approach. A teacher who brings knowledge out of rather than forces knowledge into a student meets a pure definition of education that standardization makes impossible. But things aren’t so simple – a child’s education is much more than the sum of accumulated knowledge by graduation. Brodie losing sight of this fact is a primary catalyst for the various events in the story. As one passage notes, children generally struggle to see differences among adults, and Brodie’s failure to consider this is perhaps one reason for how events unfold. She also forgets that betrayal for a child is often as simple as a broken promise and this casual interpretation makes it very unlikely for a child to build up a functioning idea of loyalty.

Another larger lesson in the work is how a personal narrative compels individuals to bend truths in order to fit the larger story. As time passes, more events occur that require such finesse.  The idea of ‘being in her prime’ pushes Brodie forward while also blinding her to certain shortcomings about herself and those around her. At some point, a personal narrative will lose its relationship to truth if an honest incorporation of new events is sacrificed to protect the integrity of the story. Those outside the narrative arc but close enough to its effect will often betray the fiction for no reason beyond their own blindness to another’s intentions.

The longtime appeal of this book is a manifestation of how great novels must see the entirety of human existence. The big ideas above are supplemented by little insights – such as the way silence can ease a difficult situation or how difficult it is to persuade those who smile when they should disagree. Overall, though, the lesson here is perhaps just a reinforcement of a simpler idea – as we age, we learn how to become nicer to others, and look back on our lives wising we’d learned how to do it a little sooner.

reading review - bad stories (rewriting stories)

Steve Almond covers varied ground throughout Bad Stories but at its core the book is a reckoning with how storytelling plays a decisive role in shaping the world. It isn’t as simple as telling the truth for just as an untrue story can produce a good outcome, a true story can lead to bad consequences. The important task he points out is to recognize that people in pain create the stories they need to help their inner panic settle into a functional calm. How can we acknowledge this reality to shape our stories in ways that produce good outcomes for all?

Literature is one way to help those in need. As Almond notes, literature is how we affirm the importance of other people and their struggles. The understanding granted by an empathic work helps tame their turmoil. Good literature is the opposite of propaganda, the dismissal of our shared humanity through simplification. Modern movements toward totalitarianism are powered by the angry and dislocated who’ve bought into the message that their loneliness and isolation can be blamed on a modern society that has left them behind.

Propaganda doesn’t need to support a repressive regime or dictator. It can simply prop up a status quo by diverting our attention away from the matter. In an era where public buildings are being renamed due merely to the namesake’s association with slavery, the Electoral College remains untouched despite its significant influence in helping slave states account for otherwise uncounted ‘property’ in determining their political influence. It might not be a clear-cut example of Almond’s point that trauma victims sometimes protect rather than acknowledge the abuser but it did make me think about why in a country where so many are horrified by national history there is little interest in correct this particular misstep. I suppose it is like Bad Stories reminds us – the more we hear something, the more we accept it as true, even if it does seem dubious that the system exists merely to ensure Wyoming doesn’t feel left out.

strangers

This has been an odd few months. I feel like things have been going well. I’m not quite living the dream but quite frankly I don’t have any dreams. I have no worries and that’s fine. And yet, when I sit down and ask myself some simple questions about my mood as I did for the October newsletter – how am I feeling, and why? – I find my answers don’t seem to take much of my daily experience into consideration. I’m starting to understand what it’s like for people who can’t manage their mood through their decisions alone. I’m finding it to be a jarring revelation.

How am I feeling, and why? Not well and not sure. I’ve been in a similar place before but back then I knew exactly why. Things weren’t easier in those days. I felt bad because I was injured, I felt bad because I got sacked, and I felt bad because my mom died. Always, though, I knew what was going on. I felt there was a certain benefit to understanding the cause of my mood. When things happened, I felt them, and I tried to do the next right thing. When I was out of work for two years, I felt pretty lousy most of the time, but it never concerned me. Things were going badly, so shouldn’t I have felt bad? I just focused on doing the next right thing.

It’s been a little different lately. I have no sense of how I’ve arrived here. It’s kind of like waking up with no recollection of falling asleep. When did I give up? I’m simultaneously dealing with the mundanely familiar while in the back of my head I’m untangling a knotted mess. What just happened? I’ll never know for sure, or so it seems, but I must admit in spite of myself that thinking through the problem has been interesting. I’d always thought managing my mood was just a matter of doing the next right thing. If you’d asked me in August, I would have specifically identified changing jobs. I would have explained that I expected my new job to help with the stress I’d struggled with throughout the spring. I expected that changing jobs was the next right thing. Today, I feel much better physically but the underlying unease of spring has lingered. Whether or not a change was the next right thing, it obviously wasn’t the only thing.

I sense a missing link, a missing piece that I need to understand my mood. There’s darkness where I think it is hidden. It’s the same darkness I descend into each night, eyes dreamlessly shut, and when I wake the space between my mood and my actions has grown slightly wider. Each morning, I face the same questions. Why do I expect my actions can improve my mood? Why today, when yesterday's actions had no effect on my present mood? Won't I feel tomorrow like I feel today? Each night, I return with no answers, and hope the questions were rhetorical. The next right thing to do is look for the missing piece but I don’t know how to look in the dark.

Through others, I’ve seen illuminating glimpses. We cross paths, our shared journeys obscuring different destinations, our hidden tickets prophesying the inevitable. September was full of these moments, like headlights briefly reflecting off of signposts, but as I blinked each moment had passed. These moments came as I caught up with old friends. I read once that we miss our old friends the most when we see them but I hadn’t understood. I hadn’t understood that we miss our old friends when we see them because it’s when we see them that we acknowledge what’s changed and what’s gone. They, too, have lost something in the dark. They, too, are searching without light. They are strangers to me. How terrible to lose people into themselves, to see them pulled under by their own current, to greet an impostor like an old friend. It’s perhaps worst of all when I glimpse a spark, ever so briefly, and like I’ve just woken from a dream I try to note it before I forget. I wonder if some part of my mood isn’t explained by these recognitions. I wonder if each time I glimpse a hand reaching out, I remember that no one swims out of the undertow.

I don’t mind talking to strangers and they don't mind talking to me. Our updates are collections of compromises. We don’t talk about our dreams. We gave up on our dreams. We don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about giving up. We gave up on it. We don’t talk about the darkness, the darkness we all share. The darkness waits for me each night. When it’s ready, I give up and I’m pulled under and I search again. I can't wake up until I find one dream. I want to wake up but I just need one dream. It doesn't need to be a good dream. A dream doesn’t need to be good. A dream doesn't need to come true. Dreams can change, they need to change. We can dream again. We need to dream again. We’re all between dreams. We’re all waiting to dream again.

i read what i eat so you don't have to

One of my favorite restaurants in the area is Ittoku. Although I’ve written much about it, one thing I do not believe I’ve discussed in detail is the menu. It has one relatively unusual feature – photos of the food. Now, some other places I’ve been to have photo or two on the menu but Ittoku outdoes them all. The photo coverage is so comprehensive that a diner could confidently order most items by simply looking and pointing at the pictures. (1)

This raises the question of why more menus don’t bother with photos. Food is one of those certain areas where a photo can help us understand far more effectively than text. This is likely because we’ve looked at food far more than we’ve read about it (I’m looking at food right now). It explains why visual representations are more effective than the nutrition labels even if both share the same information. It explains why Instagram is littered with photos of lunch and dinner rather than narrative descriptions of the same (well, kind of explains why, I guess, as nothing really explains Instagram). It’s just how our interaction with food works – first we see it, then we eat it, and there’s no break in that sequence for reading.

What I Eat, a wonderful work from Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, helped me fully understand this conclusion. The book is very much a half-and-half in the context of food photos and description with almost equal space given to the photo and its description. Each chapter describes one person’s life alongside a photo of all the food that person eats on a given day (it also lists the nutrition details about that food). The text is compelling and details much regarding what the meals suggest about the subject. But the power of this collection is undoubtedly the photography, each person alongside his or her passport to tomorrow, and the emotions invoked by these images tell so much more about the person than could be explained by even a hundred thousand words.

Footnotes / endnote

0. Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin

While reading What I Eat, I wrote myself a note to see if this book from Salatin had received solid enough reviews to justify reading. It did, so I recently checked it out. So far, I’ve enjoyed Salatin’s work about the challenge of running a family farm within the confines of the USA’s industrialized farming system.

1. Pictures on the menu???

I bet some might consider this a negative. I’ve been to a few, er, finer establishments and I suspect the appearance of photos on their menus would be met with the same enthusiasm that moviegoers reserve for being told the popcorn machine is out of order.

i read 12 rules for life so you don't have to

12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson (January 2019)

Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life has one of those titles that gives you exactly what it promises – twelve rules for successfully navigating the long and winding road of life. He explains each rule with a meandering essay that touches on topics and experiences both germane and tangential to the idea being described. The result is a wide-ranging and insightful work full of wisdom about how to face and overcome life’s many challenges.

It took a relatively long time but I eventually narrowed down Peterson’s thoughts into a handful of themes. I’ll cover these thoughts over the next few weeks. To start, however, I thought I would do the most logical thing whenever a ‘list’ book comes around – I’ll review the twelve rules, assess how well I’m following each one, and include any extra comments. Today’s post will cover the rules I’m currently following.

Before I start, I should note a hypothetical concern – does this mean I agree with all of the rules? The short answer is yes, and I’m trying to live by them. The long answer is similar – yes, but…

I’ll explain the difference in an upcoming post (1).

OK – without further ado, then, here we go…

The rules I already follow...

Rule #1 – stand up straight with your shoulders back

I made a conscious effort a few years ago to improve my posture. I knew it had worked when people I hadn’t seen in a while would ask me if I’d gotten taller. I would say no (because I hadn’t) but the mouth speaking those very words was definitely a little higher off the ground than in the past.

Rule #4 – compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today

I think I might actually follow this one a little too well – I’m at the point of feeling physical discomfort when I’m being compared to someone else and that response can’t possibly be good for my health.

Rule #7 – pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)

The parentheses do it here – I’m not sure if I’m quite at the point of always pursuing the meaningful (what is meaningful about TOA?) but I’m sure no one will confuse me with the sort of person who pursues the expedient.

Rule #8 – tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie

I do actually lie quite a bit (the April Fool’s Day post wasn’t complete nonsense) but these lies are generally kind of obvious and have that playful quality I’ve mentioned in several other contexts. For the most part, my perception is that no one considers me a liar.

Rule #10 – be precise in your speech

This one might be challenging to consistently live up to but given that most people seem to understand me the first time I speak, I think I’m doing a good job. I’m also rarely involved in misunderstandings, which I see as good evidence for this rule.

Rule #11 – do not bother children when they are skateboarding

Easy – I ignore children anyway. This is also a good rule to follow, unless you personally know the child.

reading review - bad stories (politics)

Politics is the primary application of the main ideas in Bad Stories. Through this lens – and especially in the context of the 2016 election and its aftermath – Steve Almond carefully weighs his thoughts and considers their application in both wide and narrow contexts.

One comment I thought a lot about was Almond’s point that Putin sees America as a country defined by greed rather than our stated virtues. I see this idea play out in the way many voters weigh candidates strictly by how a vote will lead to direct personal benefit. This thinking on a mass scale means democracy loses its power to bring wrongdoers to account and instead shifts its emphasis to a contest where the suffering battle for the limited pain relief on offer. It’s no wonder that many use political identity as a fair reason to hate others. The voluntary nature of party affiliation means anyone voting against you is someone choosing to take away access to what you value.

Tribalism grows out of a society that can easily divide the world into good and bad. Almond points out that the competitive mindset works in the same way – the world becomes a series of transactions and in such an environment everything becomes zero-sum. In such a world, a winning immigrant means a losing native, an ascending China means a descending America, and so on. I imagine someone who feels this way lives under tremendous pressure, real or imagined, and it suggests to me that votes from such people will reflect this pressure.

I suspect one possible response invokes voters to demonstrate what Almond describes as ‘the totalitarian mindset’. This refers to seeking leaders with strong, simple solutions to threats or problems. Illegal immigrants? Build a wall. Jobs going to Brussels? Leave the EU. The government can’t pay debts? Send refugees to Germany. Almonds notes that this mental model of leadership was the best predictor of Trump support – it fared far better than income or economics, even more reliable than racial resentment. What's really interesting to me is how although most people I interact with regularly do not support Trump, many respect leadership styles that align with the way Almond describes the totalitarian mindset.

One way I think about overcoming this problem is rejecting what I’ve referred to in the past as the scarcity mentality. The people who feel they have enough seem to be a different breed of human. They grow to believe that others can and should have what they always have – enough. They sow stitches where others see battle lines and couldn’t tell you where the scoreboard is or how the points are tallied. I have different conversations with these people than I do with those who are drowning in scarcity. My hope for the future is that we find politicians who reflect this thinking. Rather than playing on shared fears and stoking concerns about governmental weakness, corruption, or failure, our aspiring leaders will reject the extreme manifestations of their philosophies and instead find a middle ground where empathy, understanding, and shared effort can start the process of moving our most pressing problems toward permanent solutions.

ask the business bro (the goal)

Hi all,

My TOA counterpart has posted a few thoughts recently on The Goal that, I must admit, showed an unexpected level of understanding of Eliyahu Goldratt’s business classic. He asked for my help, however, in breaking down some of the more challenging concepts so I agreed to step in and write a few posts to help him out.

Unfortunately, I realized that the book is so dense with insights and tactics that a traditional series of ‘book club’ posts was not going to work as well for The Goal as it did for some of our past books. I met briefly with the boss and we determined that a loose ‘Q and A’ format might be the best way to both deliver the lessons of the book while also clearly applying its ideas. We’re not sure about this, of course, but nothing beats a try, so please enjoy our first edition of ‘Ask The Business Bro’.

*********

TOA: What does The Goal have to say about running an organization?

BB: The book’s singular focus is on maximizing the constraints that determine whether an organization can meet demand. Everything Goldratt says about running an organization ties back to this idea.

The Goal suggests the best way to serve this idea is to implement an ongoing improvement process. The key question that drives this process is always ‘where is the constraint now?’ and the answer is always a series of steps that will break the constraint. Once the constraint is broken, the organization asks again – where is the constraint now?

TOA: Does Goldratt recommend any specific strategies to find the constraint?

BB: No, unfortunately it isn’t as easy as applying a series of steps, but there are some good principles to keep in mind that always help. Broadly speaking, improving flow will always help an operation. Goldratt compares flow to water moving down a rocky river and the process of improving flow to finding and removing the rocks. A poorly run organization might do the equivalent of wading into the river while hoping to stub a toe. A a world-class organization will do the equivalent of lowering the water level until the rocks become plainly visible.

TOA: But what if no rocks are visible?

BB: Then lower the water level again.

TOA: But doesn’t that hurt flow?

BB: Well, OK, I see, look, it’s not a perfect analogy, but then again, what is? One obvious problem with my analogy is the possibility of confusing flow with total output. True, output is related to flow, but not in the way you are suggesting. The point of the comparison isn’t to maximize the cubic footage of the water moving downstream, it’s to ensure that if you put 100 cubic feet of water into the system, 100 cubic feet of water will flow through the system without unexpected interruption. Flow in this case is how quickly the water moves down the river, not the amount of water that empties out into the ocean.

TOA: OK, I see, so flow is like the delivery time of the pizza, not the number of pizzas sold?

BB: Why are you always thinking about food?

TOA: Hey, I’m just hungry for answers here.

BB: Right, well, if that’s the way you want to think of it, then yes, flow in this case is the time you wait for the pizza after placing the order, though maybe a better analogy is to say it is like the entire process of making and delivering the pizza

TOA: I see. I think I understand some of it, the crust at least. If the whole point is constant improvement and the process for constant improvement is maximizing flow, then sure, you just maximize flow, or whatever. But what if the flow is already maximized? What do you do then?

BB: Well, Goldratt points out that since a bottleneck is a resource whose capacity is less than or equal to the demand placed on it, the flow through a bottleneck should be less than or equal to the demand. Your question suggests that there is some spare capacity, so I would suggest finding a way to increase demand.

TOA: So sales and marketing?

BB: I think so. You just have to make sure those teams understand the excess capacity available on the bottleneck resources so that they do not commit beyond what you can actually produce.

TOA: This sounds too simple.

BB: Yeah, sort of, it’s simple in the same way getting a full night of sleep is, at a basic level all we all know what a full night of sleep is, but in reality a lot more goes into it than just blocking out eight hours to lie still.

TOA: Is that something Goldratt wrote?

BB: No, that’s a BB original.

TOA: Makes sense, you don't need any help to know to lie, still.

BB: What does that mean?

TOA: Nothing.

BB: Do you have anything else?

TOA: Yes, so if the cycle eventually leads to the sales team finding new demand for the product and what they need to know is the excess capacity available on the bottleneck, how do you go about calculating that excess capacity?

BB: Wow, that’s a short question but a big answer. I think we’ll need to cover that next time.

TOA: OK, sounds good. Same time next week?

BB: That will work for me.

i read the golden spruce so you don't have to

The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant (March 2019)

Longtime TOA readers will know that there are certain types of books I don’t read very often. The most popular of these ignored genres seems to be what I’ll call books about ‘extraordinary event that points to a rich, hidden world you’ll find interesting, or should at least pretend to, for three hundred and twenty-five pages’. I avoid them for an obvious reason (I don't really like them) but this one worked out a little differently for reasons I may or may not write more about later.

The short version of The Golden Spruce is that it’s about a huge tree out in the islands off the west coast of Canada. This huge tree was notable for its golden leaves, visible from miles away, and among other things it carried significant symbolic importance for the locals in the area (including indigenous tribes who had lived there for centuries longer than the white folks who surprisingly started cutting down all the trees). The book has been favorably included among the likes of better known works like Into Thin Air and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in stories about people battling nature or cultural collisions. It also has quite a bit of detail about logging, an industry I knew nothing about, and the information alone makes The Golden Spruce a worthwhile read.

This book had some very sharp insights about human nature interwoven into its descriptions about the events I reference above. Logging is an industry defined by one of the human race’s unfortunate misapplications of logic – if I don’t do it, someone else will. True, maybe... but not since we all think so! This results in a lot of initially hesitant onlookers becoming active participants in an ethically ambiguous activity. Further, in places like northwest Canada there are no obvious escape routes – a logger can’t just sign up for online classes and become a data scientist very easily. This leads people to become entrenched and eventually dependent within an ethically ambiguous profession, a reality some loggers deal with by keeping their minds distanced from the work. Others deal with this by looking for ways to bring change (and, spoiler alert, such a figure plays a central role in The Golden Spruce).

My remaining notes don’t fit so neatly into a single category. First, have you considered that a single Sitka spruce seed weighs 1/500th of a gram but it contains all the information required to become a three hundred ton tree. Imagine that, eh? I’m sure the machine learning folks are working hard on replicating it.

I also thought it was interesting to compare early boat journeys to space missions. I imagine this was probably true up until around the late 19th century – if something went wrong, no one was going to help the sailor. My final thought links up to this insight – the worst thing to do in an unexpected storm is to rush toward the destination. As certain great songs have said, just hold your head up high, and don't be afraid of the dark.

reading review - when things fall apart (presence)

The last aspect of When Things Fall Apart that I want to explore is the way Pema Chodron describes tactics for cultivating mindfulness and presence. I thought this formed a vital part of the work because without a disciplined method for staying in the moment and rejecting escapes from reality, there is a risk of someone falling victim to various cheap desires or temptations when struggling under the burden of a difficult time.

Meditation is a commonly used and widely known method that Chodron writes about in more detail. She describes the goal of meditation as constantly finding a way back to the mind’s relaxed state and suggests using the out-breath to acknowledge and dissolve any distracting thought. She specifies that saying ‘thinking’ to yourself as you acknowledge a thought is a reliable way to let distractions float away from the mind. Over time, the clutter of distracting thoughts melts from the mind and allows it the freedom to become fully present within itself.

One important result of the fully present mind is the way it can experience our full range of emotions. This in turn helps us accept others and their emotions so that we can remain fully present without feeling the temptation to fill any space that makes us uncomfortable. The mindfulness that emerges from a good meditative practice helps us refrain from jumping into any problem that drifts into the mind. It allows us to put aside our fear and hang in there when we sense that something is missing so that we can fully enjoy the present moment and respond to its changing need. If we can do this consistently so that we are able to feel the joy and grief for others that Chodron calls our soft spot, we have the most important tool required for bringing the change we need into the world.

leftovers #5 - daily rituals – TOA edition (theory -vs- reality)

I felt pretty good that the priority list I described in this post would prove an accurate predictor of how I organized my real life routine. However, nothing beats the actual evidence. Today, I’ll compare my guidelines to an actual week from early April and look for any discrepancies.

Here’s a quick reminder of those guidelines:

1. Social time
2. Nightly self-care
3. Earning income for meeting expenses
4. Exercise
5. Sports on TV
6. Sleep
7. Grocery shopping and laundry
8. Writing
9. Reading
10. Eating
11. Internet admin

Some of the decisions within categories are based on certain time-dependent criteria or volume restrictions. Here’s a reminder of those for reference:

• Exercise - one workout per day, no hard workouts on consecutive days
• Sleep - at least seven hours per night, catchup ASAP if less
• Writing - average ninety minutes per day over past month
• Reading - average six books per month over past month
• Eating - fast for 16-24 hours once per week
• Internet admin - limit two hours per day

To add context for the writing and reading goals, on the morning of April 5 I was averaging 78 minutes per day of writing (over the last thirty days) and I had finished 11 books in the previous sixty days. Therefore, although my priority order didn’t explicitly change, my decisions below reflect a greater emphasis on both writing and reading in order to keep my goals on track.

As a final formatting note, the events I do within a larger event are noted below in parentheses. A good example of such an event is listening to podcasts, something I only do at home while cooking, stretching, etc.

Friday, April 5

6AM – 630AM:  Wakeup, strength workout
630AM – 8AM:  Writing
8AM – 9AM:  Prepare for work (podcasts), walk to work
9AM – 215PM:  Work (music, coffee, breakfast, lunch)
215PM – 5PM:  Bike to Central Square, watch soccer at Phoenix Landing
5PM – 530PM:  Walk to Harvard Square
530PM – 6PM:  Reading outside in Cambridge common
6PM – 630PM:  Walk to Porter Square
630PM – 7PM:  Browsing at Porter Square Books
7PM – 8PM:  Dinner with friend at Sapporo Ramen
8PM – 9PM:  Walk to Harvard Square / subway ride home
9PM – 11PM:  Reading, cleaning and stretching (podcasts), bedtime

Saturday, April 6

7AM – 1030AM:  Wakeup, coffee, writing
1030AM – 12PM:  Haymarket
12PM – 230PM:  Cooking, lunch, watch soccer at home
230PM – 3PM:  Walk to library
3PM – 5PM:  Library (music, internet admin including logging monthly spending)
5PM – 545PM:  Walk home, chit-chat with neighbors
545PM – 745PM:  Hard running workout, chit-chat with acquaintance on Charles Street
745PM – 845PM:  Shower, watching college basketball (dinner)
845PM – 230AM:  Out (college basketball, late night snack, hangout)
230AM – 3AM:  Stretching (podcasts), bedtime

Sunday, April 7

11AM – 2PM:  Wakeup, coffee, writing, breakfast
2PM – 245PM:  Roundabout bike ride/walk to library
245PM – 445PM:  Library (music, internet admin including TAXES)
445PM – 545PM:  Roundabout bike ride/walk home
545PM – 7PM:  Easy running workout
7PM – 11PM:  Shower, cooking (podcasts), reading (dinner), cleaning and stretching (podcasts), bedtime

Monday, April 8

545AM – 730AM:  Wakeup, coffee, breakfast, strength workout, writing
730AM – 845AM:  Prepare for work (podcasts), train trip to Norwood
845AM – 915AM:  Dentist
915AM – 945AM:  Bank
945AM – 1115AM:  Coffee shop (coffee, reading, writing, talking to some guy about politics)
1115AM – 12PM:  Commute to work (train to Boston)
12PM – 615PM:  Work (music, lunch)
615PM – 845PM:  Library (music, writing/proofreading)
845PM – 915PM:  Walk home
915PM – 1130AM:  Watch college basketball (dinner, cleaning, and stretching), bedtime

Tuesday, April 9

745AM – 9AM:  Wakeup, prepare for work (podcasts), walk to work
9AM – 1230PM:  Work (music, coffee, breakfast)
1230PM – 130PM:  Library (music, job listings, writing)
130PM – 6PM:  Work (music, lunch)
6PM – 830PM:  Walk to library, writing (music, proofreading)
830PM – 915PM:  Bus ride to South Boston (reading)
915PM – 1045PM:  Basketball
1045PM – 1115PM:  Subway ride home
1115PM – 130AM:  Shower, reading (dinner), cleaning and stretching (podcasts), bedtime

Wednesday, April 10

745AM – 9AM:  Wakeup, prepare for work (podcasts), commute
9AM – 2PM:  Work (music, coffee, breakfast)
2PM – 3PM:  Library (music, job listings)
3PM – 545PM:  Work (music, lunch, dinner)
545PM – 645PM:  Drinks and snack with friend
645PM – 730PM:  Subway ride to North Station
730PM – 11PM:  Muse concert
11PM – 12AM:  Walk home, snack, cleaning and stretching (podcasts), bedtime

Thursday, April 11

630AM – 8AM:  Wakeup, hard running workout, shower, prepare for work (podcasts)
8AM – 845AM:  Walk to work (slowly, due to fatigue from morning workout)
845AM – 130PM:  Work (music, coffee, breakfast)
130PM – 230PM:  Library (music, job listings, writing)
230PM – 545PM:  Work (music, lunch)
545PM – 615PM:  Bike ride to Davis Square
615PM – 930PM:  Dinner and drinks with (really cool) friends
930PM – 1030PM:  Subway ride home, cleaning and stretching (podcasts), bedtime

Let’s take a closer look at the above in the context of my supposed priorities.

1. Social time

This was a pretty unusual week given that I went out on a Saturday night and had the Muse concert on a Wednesday night. The toughest stretch was going Sunday through Tuesday without a real social event. Generally, two days in a row is a little touch and go while three straight days can become a real problem. However, this particular week was an exception given the big bookends plus late nights on Monday and Tuesday – social time might have completely worn me out.

Still, in general I need to make sure I manage my mood better by avoiding stretches of three socially blank days. The big challenge for me is Monday night because a regular Monday night social event means I can accommodate the frequent combination of a slow Sunday with a Tuesday night basketball game without having the dreaded three blank days. This wasn’t a problem for a while when I used to do regular wing nights or played weekly bar trivia. I’ve found since the end of trivia that Monday isn’t a very popular night for most of my friends. It’s possible I end up finding something more formal (a new volunteer opportunity is a strong possibility) to help fill in the gap.

2. Nightly self-care
3. Earning income for meeting expenses

These are easy. I find that #2 is a good fit because I usually need at least thirty minutes to wind down before bed anyway while #3 was a necessity for the last year following two years of unemployment.

4. Exercise

This one comes easily to me because I’ve tailored my workouts to ensure I look forward to them. My running workouts are no problem because I love running. I was resentful of basketball for a couple of recent years due to the toll on my body but a combination of an improved workout routine along with giving less effort in certain stressful (read: painful) basketball movements has made playing more fun (despite making me less effective). I do not like doing strength workouts so I limit them to ten focused minutes in order to find the balance between tolerating the workout from a mental standpoint while benefiting from a physical perspective.

5. Sports on TV

This is slotted in the exact right place – on Monday, I watched college basketball without skipping out on a social commitment or my nightly bedtime routine (I did it during the second half) yet stayed up a little later than usual to do so.

6. Sleep

My sleep decisions were good for most of this period and especially so when I consider the unusual nature of the events on my calendar. The decision to wake up early on Thursday was sound given that workouts are prioritized ahead of sleep. I probably could have done better on Sunday to get to bed earlier and have a better night of rest going into the week.

7. Grocery shopping and laundry

This was consistent with the priority but I do realize in hindsight that I should have used a ‘laundry week’ to get a better sense of how I make decisions (I do laundry every other week).

8. Writing
9. Reading

On April 9, I closed the books at 85 minutes of writing time per day, up from 78 minutes at the start of the period. Five minutes shy of my goal but not too shabby. As it turned out, this proved to be a high water mark for April as various challenges cut into my time.

The first day of this period saw me finish one book (Draft No. 4 by John McPhee) meaning I slid off my target pace. All's well that ends well, though, and April proved to be such a month given that I finished five books over the last two weeks to close the month at six.

10. Eating

My eating decisions were consistent during this week but I would not give myself high marks – the late night snack on Saturday put me on the low end of my target fast (1). I also ate like a famished moose on Wednesday, a fact not well represented by the way I documented my week.

11. Internet admin

This was a challenging week given that my writing and reading goals were off pace and I needed to create time for those priorities. I also needed to handle the one-off time commitment required for completing tax returns (around two to three hours). Getting to the library twice over the weekend was a productive move and using my spare time early in the week to get through my remaining admin meant I kept myself on track without going over the one hour per day average I consider appropriate for my internet time.

Footnotes / endnote

1. God, footnotes are confusing within numbered lists...

I've actually gave up the fasting back in August but left it in here because I originally wrote this post back in April.

reading review - bad stories (the media)

In my first post about Bad Stories, I briefly mentioned Steve Almond’s thoughts about the role the media plays in bringing bad stories to our eyes and ears. Today I’ll take a very quick look at some more of what he wrote about this topic.

I agree with Almond’s fundamental belief that good journalism can – and should – hold wrongdoers accountable. What I remain unclear about is the methods employed by the media to accomplish this task. The final two weeks of the campaign are a good example. The coverage from the media about Clinton’s emails surely put enough doubt in voters’ minds and possibly influenced their decisions at the polls. In itself, this type of focused coverage isn’t a problem, but without balanced coverage regarding questions about Trump’s candidacy the media becomes a participant rather than a spectator in the election.

Another angle to the point regarding accountability is that its power only extends so far – a longform ‘think’ piece interrupted by ads, photos, and tangentially related hyperlinks is very unlikely to awaken a conscious or prompt a wrongdoer to start making amends. There’s a reason Scrooge was visited by three ghosts rather than a magazine subscription. This fact doesn’t excuse the way the media will play up the theater, drama, or pageantry of a national election at the expense of policy coverage. Almond makes a comment that I think fit well here – he notes that the role of good journalism is to see beyond the theatrics. This didn’t really happen in 2016, or at least it’s so suggested by some studies that estimate as little as ten percent of national election coverage focused on policy.

reading review - silk parachute

Silk Parachute by John McPhee (July 2019)

I followed up my introduction to John McPhee’s writing in Draft No. 4 by picking out Silk Parachute, a collection of essays that confirmed how much I enjoyed his writing style. I’m not sure which of his works I’ll read next but I’m fairly certain that I’ll dig back into his writing relatively soon.

One note I made in my review of Draft No. 4 focused on structure. Here, McPhee briefly revisits the topic by pointing out that knowing the target audience is an important consideration for establishing the shape of the work. The only other note I took down related to the writing process compared photography to writing – much in the same way a print is sometimes the only way a photographer knows what the camera captured, a draft is the only way a writer knows what is in a piece.

Some know McPhee for his writing about sports and these readers may be pleased to learn that although this collection did not include any of his best-known work, he did include certain insights that apply to athletics. He points out in one section that the importance of practice is the way it helps us navigate dangerous situations – instead of worry, we keep our cool and focus on what to do next. On the other hand, there is a limit to practice, a fact he notes later on when he points out that most coaches can improve skills but have little influence over size or speed. For most people outside the context of sports, the challenge of improvement is a question of understanding what is within our control and focusing within those limits to keep our energies allocated to practice that improves these factors.

Finally, in the world of interesting facts, I learned in this book that the Iroquois have an international lacrosse team. The details were less interesting than the simple fact (although I was personally fascinated by how the World Lacross Championship setup its tournament, having never encountered such a competition format in my decades of studying the... er, artform). My bucket list isn’t very long (officially, it’s to be in the eye of a massive hurricane, which I suppose means it's the last item on the list, but that’s also the first item as of now) but I’m considering adding a trip to this tournament just to see the Iroquouis team play.

Footnotes / endnote / the fourth wall

0a. Clutch?

One last sports comment – in the ongoing debate of clutch play, McPhee points out that athletes who wonder whether they are clutch or not are probably not clutch.

0b. The fourth wall

I wonder sometimes if I misattribute certain comments or thoughts to writers in these reading reviews. It would never be intentional – it’s simply a result of my process (which is lazy in this regard) because when I take notes from books I rarely keep track of whether or not the comment comes directly from the author.

McPhee comments in Silk Parachute that objections to a fair comment can focus on how perceptions about the way people think or feel have been misrepresented. This idea made me feel a little better. I suppose objections about how I represent certain ideas in these reading reviews would be centered entirely around how I’ve failed to do the work necessary to hold off such objections, but I can rest easier knowing that at least the comment itself is fair.

reading review - when things fall apart (right or wrong)

One of the themes I touched on in my first post about When Things Fall Apart covered the problems that result from thinking too much about absolute right or wrong. Pema Chodron had more on this topic that I want to discuss today.

The root of the problem is a tendency to cling to the impermanent. We do this in so many ways – the cycle of life and death perhaps being the foremost example – and the fear of inevitable loss makes it impossible to feel the full joy that comes with so much of life. I thought Chodron’s comment that life means dying over and over again was an illuminating way to think about this challenge. The difficulties we commonly refer to as trials or tests are not just ordeals to endure until we feel better; these are the opportunities we have to find the indestructible within us.

When we understand the core of our essence and accept that it will always be there, we can face annihilation over and over again. We understand that the fear of death is really just a mask covering the fear of life. We slowly accept that when things come together they will soon come apart again. When we reach this point on the journey, we can see that the problem of right or wrong isn’t that the answer cannot be determined, it’s that right or wrong shifts and changes in lockstep with the ambiguity of reality.

In other words, although right or wrong can exist in specific moments, we should accept that such an arrangement is impermanent. There is a great flexibility that comes when we accept the changing nature of right and wrong. Just as generosity comes naturally to those who understand that everything falls apart, those who recognize the essence of right and wrong bring a missing ingredient to impossible situations. They help some see that being right comes at the cost of hurting others. In other situations, they demonstrate that the clarity of determining right or wrong isn’t worth the cost of increasing tension or fury among the concerned parties. And when a situation comes around that seems truly impossible, one where right or wrong must be determined no matter what the cost, the people who recognize its impermanence nature find ways to make everyone comfortable with waiting until something inevitably changes and shows a new path forward.

reading review - the fifth risk (riff offs)

The second half of Michael Lewis’s Fifth Risk was a more detailed look at how some of government’s long-term investments manifest in the real world. It covered a number of specific topics so I thought I’d bring it all together here in a traditional TOA riff off.

A private company will hype the same information that a government agency will downplay.

Companies that can choose on which criteria it will be judged often appear to outperform those who are judged on anything.

One topic I mentioned in my last post was weather forecasting. There are some obvious benefits to involving the private sector in what has traditionally been a public concern. However, the limits of the market are very obvious in the context of weather. A private company can choose its range of focus in order to define itself as successful without serving public interests. Sure, we got that thunderstorm wrong, but our specialty is blizzard forecasting.

It can also market itself according to recent performance by trumpeting accurate predictions or remaining quiet after a poor forecast. Over time, this cycle is sure to create a skewed impression of the company in the mind of anyone who isn’t paying close attention to the company’s predictions (which is to say, pretty much everyone).

There is a point where complacency turns to alarm and alarm turns to action. How far away from a tornado does the calendar need to be before these transitions take place?

Learning about a threat without understanding the mentality of those being threatened makes it very challenging to help people respond to the threat.

It’s very threatening to learn that someone can use an algorithm to replicate the results of someone with decades of experience.

Another limit of the private sector’s ability to meet public concerns is the nature of specialization. A company that expertly collects, aggregates, and synthesizes data can make a decision – do we profit by sticking to what we do well or do we extend our business into areas of lesser expertise such as analysis and application? It works the same way for considering short and long term – should we ignore the short-term gain if it will leave a long-term mess for someone else?

The public sector rarely enjoys the luxury of considering these dualities. For a government, data isn’t collected unless it will be applied and no one magically shows up in twenty years to clean up the externalities from today’s profits. This reality positions government to solve problems that the vaunted private sector almost by definition cannot address – how to provide good enough storm shelters without discouraging most people from evacuating, for example, or implementing job training programs for those made redundant by new processes and technologies.

Leadership teams must always know where they are going to be intentional. These are the things that continue to be worked on throughout busy periods.

I remember from Alfred P. Sloan’s My Years with General Motors that this was one of the three biggest problems in corporations – how to stay focused on long-term goals throughout a busy period. He may have been correct in the sense of it being a problem but what I’m not so sure of is whether it applies just to corporations.

People used to measuring everything in terms of progress struggle to adapt to environments where the relevant concern is keeping up.

People who like their work should find ways to keep doing their work.

I thought these two insights were related in the sense that the pace, rhythm, and style of work is often an important consideration (especially for those who don’t necessary have a preferred or defined line of work). The type of person who likes to see consistent and regular progress is probably well suited for the short-term considerations of the private sector while those who enjoy the challenge of maintenance might find themselves at home in the public sector.

All I ever wanted to be... was an elevator operator, can you help me, please?

I won’t even pretend this is something other than a Courtney Barnett lyric. If you get bored today, though, ‘Elevator Operator’ is a jam – here’s the best version I found.

Is there any better way to end a riff off?

i read wonder so you don't have to

Wonder by R.J. Palacio (August 2019)

Wonder is about a boy whose disfigured face constantly makes him the center of unwanted attention. The plot mostly covers sixth grade, his first year in a regular school. This book was a little outside my usual range but I had a good time reading Palacio's novel. I didn’t consider it a particularly challenging read but I think most people will like the story and pull a few good lessons from its pages about how to treat others in a world where everyone is in a constant battle to fully accept each other’s uniqueness.

The most profound thought from the book was how challenging it is to see the people closest to us in the same way others see them. I think I’ve pointed out in the past here on TOA how most people don’t have a good grasp on which of their friends are shy – this idea works in a similar way. At the most basic level, we accept those closest to us but this acceptance can blind us to the way others reject the same people. I also liked a related comment about the downside of trying to help others feel normal. Good intentions, no doubt about it, but it’s a healthy part of development to know what makes us different from others and understand why a stranger might consider us abnormal. Again, it’s the way we accept others that might be the challenge – through our acceptance, we risk losing sight of why someone else might not share the same view.

If a book like Wonder requires a single theme, it’s probably that we should always be a little kinder than necessary. Can’t hurt, right? It’s a massive challenge to see when others are having their worst days while we are enjoying just another normal afternoon. By being relentless kind, we don’t have to see this – we can simply bolster each other regardless of what else is going on and be there to help as needed when a day is proving more difficult than usual.

There is a light quality to the book that I appreciated at various times for the way it suggested tactics for building up resilience. People who struggle with self-acceptance should enjoy costume opportunities like Halloween – why not take a break and be completely like everyone else for a night? The reminder that most stresses and worries turn out to be nothing was also helpful as was the follow up about how we shouldn’t worry much when something is outside our control. Finally, although symbolism is always present if you look for it, a duck is just a duck sometimes, and there’s nothing more to it.

master pu’s pu-pu platter – summer podcasts 2019

Master Poo’s thoughts on my notes from this summer’s podcasts.

If you can’t understand a politician, it’s probably BS (Trevor Noah on the Bill Simmons Podcast).

If you can understand a politician, it’s probably BS.

Some people say it's better to have some data than none – I disagree, since you might think you know something about something when you don’t. (EconTalk, episode unknown)

Before collecting data, set the threshold where more than none is relevant.

Positive thinking implies things are your fault. (Call Your Girlfriend, episode unknown)

Positive thinking implies a limited grasp of cause and effect.

You get better at typing with a metronome that slightly pushes you to type faster. (David Epstein on EconTalk )

This technique makes you better at typing faster, not better at typing.

It's hard to get students to respond to work beyond sharing their own immediate emotional response. (BookFight, episode unknown)

An unmet need for emotional expression impairs the mind from calculation.

reading review - bad stories

Bad Stories by Steve Almond (February 2019)

I almost always travel with a book or two just in case I end up having a few free moments. Like with any great rule I eagerly make exceptions. A common case stems from when I have so much confidence in my schedule that I cannot foresee any possibility of needing to kill time. When do things ever turn out differently than we expect, right?

I suppose Bad Stories is a good example of how the unexpected is often the first hint of an opportunity. I had left home one day with no expectation of needing a book but plans broke down and I was suddenly facing an hour on the train. With only a few spare minutes, I made an emergency stop in the library to find a book for the train. I settled quickly on Bad Stories because of its obvious positive qualities – new, short, and written by a familiar name. (The last point was the least important as I knew nothing about Steve Almond’s writing – I was familiar with him for his role as co-host of the Dear Sugar Radio podcast. It all worked out well – or maybe new and short are the only important qualities. Anyway, moving on.)

It didn’t take more than a couple of stops before I understood that this would become one of my favorite reads of the year. This collection fits into a genre that has only briefly existed (and might not survive for much longer) – books that might have been called What Happened? had Hillary Clinton not beaten everyone to the punch. Almond’s mystified contribution to this growing field of research argues that bad storytelling was a primary culprit for creating the conditions required for the Trump Presidency and he goes on to consider the role of storytelling in our ongoing quest to build a different future. There is a lot I’d like to cover about this book and we’ll work through the details over a handful of upcoming posts.

The main idea of this book, however, is firmly focused on the role stories play in distorting, diminishing, and deleting the truth of our experiences. Almond points out, for example, that America’s origin story ignores how many of our founders were aristocrats who owned people. In today’s country, the race story encourages poor white Americans to blame those of different races for their circumstances. I especially liked the point that a bad story’s biggest problem is the way it prevents better stories from being told. There are so many important stories being forced into darkness by lesser tales that it’s worth considering how the world might change if the untapped power of these stories could be brought into the light of day.

One place Almond looks for these untold stories is in the news media. The reality he describes is that the media rarely seems to consider their role in creating and encouraging its many circuses, preferring instead to claim ‘objectivity’ by only covering the story. I agree in that it’s objective to cover a story using particular principles or methods as guidelines but doing so with a self-generated story is a lot like a scientist eagerly scribbling out the results after an hour spent meddling with the test tubes. Almond also brings up a general point about journalism, noting a tendency to settle by presenting two sides of a story rather than digging deep to determine the truth of the various underlying facts. Again, there is a clear case of objectivity in giving all parties a fair share of the stage. But if the media is merely presenting stories rather than working out their validity, it seems like they are giving in to the constant pressure of reporting more interesting stories at the expense of more important work.

One up: I thought Almond had some sharp insights into human nature. One common refrain was that we tend to take our grievances seriously while dismissing our vulnerabilities. Another suggested that people who work well with differing views have a humble curiosity about the outside world. Perhaps those seeking to make progress in this area should consider whether the internet’s tendency toward shallowness and meanness is playing any role in making the adoption of this humble curiosity a challenging endeavor.

One down: The most memorable section of this book presented the following hypothetical. Suppose two candidates apply for the same job. The male candidate has no industry experience but has led several businesses into bankruptcy. He is known to make bigoted statements – including one astonishing video where he bragged about sexually assaulting women. The female candidate has significant and recent experience. She’s been repeatedly accused of corruption despite the lack of evidence. In 2016, America confirmed that they were equally qualified for our most important job.

Just saying: I’m almost certain that I liked this book because I agreed with many of Almond’s subtler points. One example was the importance of television in increasing Trump’s plausibility as a candidate. Almond suggested that Trump’s role in The Apprentice (a show I didn’t watch) portrayed him as a reasonable and compassionate boss yet one capable of maintaining authority and command over his businesses. Another point criticized the role of comedy for how it inappropriately insulated people from their most distressing reactions and reduced the sense of urgency about the election. The most significant criticisms were about general media coverage – I’ll cover those in an upcoming post.

i read trip to hanoi so you don't have to

Trip to Hanoi by Susan Sontag (May 2019)

Susan Sontag’s describes her 1968 visit to Vietnam in this ninety-one page account. The timing of the work hints at the possibility of political commentary shaping the bulk of the writing but I didn’t find as much discussion this as I expected. I suppose her comment rings true – there is a difference between actors and spectators and the sense of solidarity often spoken of between the two groups is no more than a moral abstraction.

I found Sontag's comparison of Vietnamese and American cultures far more interesting and, in some sense, influential in how she wrote Trip to Hanoi. She notes that there is an inevitable clash whenever a guilt culture meets a shame culture, particularly due to the way the latter grants more importance to collective action and public standards. A guilt culture like America is more likely to produce intellectual doubt and moral convolutions, both of which I thought underscored how Sontag interprets and articulates her experiences into the work. One example of this was the way she describes memberships in public organizations – though she concedes how these are valuable in promoting the values of a shame culture, she sees the loss of private autonomy depersonalizing in a way that wouldn’t concern her hosts. These insights, though illuminating for me as a reader, also seemed to keep a barrier in place between her and her hosts that may have limited the potential of the work.

Of course, such a barrier was always likely to remain in place no matter what the approach taken by any visitor. America’s history in Vietnam was dreadful long before what the locals would soon call ‘The American War’ – in the 1950s, the USA paid for nearly 80% of the French war budget for Vietnam. It’s telling that Sontag notes how Western culture values variety in the process of devaluing what has been done (and repeated) from the past – though her comment came in the context of how an average Vietnamese took to menial daily tasks, I thought it explained much about how an American could conceive of visiting a country her government was actively bombing. It’s another manifestation of the feeling I noted above – in a guilt culture, patriotism can mean opposition to foreign policy.

reading review - little labors

Little Labors by Rivka Galchen (May 2019)

Little Labors is a collection of short essays from Rivka Galchen’s early years of motherhood. It’s full of interesting observation, commentary, and insight that often covers much more territory than the official topic. Ultimately, the book demonstrates a personal manifestation of Galchen’s recipe for becoming a writer – find new meaning in everyday experience.

I liked her assertion that people who believe they can change how others think are prone to frustration. A very truthful thought, at least based on my experiences, and I look back on the day I stopped worrying about changing minds as a personal day of emancipation. I felt a similar way about her remark that people should not judge others based on competitions – again, from my experience little insight is gained when comparing one to another. I know a little less about her comment on how babies give some parents a reason to live while for others the baby means dying is no longer permitted. What I can say is that I do recognize the difference, at least in general, and I always hope people in the latter category find the means to book safe passage to the former.

The most interesting comments about parenthood came through her observations about speech. From her perspective, speech is the start of misunderstanding, a thought that clashes ominously with a different comment that identifies understanding as the crucial precursor to loving difficult people. Who could be more difficult than a just-speaking baby? I suspect this is further complicated by how the power of speech reveals children to be primarily concerned with their own wants and grievances – in other words, speech reveals that children were little adults all along. Perhaps in this context the original thought was backward – speech exposes misunderstanding. I suppose I’ll learn one day, maybe.

As a closing thought, I’ll point out Galchen’s comment that happy memoirs are rare. This led me to wonder why someone might assume a memoir should be happy (and why this kind of assumption is extended to so much else about our experience). I see a good life as a healthy combination of many emotions, happiness included, so to me a memoir that can be described in terms as simple as one emotion is likely missing some perspective that would be important for the reader.

One up: I liked the observation that a parent of a baby can sometimes go entire days without speaking to another adult. Taken on its surface – the point of view of the parent – this is undoubtedly true. If we look at it from a different angle, though – from the general possibility of one adult going a day without speaking to another – I think there are a lot of assumptions built into this observation that make the phenomena seem far more unusual in theory than it is in practice.

One down: This book is a good example of the dangers of making too many contemporary references in a work – I think Galchen mentions Louis CK on at least ten nonconsecutive occasions. But I shouldn’t throw stones - for who would come to visit this glass-thatched blog of mine?

Just saying: Yes, Galchen does write a lot about The Pillow Book. In fact, her depth of analysis and understanding of the famous work made me question my own reading of the same and left me wondering whether I need to read differently – perhaps with more curiosity about the work or with heightened focus throughout the read.

reading review - the fifth risk

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (August 2019)

Michael Lewis, firmly established on the TOA’s ‘read everything by this author’ list, released his latest work in late 2018. Unlike with some of his other work, I had no idea what this book was about, but eventually a definition rolled along – the fifth risk is consistently implementing short-term solutions to mitigate long-term risks. It essentially means filling in the potholes on a crumbling bridge; broadly speaking, we could just call it infrastructure.

As I learned in this book, the government takes on much of the work addressing this risk. For example, governments have traditionally funded most early stage innovation. This accounts for the free market’s failure to create incentives for people to go into labs and try things that may or may not work. Governments also understand that people generally respond better to what just happened as opposed to what might happen and respond accordingly by allocating resources into protecting people from the unseen or unpredictable risks.

There are many constant pressures against these ideals, however. One is simply that governments are themselves staffed by those subject to the same human responses, biases, and temptations that define decisions within the free market. If a government can pay later rather than pay now, historically it will opt to pay later and this generally comes at the cost of our infrastructure progress. Government transitions are also critical and Lewis focuses the early part of this book on the subject. Many of the experts he highlights in The Fifth Risk cite botched transitions as a major factor when governments struggle to keep up with change. The Trump Administration in particular comes under significant fire for repeating this error (though they are hardly the first to underestimate the complexity of government while dismissing the competence of those most recently tasked with its operation).

Though there are many nuances involved, my first thought after reading this book was the understated importance of keeping up our government’s involvement in R&D. America’s advantages in the short-term are unassailable but a push to privatize research brings short-term market thinking into a long-term domain; inevitably, the market’s inability to function as a tool for meeting long-term objectives will be exposed. The USA has always successfully assembled its building blocks but taking advantage of this strength requires having blocks available to put together. If we do not ramp up investment into early stage research, it will mean fewer available blocks for our future. Let’s get our act together on this before we fall behind in the race to discover the next great idea.

One up: I referenced the first half of the book above but chose to ignore its latter half – we’ll cover it in an upcoming post. In short, the second half took a closer look at the applications of the government’s infrastructure investments and in the process I found quite an abundance of interesting observations.

For now, I’ll highlight the thought that weather forecasts should reflect more about their uncertainty. Most of us expect a five-day forecast but sometimes a two-day forecast is more appropriate (as would be a two-week outlook on certain days). The consistent five day outlook creates a false sense of certainty about certain forecasts made during unstable weather periods and we would all benefit from an understanding that predictions will be made only when it meets a high threshold of certainty.

One down: Without getting into the details (reader, read the book), I must wonder – is it legal for a private weather forecasting company to withhold information from the nonpaying public about an impending disaster?

Just saying, part one: My first thought about this book was overwhelmingly positive and for a really simple reason: the book started on page 17! More of this, please! It should be against the law to have extended openings, introductions, and prefaces that are numbered so that I turn the page onto the main work and learn that I’m on… page 3??? How could I be on page 3 when I’ve been reading for two hours? I say The Sixth Risk is idiotic numbering within books but I applaud Michael Lewis for starting this book on page 17 and getting us off to a great start in the fight.

Just saying, part two: I laughed at the observation that when things go wrong in an organization, the best and brightest leave first merely because they can generate good job offers relatively easier than their less skilled colleagues.

reading review - the goal (cost profiles)

The appendix of The Goal notes how the presence of price competition often indicates that customers feel unable to control most aspects of their cost profiles. This conclusion is intuitive – if customers were able to lower other costs, they might choose goods and services based on factors unrelated to price.

An organization with a superior good or service can sometimes be caught on the other side of this problem if they are unable to lower their price point. What is the best approach if customers cannot cover the cost for producing a good or service? To put it another way, if it costs $10 to produce a pizza but customers never pay more than $8, that’s the end of the pizza industry, right?

A clever organization can survive such a challenge if it can lower the cost profiles of its customers. There are simple ways to do this. If customers are unable to afford to travel to a particular store, for example, an organization can lower this aspect of the cost profile by offering a delivery service for a fee that is lower than the transportation cost for a customer. There are a number of more complex examples that grow from this idea – money back guarantees, rollover minutes, rewards programs, and so on.

What these organizations and their methods all have in common is the way they charge a customer for the right to a lower cost profile. The rise of Internet commerce provides many examples for how organizations find ways to lower a customer’s cost profile. A theory-based way to think of Seattle-based Amazon’s shipping service is that it eliminates the need to buy a plane ticket to the Pacific Northwest anytime a customer wants to buy from Amazon. In this approach, a customer who could not afford to buy a book for $20 plus the round-trip airfare would become able to afford the book for $20 plus the cost of shipping.

A more practical understanding suggests that shipping eliminates the cost of driving to any local bookstore that might sell the same book. The majority of Amazon book customers probably consider the cost of shipping to be less than the cost of going to the bookstore. This thought process applies to everything Amazon offers and manifests in its Prime membership program – for a flat annual fee, Amazon will ship anything to you for free. The program’s success hinges on a simple calculation – any customer who feels the membership cost is less than the cost of all the trips made in a year to brick and mortar stores will sign up for the service. This in turn lowers their overall cost profile, which in turn frees up a customer’s spending money for buying products on Amazon that might cost more than the prices offered on local store shelves.

If the program is executed successfully, the customer who is right on the edge of purchasing a single good or service is enticed into making the purchase (and many similar ones in the future) by signing up for the program, lowering their overall cost, and finding that, all things considered, the more expensive good is better for their overall financial health.

reading review - when things fall apart

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron (February 2019)

When Things Fall Apart is a collection of talks given by Pema Chodron between 1987 and 1994. Her wise words contain many insights into how we can face the future during times of great pain, suffering, or difficulty.

The main idea connecting the book’s many chapters is the human fallacy to think there is always more time. I think we are exposed to this lesson many times over but we often ignore the message until it gets buried somewhere deep in the back of the mind. The acceptance of this lesson doesn’t mean we need to start frantically rushing through our days in a mad bustle to get everything done; rather, it just means we need to take more agency for how the future is shaped and carry out this responsibility with a little more urgency. One way this lesson helps us is by initiating the simple self-assessments that consider how our ingrained habits hurt others. These reflections help us recognize when small changes to our ways can make the world a better place and spur us to immediate action by framing it in the context of how the change will benefit others.

These reflective acts seem trivial but I think they carry infinite potential. Chodron points out one important factor here – when we get used to our own ways, we slowly start to assume others are used to us. The assumption is dangerous because we become careless and harm others in ways beyond our powers of recognition. It also makes us prone to get used to the world around us and see it as permanently fixed in place. The willingness to find our faults through an open and warm self-examination breaks this cycle of false permanence and gives us the best chance of seeing all the ways small changes can make the outside world a better place.

The permanent nature of this mentality requires an additional component of kindness and bravery to the self. Without it, Chodron notes that we limit the compassion we have available for others. It’s possible to change the world without compassion but it limits the extent of our powers because the change is possible only where we can leverage our abilities through direct interaction. If we bring our compassion to others, we not only drive change through our actions but also empower others to do the same under the guiding light of our wisdom, empathy, and acceptance.

One up: I liked her definition for ego – it’s what prevents us from relating to our immediate surroundings. For someone afflicted with a terrible bout of ego, it is impossible to leverage experience as a means for bringing forth joy and goodness in the world.

One down: We sometimes allow our inner dialogue to be our own worst enemy. I thought Chodron put it very well when she writes that intelligence is the ability to recognize a thought as just thinking and nothing more. If a thought comes along that doesn’t serve our own good, it’s best to simply acknowledge the thought and move on.

This applies as well in the ability to keep away from forming opinions regarding whether other people are right or wrong. If something comes along that does nothing for us, it’s best to simply acknowledge the thought and move on.

The sampler: Although there were many wonderful chapters in this book, I thought chapter 18 was particularly good and I read it a second time before returning the book.

Just saying: Chodron warns that we will always face dilemmas if we seek consistency in our education and in our self-expression. The best way to reconcile this may be to accept the future as an accumulation of what we do, starting now, until the end. This gives us the chance to both accept what we’ve been learned while adapting our expression to the changing needs of the newest moment.

leftovers - it took me ten seconds to write this post

I wrote briefly in this post about a friend who helped me realize that I was overestimating how long it would take me to learn a certain job skill. The same friend once made a related point about how the biggest obstacle to doing almost anything is the first ten minutes. If you can get through that first ten minutes, he thought, you usually get into a rhythm and can focus on anything.

I thought this was a very useful insight. It’s really challenging to start something and on the surface that's what he’s talking about in those first ten minutes. But the more important concept is hidden in the background – as hard as it is to start doing, it’s even harder to stop doing. The key is to know how to summon the energy of starting so that we can leverage the difficulty of stopping to our advantage.

The ‘first ten minutes’ idea is of course arbitrary and reflects a bias toward tasks. Getting through the first ten minutes might be a good way to think about tasks like doing your homework, cleaning the bathroom, or exercising at the gym. From my experience, once I’ve focused and started such things I’ve found it about as hard to stop as it originally was to start. I’m sure the broader principle applies for things with a longer time commitment and it might be reasonable enough to assume that the equivalent of ‘the first ten minutes’ expands in proportion to the size of the overall time commitment. I’ve heard it takes most people a couple of weeks to establish a new habit or routine but knowing that most habits are hard to kick I think that initial level of effort to establish the right new thing is well worth the investment. And thinking about it in these terms might make a daunting task seem much more manageable. If you want to establish a new routine for the rest of your life, it’s not a question of gathering the motivation to do it every day for the rest of your life, it’s really a matter of gathering the motivation for the next two or three weeks because once that habit is locked it, you’ll be able to continue doing it without much extra effort at all.

leftovers #4 - daily rituals – TOA edition (internet admin)

I concluded my original post in this series with a description about how I use my internet time. Now, although 'internet time' was the lowest entry among my ‘priorities’, I'm here to talk more about it because, dear internet reader, I suspect the details might be of more interest than the ranking. Today, I’ve put together a few additional notes on what exactly I do while online.

First, I have a short list of news (‘news’) websites I visit every day – ESPN, ESPNFC, and the Wikipedia current events page. I also check the hourly weather forecast, organize any new email, and update my calendar. Then, I add new entries for the following logs – weight (pounds), running (mileage), biking (minutes), reading (completed books), and writing (minutes). Finally, I add any updates I might include in upcoming TOA proper admins. I do all of this the first time I go online each day and in total this routine takes around fifteen minutes.

Next, I have set routines I take care of once per week. This, again, is mostly a list of websites. I check a handful of bookstore calendars for upcoming author readings and visit a number of actual news websites (1). I also double check my basketball schedule to make sure I have the correct start time for that week’s game and verify that I have at least one week’s worth of TOA posts set for publication (‘publication’). This routine happens the first time I log in on a weekend and takes up to thirty minutes. If I sense I might end up taking longer than thirty minutes (which usually means I picked too many news articles to read) I’ll save the least time sensitive of the remaining work for later (2).

Finally, I take care of less urgent routines based on certain target start dates. I used to do these based on a given date (the 4th, the 12th, the 20th, etc) but I now do this based on the Satuday (first Saturday, second Saturday, etc) (3). For example, I usually check band websites for concert announcements on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday of each month (used to be the 4th, 14th, and 24th of the month). On the 2nd Saturday, I log my monthly spending (used to be on the 12th). The full list is in my footnotes (4).

Once I complete all of my internet admin, I move on to time intensive projects. These include the obvious like answering longer emails, editing TOA posts, or simply entertaining myself. I also handle any urgent one-off projects during this time (such as filling out tax returns). The most notable of these tasks is a self-review of my internet routines. I do this once every three months (editor’s note: ‘a quarter’, according to the Business Bro) and it mostly concerns whether the timing I’ve describe above is appropriate for the needs of the task. It’s during these reviews that I decided to move my news website visits to once per week, for example, because I realized that I found out about the most important news through my daily Wikipedia check, my morning TV check of the local news, or through word of mouth.

Footnotes

1. The actual list…

Here are the bookstores I check for author readings:

Porter Square Books
Harvard Bookstore
Brookline Booksmith
Once Somerville (not a bookstore, but it seems to fit)

I also Google search 'Greater Boston author readings' along with the date of the upcoming Sunday for the Boston Globe's weekly summary of upcoming events.

And here are the news websites I review once per week:

The Irish Times
The Guardian
The Japan Times
Al Jazeera
The Associated Press (which I'm about to give up on)

The reason I only check these once per week is because I’ve found over time that this is the best balance between keeping myself in the loop without forcing me to read about the same topic more than once.

2. Special temporary exception

At the time of writing, I happened to be looking for a new job. This means I need to review job listings and complete applications. Ideally, I do this once per week but I break up the dullest parts into pieces just to preserve my mental health. This means I generally review emailed alerts from Indeed within 48 hours so that I can apply quickly to obvious opportunities. If an opportunity isn't obviously a good fit, I save it for a weekly batch application hour (usually Sunday). I space my visits to specialized job boards or company career pages to happen every seven to ten days so that I can have a n unhurried look at less direct fits while ensuring I catch anything I missed from the emailed listings.

3. Why Saturday?

I picked Saturday as my day of the week for two reasons. First, I tend to think about my internet time in terms of weeks so using a Saturday as the unit of recurrence is the best fit with my mental organization. Second, Friday is the day I spend the least time online which means Saturday is usually my busiest admin day in terms of organizing new email and catching up on what’s happening around the world. This means I’m already in the mood for admin and I find it easy to batch additional variants of this work together.

4. The week+ routines

1st Saturday

*Clear out lingering to-do items (email inbox, etc)
*Check band websites for upcoming concerts
*Check library accounts, Facebook, and LinkedIn (five minutes max)

2nd Saturday

*Budget, pay credit card bills, etc

3rd Saturday

*Check 'lingering thoughts' document (personal scratch pad)
*Check band websites for upcoming concerts
*Check library accounts, Facebook, and LinkedIn (five minutes max)

4th Saturday

*Check bank and credit card accounts for weird activity
*Check local rents
*Even # month - compare reading log to library checkouts
*Odd # month - various admin tasks like cleaning up Gmail contacts, etc

5th Saturday

*Save emailed files to Google drive (book notes, etc)
*Check band websites for upcoming concerts
*Check library accounts, Facebook, and LinkedIn (five minutes max)

master pu's pu-pu platter – spring podcasts 2019

We haven’t heard from Master Pu in quite a while but rest assured, readers, he’s not been forgotten, merely ignored. I’ve been thinking of different ways to bring his nonsensical short-order BS back into the TOA fold for the past few weeks (including possibly resurrected the short-lived ‘talking shits’ concept) but nothing immediately tickled my fancy.

Just last week, I was reviewing my podcast notes when I realized that these might make for a good start. These notes are something I started doing back in April when I recognized that although I've listened to (thousands of) podcasts in my apartment, I've rarely gone through any process of thinking about the shows. I decided to put out a notepad on my shelf (‘the shelf’) and start jotting down any interesting observations.

Like anything I write down, I eventually concluded that these deserved a wider audience. But there wasn't really all that much to say about any of these thoughts.

And that's when it hit me – we’ll just get Master Pu to weigh in on each idea and move on.

Good luck, reader.

You learn from complex systems by disturbing them. (Tim Ferris with Michael Pollan)

A doctor learns nothing from the healthy, the CEO nothing from the profit, the student nothing from the A.

Beware comparisons when the reference point is an outlier or an all-time low. (Unknown)

Less than most is more than most.

Use zero, not one, for the bottom rating on a survey. (The Pollsters, episode unknown)

Nothing is more confusing than when nothing is next to nothing.

I’m ready to talk but not answer questions. (Unknown)

Talk as a substitute for thinking atrophies the ability to answer questions.

Really try to give straight answers to straight questions. (The Football Ramble interviewing Chris Brady)

A simple mind accepts complexity with the same warmth of a sand castle accepting the tide.

The phrase “I don’t give a shit” is good as long as something more important is taking its place. (Unknown)

Nothing is more important than giving a shit.

Writers must know that anything you do can be fixed. (Tim Ferris with Neil Gaiman)

The eraser is mightier than the sword.

Ideas emerge as you ask yourself simple questions – what if, I wonder, and so on. (Tim Ferris with Neil Gaiman)

Sometimes we understand less when we prematurely explain.

Seeking treatment when symptoms are at their worst means we think medicine is helpful in those cases when we may simply be observing natural variation in disease progression. Most disease progression is non-linear. (EconTalk, episode unknown)

It cannot be helped that fires are put out after they start.

Not do more of, but less of. (Unknown)

Do more of less.