Serendipity, or why I never got my GED:
College, to me, was being Wednesday Addams at summer camp. Academia is much the same sort of brainwashing as being sat in a room to watch Disney and Brady Bunch. $20,000 for what is often no more than a more powerful magnet striking a lesser magnet repeatedly, aligning the lesser magnets to its field.
And surely, if I had such difficulty, those less privileged than I suffered all the more, continue to suffer, and all the more unjustly. So there is a part of me that will not pick up those tools that when encountered, still set my heart in a vise. I choose other tools, which I find fairer, and dedicate my life to sharing these tools with anyone and everyone: the tools of the toolmaker. Learning how to learn for one's own purpose.
A GED is not this. A GED is trying to force an already hurt person into passable conformity.
Let us learn for the sake of survival and sustenance, let us learn for the joy of learning and experience. There need be no other reasons.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
How A Living Legend Keeps Me Up At Night
It is a perfect picture.
From afar, it looks as if a brightly-festooned paraglider has just landed in the middle of Palisades Park during the most beautiful day of Autumn.
I briefly wonder if Felix Baumgartner made a wrong turn.
Then I see the beautiful blond Labrador retriever sniffing about, and, further away, a ski pole stuck in the ground with a piece of surveying ribbon serving for a windsock. It's definitely a paraglider. I tell my father to park the car nearer to this person, and when we come to a stop I set off in search of an explanation...
The explanation I will eventually get is so compelling, it makes me just want to hold my woman tight in our bed. It's keeping me up at night, the image I keep replaying through my head. Some sort of late-night indulgence into the meaning of mortality and old age has me out on the couch writing a blog instead of sleeping.
Today, my father and I decided to ride our bicycles to the top of Bear Mountain.
This 1,300' (or so) flagship of the Palisades Interstate Park System has a winding depression-era scenic drive that ends in splendid views of the Hudson River and a 50-mile vista over the Hudson Highlands all the way to Manhattan.
We started our day with breakfast at a local 50's theme diner.
We ordered hamburger-steaks and talk about health in diet, aging, and getting the most out of your time and your mind.
My father talks about how he is always thinking and planning, and how he doesn't see himself as a genius. His business is finally successful, and is growing at a prolific rate, and he can finally take a moment to think about his accomplishments- ones worth being proud of.
I mention he is very good at personal efficacy, at geting the results he wants out of himself, but not as good at getting that from his employees and other people he works with. He has a hard time knowing how to give over responsibility. He is so effective at what he does that he often can get away without passing the responsibility over to anyone but himself.
This is all in a larger context: I am working for the family business with an ulterior motive.
I believe my father, who has dedicated his life to this company, deserves more free time.
We finish breakfast, and start to take some of our precious time driving to the hiker's lot at the base of Bear Mountain.
Unfortunately, it's the peak of leaf-peeper season and all the city folk come upstate to remember what a tree looks like.
The Palisades Parkway was a zoo for Oktoberfest, and we found ourselves mired in endless traffic the likes of which we'd never seen.
When we finally arrived at the exit for Bear Mountain, it was closed off. At the encouragement of a wage-slave park worker, we ended up having to ride the grass and pull a marginal u-turn across the median, with the bikes on the back of my dad's sedan bouncing precariously.
We worked our way back to a parking area the next exit down, which is predictably empty in stark contrast to the frozen bumper-to-bumper madness on the parkway only 3/4 of a mile away (Pareto's Law). This is where we see the colorful airfoil fluttering provocatively in the wind.
This is where I approach what I assume is yet-another-extreme-sports-geek.
I walk up and greet the dog, who accepts and nuzzles me, kind and gentle. The man is clearly attuned to his task and I notice two things about him:
1) This guy is really old!
2) This is a very small paraglider, in a most odd place to go gliding!
We strike up a conversation. Eventually my father comes over, after unloading our bikes.
I ask,"Are you practicing your pop-ups?"
The man responds; "Yes. Do you do this?"
"I've done it a couple time before, in New Zealand".
He looks at me slightly more, replies "...Ahh, I go to France every year to climb and hike and I see these things soaring over my head and I finally decided I am getting too old. I don't have much time left to try this and I am losing my agility for climbing."
I ask "You rock climb?"
He says "Oh yes."
I ask him,
"You climb at the Gunks?"
He takes a deep breath,
"I was climbing at the gunks in the 1940's. I'm the oldest member of the American Alpine Club."
It's my turn to take a deep breath. I think for a moment of how to respond. So far, we have been playing each other, feeling eack other out to see if I am a yuppie tourist and if he is another over-rich crackpot finding hobbies to try reclaiming his youth.
I finally say "Not a lot of people climbed there back then."
It's the only thing I can think of to say. I am awed. This man is living legend, and I don't even know who he is. His full-face helmet distorts his features and hides his jawline. I don't know his name and it might not mean anything to me if I did.
My father asks some questions about flying, and micro-meterology. I idly mention refill recovery times or somesuch. My father says he is worried about breaking bones at his age.
Matter-of-factly the man gestures at the pack on his back and replies,
"Well, that is why this has so much padding, and I wear the helmet. And with a good gust, this thing will just drag you along the ground."
I find I really like this man. He feels like a kindred spirit. I don't want to interrupt him any further.
We chat awkwardly a few more moments, my father and I looking for beta on how to get our bikes to the next exit without getting jammed-up in traffic and without cycling on the Palisades Parkway. With brief description, as if he had confidently memorized this unusual route, he tells us the trail will get us close, and I confirm on the map. At a lull, I say:
"Well, we'll let you get back to it. I'm Brad."
He says "I'm Fred."
I shake his hand.
My father and I walk back to the car, get our helmets out. I say:
"This trip was worth it, even if it was just for that and the bicycling turns out to be a bust. That guy is a living legend. He's probably done crazy shit you can't even imagine! He's from the old-school of climbing, and he was probably doing crazy routes, like the hardest stuff in the world."
The name Fred also sticks with me.
I can't put a finger on it, but I have a waist-high stack of Climbing magazine going back to 1998 that attests to countless hours of a younger me poring over pages in search of lore.
My father and I mount up, and ride off. We are trying to ride to the top of Bear Mountain, right at the peak of leaf-peeper season, and I am soon lost in the joy of sharing a spectacular fall day with my dad.
We make one wrong turn, quickly remedied, and happily find the feeder trail (an old access road) is bikeable. A brief technical-on-a-roadbike downhill section full of thorns has my dad walking, and me grinning.
In no time, we emerge into the shoulder of the Parkway. Usually, people fly at terrifying speeds on this stretch, often upwards of 70MPH. Today, we are cruising past every type of imaginable vehicle, all mired in the same misery. I take smug satisfaction in beating the game.
We ride up the closed on-ramp and suddenly it is silent but for the wind rushing past our faces:
We have the road to ourselves.
Many more smiles ensue.
The Park, bless them, is only allowing a quota into this area, controlling traffic for Oktoberfest, and it has deterred the vast majority that usually throngs in dense droves to the top of Perkins Drive, the only paved route to the top. We are occasionally passed by a car, but mostly we can talk and revel in the splendor of our precious Hudson Valley, passing unforgettable views of Peekskill and the Bear Mountain Bridge.
We hear babbling brooks, our faces are caressed by shimmering waves of falling leaves.
The trip is, generally speaking, wonderful.
We arrive at the top to no fanfare. We suffer the one disappointment of the day- usually there are a lot more motorcyclists riding interesting machines, we settle for chatting up a couple women on CBR-600's. They gave us the dish on the traffic, and I asked them where they were riding from. When they replied Westchester, I figured they wouldn't be much help in getting J (my partner) riding, so we wandered around a bit.
We did all the touristy things, walking down the path the where the viewers are, climbing up the tower (a somewhat tragic massacre of ladybugs under impatient tourist's feet) and taking a few pictures of the view.
When we are ready, it is only a five minute ride back down the 800 vertical feet of Perkins Drive. I take video on my cellphone the whole way. The rest of the ride back is pleasant and uneventful.
When we return successful, Fred is still there. He has been standing in the same spot for hours, doing a most improbable thing for an 89 year-old. He is meticulously practicing his technique for popping up his paraglider. It confirms what I already knew:
This guy has some serious dedication.
He is a perfect metaphor for aging.
Back at home, I look Fred up. Turns out, at least for a climbing geek like me, that yeah, he's kind of an anti-hero- my favorite kind of hero, and he's definitely a world-famous climber. His name is Fred Beckey.
“If Thoreau and Emerson describe the transcendental American theme, then Beckey — after Ahab, akin to Kerouac — describes the oddly manic drive to scale and map and detail the wilderness in a modern way,” said Steve Costie, executive director of the Mountaineers, which eventually accepted Beckey as a member. “Almost adversarial; never transcendental.” -NYT
"The current crop of the world's best climbers waited in line to have their picture taken with Fred, so they could post it on their Facebook pages," she said.
Fred Beckey is this sort of role model for the alternative lifestyle, like Yvon Chounard. He's the epitome of doing what you do because of what you love.
It's funny; here my father and I are trying to find our way. We want to have more time to do the things we love .
I think back over our breakfast conversation. My dad in his golden years, with many passions unfulfilled, and myself a consummate dropout somehow finding myself in the world of business. We need to be able to do good work, and stay financially independent, while living full and rich lives.
And here we ran into an expert!
Beckey has a degree in business administration from the University of Washington and had a career in marketing, though he chose to work part time seasonally.
"That was the way I could get enough time off to climb," he said. "I don't know where I got the reputation for being a climbing bum."
Beckey said a famous photograph of him standing at the side of a road holding a sign reading, "Will belay for food," was staged as a joke.
"I have a car, a house and a money market fund," Beckey said.
Reisner, his climbing partner from Portland, has been inside Beckey's house in Seattle's Lake City neighborhood. The walls are decorated with mountain photos taken by Beckey, and also by Austin Post, the USGS aerial photographer who made classic images of the North Cascades and southeast Alaska.
"It's like walking into the throne room of the mountain god," Reisner said. -T.R.
Unfortunately, that god, at least today, looked very tired, stubborn,
and alone.
Yet, I still would be honored to be his friend. It's his drive and passion and dedication and accomplishment that have made him so admirable to me.
I just don't know how to reconcile that with a rich family life, with a deep immediate personal connectedness to other people. I am scared of this feeling that I am disconnected from my immediate world, despite all the zen vibes I get from climbing and playing music, and despite all my best efforts to foster closeness in my relationships.
Am I strong enough to be great?
And that's what keeps me up at night. That's what makes me want to hold my woman tight.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Caught in the Middle
I've been somewhat torn in my value system these days.
I am torn between three influences-
J., who is extremely socially conscious and constantly pushing my understanding of privilege.
My father, whose company employs me and who, driven and hardworking, is finally financially successful and respected by the small circle in which he exerts his influence, after many years. He is pushing me, perhaps unwittingly, to follow his life model, one which I deeply respect and resist at the same time.
And I am reading of a group of privileged intelligent white males who have all these clever ways of gaming the traditional structure of our society: Ryan Holiday, Robb Wolf, Tim Feriss, etc.
These guys are perhaps my generation's response to Fight Club, to being torn between the promise of being a rockstar and the reality of being an office workhorse jockeyed by a corporation. (Are you and I part of the same generation?) Their view seems so deeply flawed however, as it still leaves it up to the individual to fend for himself- man vs world, elite cliques, etc.
***
I have always been good at reconciling diverse viewpoints by mining their core essence, but this time I might finally be stumped. It is a time of transformation. I need a way to live that is honest and simple, fulfilling a few key goals:
Continual self-improvement.
Increasing enjoyment of my life.
Health is a key factor, here.
Actively helping other people.
Working to protect the natural lives of other living things from human interference.
Building a rich social network of interesting people.
I need time to contemplate "great" questions and discipline to enact solutions.
I need a lifestyle change.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Indigenous Resistance Day
Disclosure: J, my beau, was very upset by this post and its title. As a privileged white male, it is not up to me to critique the efforts of the oppressed. And she is right.
I get confused sometimes because I so much more strongly identify with the oppressed, and feel that even the privileged people I know are often profoundly unhappy and trapped by the trappings of their lifestyle.
Still I did not wish to imply that any movement of a people to claim freedom and autonomy ought to be condemned, even as I strive to find a sustainable way to balance the needs of all people, and increasingly, my concern for all living things.
The post stands, because I still feel strongly that this view can help people. Whenever there is an opportunity to encourage a collaborative stance rather than one of opposition, I will do whatever I can to get people to work together. I truly believe that peace cannot come from resistance, but only through deep connection.
That said, I respect that sometimes the forces of the world still seek to destroy you, connection is impossible, and your only option is to fight back. Tit-for-two-tats.
The below is a cautionary tale: For me, I need to shut my mouth sometimes. For other people, they have to be careful of unintended consequences, and most importantly: be careful of becoming the very intolerance you loathe.
“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”- A.G.
Can we admire and appreciate both stunning native cultures and the amazing efforts and diverse accomplishments of C. Columbus?
Isolated cultures are now mostly lost, violently destroyed, or re-contextualized to irrelevance, and Columbus's efforts were largely stolen away from him by a greedy monarchy with a history so colorful that it's at home in a Spanish soap opera.
"Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth and justice! I did not come on this voyage for gain, honor or wealth, that is certain; for then the hope of all such things was dead." -C.C.
For goodness sake, the man had to explain to the greatest leaders of the world, in painstaking detail, that the world was round.
There's a lot to be said for hundreds of years of amazing intellectual awakening and growth for 'us' to be able to recognize the injustice he wrought upon 'native' peoples.
People just didn't have the tools back then to put pacifism into action. In plain English: people can be stupid. It was too important to conquer or be conquered. Spain was on the brink of bankruptcy. If you want a more recent example, look at US dropping the bomb twice on Japan. Or just think back to your high school days...or your office politics now.
And yet today the EU is working desperately to bail each other out, to help find stability, rather than seeking an opportunity to capture a neighboring country. There is more prosperity in teamwork, and this is beginning more and more accepted around the world. War doesn't pay.
"There would be an end of war and preparations for war if the cost were borne by those responsible for war." -F.C.H
It's not so black and white as pulling down a statue of Christopher Columbus and patting ourselves on the back. Most of us have blood on our hands, to varying degrees. Anyone can be a monster in the right environment.
Our safety and satiety rests on the backs of generations, just like any of our accomplishments (agriculture, algebra, medicine and moon landings).
We have to recognize that glamorizing history doesn't make most people any more willing to live in the past. Trumpeting future doom doesn't much help us avoid it. We must evolve or perish. This has always been the case. We are forever changing..at least until entropy kicks in.
And yet, in my country, I see intolerance on the rise. I see people so isolated from each other that, once again, they aren't seeing a fellow human when they judge someone. This applies as much to cashiers as it does to billionaire presidential candidates.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
If the majority of people were more connected to their world, and less desperate for survival and success, maybe most of the world's great injustices could be solved, through small actions or inaction.
"I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries."
The Hero and Savior of Spain. Except, maybe Columbus' understanding of humanity wasn't as forward-thinking as his understanding of geography and navigation.
After all, he was merely following the foremost thoughts of his day, and exceeding pretty much everyone's expectations of how they might be enacted. He was such a good savior and hero that he expedited the imminent slaughter of millions.
Oops.
His intentions were 'good', and that slaughter would probably have happened within a couple hundred years either way. It seems worth considering.
So maybe this ought to be "foster a culture of understanding day"...but I'm afraid most of us aren't ready for that yet.
Still, it can't hurt to try.
Let's devote some time to seeing things from someone else's point of view.
Is it a crime to fall in love?
Can we ever tell where the heart truly leads us?
All we are asking is...
A little understanding.
Why can't the world 'leben und leben lassen'?
'Live and let live...'
I get confused sometimes because I so much more strongly identify with the oppressed, and feel that even the privileged people I know are often profoundly unhappy and trapped by the trappings of their lifestyle.
Still I did not wish to imply that any movement of a people to claim freedom and autonomy ought to be condemned, even as I strive to find a sustainable way to balance the needs of all people, and increasingly, my concern for all living things.
The post stands, because I still feel strongly that this view can help people. Whenever there is an opportunity to encourage a collaborative stance rather than one of opposition, I will do whatever I can to get people to work together. I truly believe that peace cannot come from resistance, but only through deep connection.
That said, I respect that sometimes the forces of the world still seek to destroy you, connection is impossible, and your only option is to fight back. Tit-for-two-tats.
The below is a cautionary tale: For me, I need to shut my mouth sometimes. For other people, they have to be careful of unintended consequences, and most importantly: be careful of becoming the very intolerance you loathe.
“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”- A.G.
Can we admire and appreciate both stunning native cultures and the amazing efforts and diverse accomplishments of C. Columbus?
Isolated cultures are now mostly lost, violently destroyed, or re-contextualized to irrelevance, and Columbus's efforts were largely stolen away from him by a greedy monarchy with a history so colorful that it's at home in a Spanish soap opera.
"Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth and justice! I did not come on this voyage for gain, honor or wealth, that is certain; for then the hope of all such things was dead." -C.C.
For goodness sake, the man had to explain to the greatest leaders of the world, in painstaking detail, that the world was round.
There's a lot to be said for hundreds of years of amazing intellectual awakening and growth for 'us' to be able to recognize the injustice he wrought upon 'native' peoples.
People just didn't have the tools back then to put pacifism into action. In plain English: people can be stupid. It was too important to conquer or be conquered. Spain was on the brink of bankruptcy. If you want a more recent example, look at US dropping the bomb twice on Japan. Or just think back to your high school days...or your office politics now.
And yet today the EU is working desperately to bail each other out, to help find stability, rather than seeking an opportunity to capture a neighboring country. There is more prosperity in teamwork, and this is beginning more and more accepted around the world. War doesn't pay.
"There would be an end of war and preparations for war if the cost were borne by those responsible for war." -F.C.H
It's not so black and white as pulling down a statue of Christopher Columbus and patting ourselves on the back. Most of us have blood on our hands, to varying degrees. Anyone can be a monster in the right environment.
Our safety and satiety rests on the backs of generations, just like any of our accomplishments (agriculture, algebra, medicine and moon landings).
People are hard-pressed to give up their conveniences, even if their development, or even their continued use, leads to suffering.
We have to recognize that glamorizing history doesn't make most people any more willing to live in the past. Trumpeting future doom doesn't much help us avoid it. We must evolve or perish. This has always been the case. We are forever changing..at least until entropy kicks in.
And yet, in my country, I see intolerance on the rise. I see people so isolated from each other that, once again, they aren't seeing a fellow human when they judge someone. This applies as much to cashiers as it does to billionaire presidential candidates.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
If the majority of people were more connected to their world, and less desperate for survival and success, maybe most of the world's great injustices could be solved, through small actions or inaction.
I know that being in a rush, being less of a part of my community, breeds in me a lack of compassion. Yet I am becoming more stressed and impatient the longer I work and live here.
As for C.C., he left quite a clear message on how he wanted to be remembered:"I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries."
The Hero and Savior of Spain. Except, maybe Columbus' understanding of humanity wasn't as forward-thinking as his understanding of geography and navigation.
After all, he was merely following the foremost thoughts of his day, and exceeding pretty much everyone's expectations of how they might be enacted. He was such a good savior and hero that he expedited the imminent slaughter of millions.
Oops.
His intentions were 'good', and that slaughter would probably have happened within a couple hundred years either way. It seems worth considering.
So maybe this ought to be "foster a culture of understanding day"...but I'm afraid most of us aren't ready for that yet.
Still, it can't hurt to try.
Let's devote some time to seeing things from someone else's point of view.
Is it a crime to fall in love?
Can we ever tell where the heart truly leads us?
All we are asking is...
A little understanding.
Why can't the world 'leben und leben lassen'?
'Live and let live...'
Friday, August 17, 2012
On Protection and Purpose
Wie viel ist aufzuleiden!
How much suffering there is to bear!
I am getting to the second half of "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. It's a weird book written by a holocaust-surviving psychoanalyst, but the part about the meaning of life really resonates with me. There is no meaning of life. I realized that the process of evolution basically precludes a meaning of life. It's like learning the code you've been writing for 16 years isn't actually compatible with the operating system. It took a bit of a nervous breakdown, but over the years I have patched the system.
Frankl makes a lot of supposition in the book, and assumes what worked for him was also what worked for all the jews who survived the Holocaust, that it will work for anyone, and that survival is paramount above all else. He uses a lot of fuzzy logic and asserts a lot of stuff that I don't believe in. One big concern of mine is his focus on the future and past, rather than the moment. He touches on, but in my mind misrepresents, meditation. But I like this paragraph:
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly.
Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
That's beautiful. Life is so richly full of such opportunity.
The last time I wanted to rush to the defense of my lady, I was living in Williamsburg, illegally, in a house with my girlfriend. When Lindsay interacted with the landlord, it was terrible, with harassment and many other issues. But she managed to mess up the lease badly enough that there was little recourse, and of course me living there illegally didn't help her case because the landlady had spies checking on us and ties with local government. So my hands were pretty well tied. It sucked to feel like my suggestions, to help our situation, were falling on deaf ears, and to not be able to get enough information to do anything but blindly trust Lindsay to figure the situation out.
Eventually, Lindsay and our housemate Emily were in this huge one-sided feud where Lindsay seemed to be having some sort of nervous breakdown that only involved Emily and none of her other life activities. It was an awkward spot to be put in for me because Emily was also crazy and so it was hard to tell the stories apart and have any idea of what was going on.
Fast-forward. Now I have a lady with a proven track-record of maturity and responsibility. No one is perfect, but she seems eminently qualified for the things she feels she is qualified and recognizes her weaknesses willingly. She is being manipulated by a person who is trained to recognize psychological weaknesses and yet cannot seem to influence or manage anyone in a positive manner.
My lady is in danger of being fired because she has a hard time showing this person their cognitive distortions of the situation. This person is seeing things wrong, and has for many years, and it's ridiculous to expect a first-year farmer to be able to teach clarity of mind to her manager. I want to rush to protect her, but I also know this is her battle to fight. I don't want to be like my father, coming in to school to make things go my way.
So how do I support Jules without being overbearing? How do I express how much more I trust her than anyone else in my life, without overwhelming her and without giving up my autonomy of understanding?
Of course, I know she will read this, and so I will get that answer from her, hopefully.
But in the meantime I can speculate a little bit on my own weaknesses.
I get passionate and hear what gives me glimpses of understanding, not necessarily what the other person is trying to tell me.
I insert myself into situations to "micromanage".
But that one is hard.
Sometimes, an important situation requires micromanagement, as in mountaineering with a novice. Other times, it's less critical...
At work, someone, let's call him D, and I were tasked with arranging the technical presentation at coming tradeshows. Big money involved, a big chance to make big impact, present an image. We decided to go with a very slick 60" smart-TV. So we divvied up tasks and one of his was: find cases to fit the monitor.
Several conversations later, numerous iterations, we both have a much better understanding of the problem, which is good, but he is getting a 42" monitor to fit the case he had decided on, rather than the other way around. I suggested he think about the larger cases, which I went out of the way to find for him, but he had already contacted the shipping company about the standard size.
So I don't think we will ever get the info we needed to truly make the decision which is: what is the cost of the case and shipping for a 42" versus a 60" monitor? What is the impact, at a tradeshow, of a 42" versus a 60" monitor, and what is the ease of setup of a 42" versus 60" monitor?
Then we make our best decision on the information. But a lot of people around me, they don't know to look for that information. And D is better than most. So I don't want to push it, I don't want to say look here, look here, look here, do that.
He is receptive to my ideas and he understands what I am trying to do most of the time- that's valuable support when I'm trying to push through a technology project that other team members might be scared of. But still, do I just let it slide? For now I am letting it slide. This is my first time working with D and I don't want him to feel it is a grindstone to be avoided. I like working with him.
I think Frankl hits on something that is very Jewish, and also maybe key to other religions as well. Not only does religion offer a sense of place and purpose, but, Judaism in particular, offers a unique sense of service and fulfillment through simple service to oneself and the community that is possibly a happy uniter of the protestant work ethic and buddhist
I guess the bottom line is this- My life has plenty of calls to rise to the occasion. I have lots of opportunity to find the right (or wrong) answers in life, and to fulfill the tasks life sets for me. I only hope I am up to the challenge.
How much suffering there is to bear!
I am getting to the second half of "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. It's a weird book written by a holocaust-surviving psychoanalyst, but the part about the meaning of life really resonates with me. There is no meaning of life. I realized that the process of evolution basically precludes a meaning of life. It's like learning the code you've been writing for 16 years isn't actually compatible with the operating system. It took a bit of a nervous breakdown, but over the years I have patched the system.
Frankl makes a lot of supposition in the book, and assumes what worked for him was also what worked for all the jews who survived the Holocaust, that it will work for anyone, and that survival is paramount above all else. He uses a lot of fuzzy logic and asserts a lot of stuff that I don't believe in. One big concern of mine is his focus on the future and past, rather than the moment. He touches on, but in my mind misrepresents, meditation. But I like this paragraph:
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly.
Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
That's beautiful. Life is so richly full of such opportunity.
The last time I wanted to rush to the defense of my lady, I was living in Williamsburg, illegally, in a house with my girlfriend. When Lindsay interacted with the landlord, it was terrible, with harassment and many other issues. But she managed to mess up the lease badly enough that there was little recourse, and of course me living there illegally didn't help her case because the landlady had spies checking on us and ties with local government. So my hands were pretty well tied. It sucked to feel like my suggestions, to help our situation, were falling on deaf ears, and to not be able to get enough information to do anything but blindly trust Lindsay to figure the situation out.
Eventually, Lindsay and our housemate Emily were in this huge one-sided feud where Lindsay seemed to be having some sort of nervous breakdown that only involved Emily and none of her other life activities. It was an awkward spot to be put in for me because Emily was also crazy and so it was hard to tell the stories apart and have any idea of what was going on.
Fast-forward. Now I have a lady with a proven track-record of maturity and responsibility. No one is perfect, but she seems eminently qualified for the things she feels she is qualified and recognizes her weaknesses willingly. She is being manipulated by a person who is trained to recognize psychological weaknesses and yet cannot seem to influence or manage anyone in a positive manner.
My lady is in danger of being fired because she has a hard time showing this person their cognitive distortions of the situation. This person is seeing things wrong, and has for many years, and it's ridiculous to expect a first-year farmer to be able to teach clarity of mind to her manager. I want to rush to protect her, but I also know this is her battle to fight. I don't want to be like my father, coming in to school to make things go my way.
So how do I support Jules without being overbearing? How do I express how much more I trust her than anyone else in my life, without overwhelming her and without giving up my autonomy of understanding?
Of course, I know she will read this, and so I will get that answer from her, hopefully.
But in the meantime I can speculate a little bit on my own weaknesses.
I get passionate and hear what gives me glimpses of understanding, not necessarily what the other person is trying to tell me.
I insert myself into situations to "micromanage".
But that one is hard.
Sometimes, an important situation requires micromanagement, as in mountaineering with a novice. Other times, it's less critical...
At work, someone, let's call him D, and I were tasked with arranging the technical presentation at coming tradeshows. Big money involved, a big chance to make big impact, present an image. We decided to go with a very slick 60" smart-TV. So we divvied up tasks and one of his was: find cases to fit the monitor.
Several conversations later, numerous iterations, we both have a much better understanding of the problem, which is good, but he is getting a 42" monitor to fit the case he had decided on, rather than the other way around. I suggested he think about the larger cases, which I went out of the way to find for him, but he had already contacted the shipping company about the standard size.
So I don't think we will ever get the info we needed to truly make the decision which is: what is the cost of the case and shipping for a 42" versus a 60" monitor? What is the impact, at a tradeshow, of a 42" versus a 60" monitor, and what is the ease of setup of a 42" versus 60" monitor?
Then we make our best decision on the information. But a lot of people around me, they don't know to look for that information. And D is better than most. So I don't want to push it, I don't want to say look here, look here, look here, do that.
He is receptive to my ideas and he understands what I am trying to do most of the time- that's valuable support when I'm trying to push through a technology project that other team members might be scared of. But still, do I just let it slide? For now I am letting it slide. This is my first time working with D and I don't want him to feel it is a grindstone to be avoided. I like working with him.
I think Frankl hits on something that is very Jewish, and also maybe key to other religions as well. Not only does religion offer a sense of place and purpose, but, Judaism in particular, offers a unique sense of service and fulfillment through simple service to oneself and the community that is possibly a happy uniter of the protestant work ethic and buddhist
I guess the bottom line is this- My life has plenty of calls to rise to the occasion. I have lots of opportunity to find the right (or wrong) answers in life, and to fulfill the tasks life sets for me. I only hope I am up to the challenge.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Becoming Human: The Search For Meaning
The Great Books Foundation published a book series that was somewhat transformational for me.
I had just dropped out of college, was back living with my parents, and had little hope for myself, mt future, my world. I was seventeen and felt overwhelmed by a world beyond comprehension, and out of control. I mostly lived in the internet, and wandered aimlessly in my bathrobe.
I was suffering, yet with the impossibility of comparing personal experiences, I will never know the depths of it. So I was wandering aimlessly in my parent's basement (something of the coolness, isolation, and mustiness was reassuring, as I am sure I was comforted by the solid concrete floor and walls) when I happened across several brown paper bags full of books. They were mostly mildewed and tattered and water-stained and swollen- but in the piles, buried in between pounds and pounds of books I found this series.
The series was called "Becoming Human".
It probably did a much better job of giving me a foundation for coping with tragedy, stress, suffering and despair than my 17 years of suburban upbringing ever did. A few years later, I recognized this, and suggested the series to a friend. I'm not sure he even bothered with it, despite his being a voracious reader. I guess we are each receptive to things in our own time, under our own terms of circumstance.
In future posts, I'll try to talk about each piece of written work within each book of the set, some 50 or more written pieces, and discuss their personal significance to me. If I have a hard time remembering the details, or it feels immediately relevant, I will reread a story.
I had just dropped out of college, was back living with my parents, and had little hope for myself, mt future, my world. I was seventeen and felt overwhelmed by a world beyond comprehension, and out of control. I mostly lived in the internet, and wandered aimlessly in my bathrobe.
I was suffering, yet with the impossibility of comparing personal experiences, I will never know the depths of it. So I was wandering aimlessly in my parent's basement (something of the coolness, isolation, and mustiness was reassuring, as I am sure I was comforted by the solid concrete floor and walls) when I happened across several brown paper bags full of books. They were mostly mildewed and tattered and water-stained and swollen- but in the piles, buried in between pounds and pounds of books I found this series.
The series was called "Becoming Human".
It probably did a much better job of giving me a foundation for coping with tragedy, stress, suffering and despair than my 17 years of suburban upbringing ever did. A few years later, I recognized this, and suggested the series to a friend. I'm not sure he even bothered with it, despite his being a voracious reader. I guess we are each receptive to things in our own time, under our own terms of circumstance.
In future posts, I'll try to talk about each piece of written work within each book of the set, some 50 or more written pieces, and discuss their personal significance to me. If I have a hard time remembering the details, or it feels immediately relevant, I will reread a story.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
While you were sleeping...
I saw that title in Chronogram and it resonated with me pretty well.
I guess I feel pretty disconnected from my friends and all their happenings. I haven't seen Irene in ages, Juliana and I are always varying degrees of sick, tired, and busy. One of my oldest friends seems to be headed for certain trouble in sketchy situations.
I don't know, I'm just reminded of that part from Cabaret:
Can we ever tell where the heart truly leads us?
All we are asking is eine bisschen Verständnis -
A little understanding -
Why can't the world 'leben und leben lassen'?
'Live and let live...'
So, in case you missed something while you were sleeping, here's what's going on in my life:
I am trying to really come into my own as a marketer at work. I am really into UXD (User Experience Design) as a sort of life choice, since it encompasses a lot more than just gamification, but also embraces gamifying things.
Which now makes me think of La Vita Dolce, the movie where the father convinces his son that the concentration camp is one big game to win a tank. All I remember is that kids big goofy grin at the end, full of joy. A whole horrorshow joke built up to that end.
Maybe my head is in a dark place.
It's stressful, trying to live a life on my terms, in this area. I often wonder if my coworkers can understand even half of what I say. It's very discouraging, but I guess I must keep trying to learn their language, even when I gently lead them to a simple conclusion and they blissfully assume the exact opposite despite my best labors.
And I feel like I never have the time I need to communicate with Juliana. I am living an entire life of on-the-fly last-minute interactions.
Continuing, while you were sleeping...
My digestion, for weeks, has been terrible. My insides feel ripped up from the burrito I had last night. I keep trying to eliminate grains and starches, because that seems to help, but then my energy cycle gets weird, which upsets Juliana, and I inevitably find the rigor too difficult and go back to eating something full of wheat.
I've also been thinking about autism, depression, cognitive distortions, the relation of diet to autism and whether or not people thing so differently that they might never understand each other.
My apartment is lovely, and a joy to live and cook in.
Juliana is caring, and beautiful.
I live near where I work, and I have ever-greater specificity of purpose, even if my faculties often take a couple steps backward.
My biggest concern is a lack of will and time for reflection. I need to stop rushing from thing to thing without thinking. I don't do it with work, when I am in the office, I force myself to think out things to avoid mistakes, but this is harder to do with my personal life.
My bigger biggest concern is my health. I simply can't keep burning the wick at both ends. It's not nearly as much fun. I have to figure out how to dial it back. My current lifestyle doesn't meet a number of my passions and desires and yet I still rarely have a couple hours of rest. I have no idea how Juliana finds the strength to do it, seeing how she works a good hour extra on either side of her day, or more. I feel weak and unsupportive sometimes, but she assures me I am doing great- I guess she is an excellent manager.
Vinny's birthday is coming up, the Juliana's and then mine. A quarter century.
And we are going to NOFA this weekend, the Northeastern Organic Farmer's Association's bi-annual conference, now in Amherst MA, full of workshops on how to run manage and grow a farm.
Gotta run!
I guess I feel pretty disconnected from my friends and all their happenings. I haven't seen Irene in ages, Juliana and I are always varying degrees of sick, tired, and busy. One of my oldest friends seems to be headed for certain trouble in sketchy situations.
I don't know, I'm just reminded of that part from Cabaret:
Can we ever tell where the heart truly leads us?
All we are asking is eine bisschen Verständnis -
A little understanding -
Why can't the world 'leben und leben lassen'?
'Live and let live...'
So, in case you missed something while you were sleeping, here's what's going on in my life:
I am trying to really come into my own as a marketer at work. I am really into UXD (User Experience Design) as a sort of life choice, since it encompasses a lot more than just gamification, but also embraces gamifying things.
Which now makes me think of La Vita Dolce, the movie where the father convinces his son that the concentration camp is one big game to win a tank. All I remember is that kids big goofy grin at the end, full of joy. A whole horrorshow joke built up to that end.
Maybe my head is in a dark place.
It's stressful, trying to live a life on my terms, in this area. I often wonder if my coworkers can understand even half of what I say. It's very discouraging, but I guess I must keep trying to learn their language, even when I gently lead them to a simple conclusion and they blissfully assume the exact opposite despite my best labors.
And I feel like I never have the time I need to communicate with Juliana. I am living an entire life of on-the-fly last-minute interactions.
Continuing, while you were sleeping...
My digestion, for weeks, has been terrible. My insides feel ripped up from the burrito I had last night. I keep trying to eliminate grains and starches, because that seems to help, but then my energy cycle gets weird, which upsets Juliana, and I inevitably find the rigor too difficult and go back to eating something full of wheat.
I've also been thinking about autism, depression, cognitive distortions, the relation of diet to autism and whether or not people thing so differently that they might never understand each other.
My apartment is lovely, and a joy to live and cook in.
Juliana is caring, and beautiful.
I live near where I work, and I have ever-greater specificity of purpose, even if my faculties often take a couple steps backward.
My biggest concern is a lack of will and time for reflection. I need to stop rushing from thing to thing without thinking. I don't do it with work, when I am in the office, I force myself to think out things to avoid mistakes, but this is harder to do with my personal life.
My bigger biggest concern is my health. I simply can't keep burning the wick at both ends. It's not nearly as much fun. I have to figure out how to dial it back. My current lifestyle doesn't meet a number of my passions and desires and yet I still rarely have a couple hours of rest. I have no idea how Juliana finds the strength to do it, seeing how she works a good hour extra on either side of her day, or more. I feel weak and unsupportive sometimes, but she assures me I am doing great- I guess she is an excellent manager.
Vinny's birthday is coming up, the Juliana's and then mine. A quarter century.
And we are going to NOFA this weekend, the Northeastern Organic Farmer's Association's bi-annual conference, now in Amherst MA, full of workshops on how to run manage and grow a farm.
Gotta run!
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