Forward Leaning Thinking, People!!

I won an award. I won two awards.

“Chris, thank you for being an amazing technical lead. You have mentored all the new team members and keep the older ones in line. … Your leadership and knowledge have helped this team grow immensely. Lourdes and I are very much thankful for your contributions, leadership, and forward leaning thinking!”

and a small one, arguably more meaningful, as it was from a peer:

“Thank you for ALL your support and guidance. Really appreciate it !!!”

It is one (two) of those awards I get to shop for. I am feeling jewelry again this time.

October 1989

10/25/89 (age 20)

“A) now you may note that i stupidly left out the highest priority, scheduled activities, which includes everything documented on the Class Schedule & the Snoopy Calendar. let’s talk about how to conduct yourself at some of these activities.”

eek, let’s not, 20-year-old me, what are you over-thinking!

Book Corner 2023.57

Hild

by Nicola Griffith

Hard to follow. But an impressive piece of work. Felt very true to 7th century. The only anachronism that jumped out at me was mention of a ‘mosquito’ (preferable would have been ‘midge’ or ‘gnat’). The concept of “gemaecce”, two women in a formalized friendship, had me searching the internet, and led me to the author’s blog. Her tiny author bio, and the book’s appendix, had already given a glimpse of her personality and voice – she seems super fun and clever.

July 1988 (got out of order)

7/18/88 (about to turn 19)

“well i’m back & i wonder how i’m going to cope – i almost said with this day, but i have to remember not to think in terms of days. how to cope till wednesday, how to cope with this moment. this morning’s therapy did nothing. well right now things are bad & your mind is not thrilled. it’s officially noon! i need some sugarless peppermint bubble yum real bad but i don’t have any. when your mind is not thrilled you’ve got to go on anyway. do what you believe right. relief is in sight!”

April 1989

4/3/89 (age 19 1/2)

“there was a powerful flaming 4th-dimensional wind pummeling through space on an infinite inter-galactic voyage. it roared between & among the stars & through orbits & around planets & moons. it plunged through suns & skimmed celestial surfaces.”

This was the beginning of an extremely 19-year-old-wrote-this story I wrote.

April 1987

Will open each of my journals, in chronological order, to the middle page.

Will post the first entry.

4/18/87 – age 17.5

“therapy time. calm down. whatever needs be done needs be done. spiritual development. be receptively perceptive. take into account everyone close to you. do all you can starting with what you deem most helpful. keep up your self-pride as soon as you find your direction.”

Or two.

4/19/87

“concerning simplicity & practical physical matters

simplicity is something you always seem to be yearning for. well babe you’ve got it, if you want it. you know exactly everything & how it should be.”

If that’s not a 17-year-old talking I don’t know what is.

Tea & Sympathy

Dwight Garner quoting George Orwell, with three important rules for tea. “I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones.” “The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact.” “Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.”

‘Twere I to try to live my life over again in a different way, my current life would seep in anyway, until I found myself at the very same spot in which I find myself now.

My life travels downhill like a river finding the easiest course.

On either side are all the infinite alternative paths it did not take.

There are infinitely many better and infinitely many worse.

This one is right down the middle.

Book Corner 2023.56

Move Like Water

by Hannah Stowe

A nice book about my favorite book topic: a woman doing stuff. Something like the Bechdel test, I have a little test: whether it be fiction or non-fiction, I want a book about a woman doing stuff a) not related to a boyfriend or husband, nor related to finding a boyfriend or husband; b) not related to having a baby, having had a baby, nor wanting to have a baby; and c) not related to having been a baby. Preferably the woman should be partnerless and childless, although these aren’t deal-breakers as long as she shuts up about it. In a nutshell, not about relationships. Just about a woman doing stuff.

Oh! So, the book. In this case, the woman Goes to Sea. She hires herself out on boats, and learns about whales and albatrosses. She suffers a terrible surfing injury, and mostly recovers.

The author grew up on the Welsh seashore. There is no author photo on the very charmingly designed hardcover. However I discovered a black-and-white photo hidden on the last page. She’s beautiful, and now lives in Dresden, Germany, where she paints (art), and sails her own boat.

Sing huzzah for the life of a woman.

And Knowing There Is No Magic Bullet Is Not the Magic Bullet

From Oliver Burkeman today: “Thus a person encounters, say, a book of practices derived from Stoicism, and rather than thinking “How useful, some Stoic techniques to add to my collection!”, instead concludes: “I’ll become a Stoic, which will fix all the ways I feel problematic, and then life will be plain sailing!””

Yes, yes, yes!

“We do this, I suppose, for the same reason people join cults or embrace rigid political ideologies: because it’s more scary to acknowledge the reality…”

No, we do it because we think there’s supposed to be a magic bullet. That everyone ELSE has a magic bullet; we’re the only ones futzing around.