Love

It comes from many sources, but the one I covet the most is the one that two strangers happen upon and are swept away by. Why? Because there are no genetic predispositions or built-in bonds of affection. Because it is a matter of choice, right up until it is no longer a matter of choice but a matter of 'need'. To choose to need. This is the pinnacle of Love, because it exposes one to a risk that was not there in the past, need not be here in the present, and may be there in the future: To lose the one you need. What greater risk than to lose the one you love, the one you need? Perhaps, a better question: What greater risk than to not love this way at all?

Fast, Efficient and Correct ... Still, Something is Missing

When I am working in New York City, I frequent a fairly large, 24/7, eatery and grocery for breakfast, and am utterly amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the place and its people operate. I place my order for an omelette at the grill, where the short-order cook appears to be juggling 15 other orders, and within 5 minutes I am presented with my to-go box. I get in line to pay behind 25 other people, and within 5 minutes I am at the register being handed a receipt while, simultaneously, the cashier is already raising her hand for the next person to approach. As I exit, I am struck by the army of people exiting with me (a veritable exodus, you might say), and the army of entering through the adjacent door. The whole thing is a satisfactory model of efficiency. A model that only requires a modicum of queuing theory knowledge to appreciate that, given the inflow of people, anything less would result in exceeding the 'fire code' threshold number of occupants. 

And yet, this model of efficiency still leaves something to be desired. 

It lacks a fundamental aspect of what you might encounter (at least, what I infer you might encounter) at a similar venue in Japan: delight, or, in Japanese, 'yorokobi' (I think). 

While I am duly impressed by the efficiency of the place, it is this very efficiency that gives me pause, as there is nary a smile, "hello", "how are you doing?" that comes your way as you are shuffled down the assembly line. I imagine that a type-A / Wall Street-type might actually be annoyed with salutations and rhetorical questions as they rush towards the rush, so I imagine that this is learned, if not imparted, behavior, which cannot be blamed on the establishment itself. It is, however, an interesting question to grapple with as we strive towards ever-greater efficiency: 

Where do we draw the line between efficiency (getting things done fast) and expediency (being efficient at the expense of other, important things). 

Should we optimize humanity subject to efficiency? 

Or should we optimize efficiency subject to humanity? 

Knowing Something about Someone

When someone unexpectedly knows something about someone, it is, to that someone, an inspiring surprise indeed. Some of the best leaders I've worked with had less command of the business and more command of people behind the business: their names (first and foremost), families, recent events, motivators, etc. This is why technocrats can hardly complete against politicians, as evidenced by Theodore Roosevelt, when he said "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care". Of course, no one likes a smart ass who simply recites facts that they gleaned from an online profile, so this is more about deep and unexpected knowledge than surface facts, and the only way to glean that kind of information is to really care about knowing something about someone.

The Constant Pause

It is good to have a firm grasp on the realities of reality, even at a young age, despite the fact that we grow up with fables, but, to the extent that perception is reality, we can also teach and have a bit of poetic license with the facts. What one might see as a disaster or betrayal, another might see as a test or cry for help. Therein lies the notion of the 'constant pause'. The beauty of being in a constant state of meditation is the ever-present micro-second you have before witnessing an occurrence in the world and interpreting what it means. To me, that micro-second is the difference between happiness and sadness. It highlights the power of choice. You may not be able to control what goes on in the world, but you can control what goes on in your world: the universe within. It is a matter of choosing to place people and events in a context that is broad enough to stitch them together in a more meaningful fabric, rather than seeing things as raw transactions in a cold, unyielding world. This is not a new concept. It is core to many philosophies and personal stories of survival and success. Still, it is not, as far as I can tell, something that many of us actively practice or teach. We are often times too far into the world to look down upon it. It is hard to read the map while you are in the map. So the next time you feel as though you are going to have 'a moment', try to have a micro-second first ;-)

Exact Change

If you are old enough to remember actually buying something with cash, you probably have run into the situation where you have something like a 5 and 10 dollar bill on you, but the item you’re buying costs $5.01! In lieu of having that extra penny, you hand the cashier a 10 dollar bill, and get back 4 grams worth of dollar bills and 36.5 grams worth of coins. This is quite a weighty burden. One that the mind rejects, but must often accept upon registering the completely non-empathetic look on the cashier’s face. (Again, if you are old enough, you may recall a time when the cashier would happily spot you that penny.) Upon receiving your change, your mind might have an ever-so-brief moment of euphoria, as, indeed, you do have a penny!  But it is only as a result of not having exact change that you find yourself in possession of that newly acquired penny.

So it is in life: The lessons we learn from the mistakes we make are no cause for celebration for the things we break.

Your mind may experience a brief moment of euphoria to the contrary, and your mind may, at times, be correct – there are, of course, times when it is not too late to learn from one’s mistakes and salvage the life we know. But beware: Sometimes it is the absolute sacrifice of the life we know that brings us the most salient and poignant lessons, and these can only be applied to the future. The very thing you miss by virtue of nostalgia, the very thing you want to return to, is no longer there. To return to what is no longer there, in hopes of applying the very lessons that were born of its very death, is a futile exercise indeed, so it is worth a little time and reflection before looking into the reflection of time; especially time past.

Local Optimization

Local Optimization: One of my favorite things I do when I am working in New York City is carve out the 2 x 2 block area where I will live out my entire life while on site. It allows me to learn a bit more about the people and the places, versus the more transactional nature of going to a new place every day. Come to think of it, even when I am on vacation, I tend to favor hanging with the local folks in the local 'joints'. Anywho... My main point here is that if you are anywhere between Hudson / Varnick and King / Vandam, look me up ;-)

The Knowing Smile of Self-Delusion

Have you ever had occasion to deal with someone who predicts tragedy for 5 things, is wrong about 4 of them, but then flashes you the 'knowing smile of self-delusion' when the 5th item goes wrong? As if to say, "gather round children, and basque in my omniscient negativity". To me, this elicits a kind of sadness, aside from the impetus to wipe said smile off of said person's face, because it reveals one of the greatest pitfalls of the human mind - confirmation bias: the tendency to identify and interpret information in a way that confirms one's beliefs. Of course, there are pros and cons to be had in just about everything, so I am not really saddened by confirmation bias per se. It is the bias towards the negative that makes me sad. If someone predicts a stellar outcome for 5 things, disregards the 4 that were, indeed, tragic, and then rejoices in the 1 item that went well, I might very well like this person ;-) The flip side, on the other hand, represents someone with a poisonous mind, that might (might) be able to see his or her way clear to greater self-awareness and more objective thinking (or, at the very least, subjective thinking in the positive), but, all too often, I feel that once a person has engaged in this mindset for a long enough period of time, the negativity becomes part of their persona - how they see themselves in the world - and any argument to the contrary is quickly ingested into the mind and broken down into ideas that feed current thinking - e.g. a sunny day becomes a potentially skin cancer causing day. In terms of strategies for dealing with this kind of person, I have become familiar with two: (1) 'fire and forget', wherein you employ the Socratic method to help them see that it is just as easy to predict a positive outcome as a negative one, and hope that in that realization they can see their own culpability in selecting the latter, with no expectation that they will see this; and (2) 'forget', wherein you simply 'raise shields' and turn off the 'universal translator', something that might save you some heartache, at the risk of narrowing down the field. Of course, there is the 3rd option that pertains to an escalation of wiping smiles off of faces, but, at the risk of committing the sin I have just written against, this would likely end up in tragedy :-/

Alive and Live

The other day I was in my favorite steakhouse, wherein I spied a man in his 80s, possibly 90s, who could barely walk to the table and barely take a seat. He placed his order, and then sat, barely upright, sipping water. 20 minutes later, his order arrived: A steak fit for Conan the Barbarian and a glass of Merlot that almost appeared to be a double. I thought to myself -- "there you have it: You are either alive or dead, it's a binary thing, and so long as you are alive, you might as well live".

The Ill-Advised Revival

If you’ve seen Pet Cemetery, you will, no doubt, remember how the sheer, utter sadness of losing his son, Gage, caused Louis Creed to bury Gage in the ‘Pet Sematary’, where dead things come back to life. Of course, this does not turn out so well, because Gage is hardly the little boy he used to be after he is revived – he ends up killing his mother and another person before his father has to kill him with his own two hands. Even after this episode, Louis Creed’s grief-stricken faculties continue to subscribe to the flawed concept of revival, as he buries his dead wife in the cemetery, confident that the reduced timeframe between her death and her burial will make a difference in her revived behavior. Not so. This is a great horror story (one of the classics), but also a great lesson in the lesser, perhaps, sometimes, greater, lessons in life: There are times when revival is not the best course of action. There are times when loss should be accepted, no matter how heartbreaking, so that you can move on, instead of trying to revive something that may, ultimately, do you more harm than good. Surrender to the outcome, as they say.

The Morality of Dynamic Pricing

I recently commented on a very good article by a friend of mine (Chris Taylor, see http://lnkd.in/bCKsVDB) regarding the Internet of Things and the effect that it might have on pricing. Specifically, the possibility of applying realtime, dynamic pricing to a broader range of products and services. I am blogging my comment, because I think it bears repeating: The availability of *big data* and the kind of distributed processing that allows us to operate in a much 'smarter' capacity runs the risk of us over-applying more sophisticated methods to interactions that, in my opinion, should remain patently unsophisticated for moral and practical reasons. Here is the comment: "Aside from the econometrics of pricing, there is also a moral question, which, I think, is further accentuated by the ever increasing bipolar disparity in income and wealth - not just in the United States, but the world at large. In today's world, the person who makes $5/hr can still complete for a cup of Starbucks coffee with the person making $40/hr, just by virtue of standing in line to pay a predetermined price. In, potentially, tomorrow's, realtime 'price elasticity' world, the $5/hr person may very well be priced out of that cup of coffee when they get to the front of the line, just by virtue of the accumulation of people at the back of the line. In cases where real, long-term planning cannot be effected by the purchaser of a specific good or service - i.e. buying an airline ticket or booking a hotel - the moral question of realtime dynamic pricing is a very interesting question indeed, especially when one has already paid a real price in terms of time spent waiting to effect the transaction. As a society, we'll need to take care to make sure we don't create dynamic models for interactions that should morally and practically remain static. It would really suck if 2015's Valentine's Day dinner were based on realtime data of 2014's post Valentine's Day dinner climax ... Or maybe not ;-)"

Deliberate Love

There is the love that is simply germane to existence: The love of a parent, the love for a parent. There is the love that simply occurs: Love at first sight, love at first touch. And then there is 'deliberate love': The kind of love that owes its existence to another source, but is fostered and cared for by the attentive mind. A mind that understands that perception always outpaces reality: The facts on the ground do not change nearly as fast as our binary minds would have us believe. A mind that understands that a hopeful heart must be given hope, an unsure mind must be given assurance, and a longing soul must be consoled with love. A mind that draws from the mysterious source that creates love, to keep it alive in less mysterious ways. It is very much like the mystery of life within us. We are walking proof of the magic in this universe. When we die, the magic runs out of us. To where, we do not know. But a skilled doctor does not contemplate this mystery. He intubates, he resuscitates, he injects life, he rejects death, and 5 minutes after the magic has seemingly run out of the patient, the magic is restored, and the walking mystery of the universe walks out of the ER and into the arms of a love that started out as occurrence, then turned into a love of existence, and was kept alive for a lifetime by the attentive mind. If there is anything to pay attention to in this world, pay attention to the ones you love. That is the only accomplishment that endures. It is the only magic we take with us.

Vocal No Fly Zones

No matter what kind of singer you are – professional, amateur, car, shower – you probably like to sing your favorite tunes, and said tunes are likely sung by someone with a much different (not necessarily better) voice than your own. Unless you are a professional singer that has learned to occupy his or her own vocal space, you have probably developed a ‘system of modulation’ to approximate the tone and timbre of your favorite singers, which probably sounds pretty good to you in the car or the shower, but you might notice that it does not sound so good on recordings or via amplification (or maybe it does, if you are one of the lucky few). Why is that? The first reason is what I call ‘hearmagination’: Your brain mixing up what comes in through the ears with what exists in the mind, blending together what is real with what is imagined, resulting in a pretty good sound that, in fact, may not be so good. This is immediately revealed in recordings, with the caveat that some recording devices make you sound much worse than you actually do, so take this with a grain of salt. The second reason is what I call, quite simply, ‘encroachment’, for lack of a better, contrived term: When someone modulates their voice to the point where they remove the very position and space required to make the best of THEIR voice, because they are trying to emulate SOMEONE ELSE’s voice. Most of the time, in an effort to sing in a higher key, they end up ‘raising’ everything, and, in essence, occupying what I call ‘vocal no fly zones’ – the space in one’s anatomy that must remain free of obstacles in order to facilitate the best sound possible. The only way to combat this, in my opinion, is to STOP singing along and START singing alone. Of course, learning to sing with YOUR voice requires one to accept the sound as it is, and then improve upon it in a way that maintains alignment – i.e. make it better, but do not modulate it. There are all kinds of ways to do this – e.g. shouting ‘hey’ in different keys offers a good clue for ones natural position and space – but, the main point of this post is the analogy this offers for life in general: (1) don’t confuse reality with what you imagine, (2) don’t modulate and emulate in lieu of being you, (3) be comfortable with who you are, and work to improve yourself in ways that make YOU a BETTER YOU, not a DIFFERENT YOU. This is one of the greatest self-taught lessons you will ever give and receive, with a few hints here and there from other people, but just barely enough to scratch the surface. You can always pay someone to teach you how to sing better, but the endeavor to live better is patently a self-funded learning endeavor ;-) 

Airplane Origami

Today I showed a woman in the airplane seat next to me how to fold an origami crane out of square paper, and an origami heart out of a dollar bill, after which time she proceeded to make 5 more cranes and 7 more hearts, tapping me on the shoulder every once in a while when she got stumped. Upon seeing the glut of crafts on her fold-out tray, I did the only thing I could think of: I made her an origami box to put it all in, to which she nearly burst into flames with joyful surprise. It's funny what a little paper and a bit of skill can do.

Beautiful

What is beautiful? A man sees a woman and, without knowing anything about her, feels a pang in his heart. An inner city child born and raised on concrete climbs up a mountain pass that looks over a valley, and feels the uplifting joy of being alive on this planet. A midwestern mother looks upon her baby girl, who only lived for a few hours, and lays perfectly still in a world of sound and fury. A husband kisses his wife goodbye after 50 years, feeling, for the first time, alone in this world. It is all beautiful, whether it builds you up or tears you apart.

The Self Contained Traveler

Business travel can be lonely at times. Not that much more lonely than living alone, but when I’m home I am home, and when I am about in the neighborhood, I having a pretty good chance of running into someone I know, up to and including someone I went to grade school with. When I am on the road and out and about, I am stranger among friends – in reality, a stranger among strangers, but somehow it seems like everyone else knows each other ;-) So there is this notion of the ‘self-contained traveler’, where one’s inner dialogue substitutes for inter-dialogue,  one’s phone acts as a tether to the familiar, and, aside from a friendly waiter or waitress, there is no recourse for discourse. It makes me sad to think that there are some people that live this way – people who have lost everyone, or, perhaps, people who everyone has lost. When you think about how our very survival depended on being in a group, it is not too much of a leap to see how being cast out leads to a type of psychological death, even if not a physical death. So the next time you are out and about and you see someone eating alone, ask him to sit with you, there is a very good chance that he might be able to expense your meal ;-) 

The Second Mind

Have you ever made decision based on your gut, and your mind never really signed on, but your mind was wrong? I call this 'the second mind', and I don't mean the often-overlooked network of neurons lining our guts ;-) To me, this the observant, contemplating mind that underlies - perhaps, overlies - the frenetic, anxious mind, which simply cannot attain enough distance from the noise to be sound. The notion of 'the observer' and 'the observed' is already a well known concept in Eastern Philosophy, so this is not an original idea, but, perhaps, an original observation that these 'gut-over-mind' decisions may very well be the only encounter we have with our 'observer selves' - at the very least, those of us who are trapped in the ever-present 'thick of thin things'. Thus, it might be a good idea to muse over these kinds of decisions a bit, and figure out how to connect with this 'second mind' more often. I sure as fuck haven't been able to. 

The Sadness of Happiness

If you are like me, any moment of deep happiness is followed by a moment of deep sadness. Why is that? I think it has to do with the Second Noble Truth of Zen Buddhism: "The origin of suffering is attachment", which tells us that the root of all suffering is attachment to the desire to have (craving) and the desire not to have (aversion), accentuated by the essential fact that we can never satisfy *all* of our desires. According to Buddha, this applies to those that 'have not' and those that 'have but continually want more', so it is not a phenomenon that can be resolved through the attainment of the object of one's desire. The only way to avoid this suffering of attachment is to rise above it. Denying it is just the flip side of 'craving' - i.e. 'aversion' - which is just a different form of desire. I am nowhere near living an attachment free life, but I do have a specific focus on simplicity, and I try to remain in a constant state of satisfaction, which does afford a bit of comfort at the idea that life is short and can be cut short at any time - this is especially useful for frequent air travel ;-) But a moment of deep happiness disrupts this mode of living. All of a sudden, there is attachment and craving, satisfaction is compromised by the desire for more, and now it is no longer acceptable for the plane to go down, so to speak. All of a sudden, there is a recognition that nothing in life lasts forever, even in the face of our desire for permanence. That, in my opinion, is the root for those moments of deep sadness that closely follow even a second of deep happiness. For me, anyway. 

Hinge

If you've ever banged your head really hard, even if just short of a concussion, you may recall experiencing an accompanying taste. Well, today I bought a new bag of rice crackers and the very first one had that very same taste. I was immediately reminded of the time I ran into a tree at night at summer camp and almost got knocked out, which immediately reminded me of the scene in the movie Ratatouille, where the food critic enters a rat infested restaurant for an otherwise ominous meal, but the very first bite of ratatouille transports him back to his childhood and his mother's loving presence, a presence he had obviously not found since. This got me thinking. Perhaps everything we've experienced in life is hinged together - a smell that leads to the memory of a place, that leads to the memory of a face, that leads to the memory of a taste, that culminates in a song. A veritable hodgepodge of hooks. This got me thinking. Perhaps all of our collective experiences are hinged together in a similar way, and we need only be liberated from our individuality to experience it. Perhaps, only when gravity no longer holds away over our souls and we are swirled off of this rock for good. It is a perfectly reasonable conclusion for someone who's tripping on rice crackers.

[My] Rules of Thumb

Thought I would share a few rules of thumb that I am living by these days, in case any of them appeal to you. 

I am trying to address a slight food addiction and a more-than-slight predilection for letting the day get away from me and nose diving into uber-reactionary mode, but I think that these may be transferable.

(1) The Long Fast

I am something of a binary person, so, for me, any diet that calls for restraint simply does not work. Ergo, I have adopted what I call 'the long fast'. I eat breakfast at 8am, and then I do not eat anything during the day - i.e. work from 8am to 8pm, hit the gym from 8pm to 10pm, eat dinner around 10pm. 

One would think that this would be a challenge, but, in reality, once I get over the hunger-hump (no double entendre intended), I am good to go, and my workouts have been _way_ better (I think this has to do with my body having all available resources at its disposal, versus having anything locked up in digestion). 

(2) The 15 Minute Interval

Throughout the day, every 15 minutes, I take 3 sips of water. This is a poor [less capable] man's version of the _only_ technique that Buddha used to achieve enlightenment (i.e. by being aware of every breath). 

I think I would go insane if I had to be aware of every breath, and I am pretty sure if Buddha had to code in three different languages, work a laptop / tablet / smart phone, drive a car, etc, while being aware of every breath, he might have gone insane as well ;-) At the very least, I have to 'wake up' every 15 minutes, and this is far superior to the 'black out' periods that I have experienced in the past. 

Polls and Poles

The tendency to attribute all that is bad to a single leader and all that us good to the collective or even external happenstance, obfuscates the deeper issues in the inner-workings of an organization. This appears to be the case in the current, ideologically polarized US government, and while news networks on either pole stoke the angry flames of people on the same side of this dichotomy, we the people are not being served. Anyone who is fixated on destroying the enemy within by voting with an ideological heart rather than a pragmatic mind is simply locking in more deadlock. If we are going to get anywhere, it will be via the middle of the road, and this means compromise. 

Distraction

Distraction. It's dangerous. In the near term and the long term. It can cause you to lose track of time, valuables and risks. It can sentence you to a lifetime of reactionary and misguided activity. But where does it come from? Why does it happen? Simple. A lack of presence. I see less and less presence in the world today. More and more people walking around in the 'machine shop' of life, indiscriminately putting their hands one cutting, flattening or grinding machine or another. Perhaps we feel like we are buffered from life to a sufficient degree to shed ourselves of the 'super focus' our ancestors relied on to survive? I don't think so.

The World Within

Today I pulled out 300-400 staples from my 2nd story floors with a pair of needle nose pliers, and I realized that if you make your world sufficiently small, even the most mundane task can be an adventure.

Irrational People

Dealing with an irrational person can be incredibly interesting. They cannot distinguish their inflated perceptions from the narrow facts, and when you try to guide them towards that, even when it is for their benefit, they may very well attack you for it, because the nightmare in their mind is still 'home'. It is good to just steer clear of these kinds if people, but also good to wonder if others are steering clear of you. 

Just One

I recently had an exchange with a friend that reminded me of a similar conversation I had with someone long ago, wherein we talked about how important it is for everyone to have, at least, someone who believes in them and is on their side. That single tether, that stand-alone validation can go a long way towards stemming the erosion of self-doubt and the fatal blow of disbelief in one's own character. The fact that we even see ourselves as having 'character' means that we need to be in each other's stories, and, very often, need to be written as the protagonist in our own story, which can only happen relative to the other 'characters' in our story. Think about that before you withdraw from the pages of someone else's life. 

Life Goes On

I am often amazed how life goes on, and how the aggregate experience of humanity balances out, at such a cost. Someone is born, someone else dies. Someone falls in love, someone else has their heart broken. Someone is diagnosed with terminal cancer, someone else orders a pizza. The seriousness juxtaposed against the mundane. We may all be connected at some higher level, but down here on earth, we are patently, if not decidedly, disconnected, else we would probably be dysfunctional. Imagine someone lying on their deathbed listening to the hospital staff laugh about their favorite sitcom. This is okay. This is how life goes on.

Convention

Television drama, whether about zombies or being lost on an island or trapped under a dome or in a world where electricity is non-existent, typically boils down to this: How people behave under extreme circumstances. Everything else is a matter of strange curiosity, though flesh eating zombies offer a more interesting back-drop than, say, having to fix a flat tire, even if every scene foreshadowed some alternate use for the tire iron ;-) Most of the time, the punch line in these dramas pertains to the ‘surprising’ things that people do, which they have always had the capacity to do, were it not for a moral compass, the confines of society, and, perhaps, the risk of incarceration. When these things go away, so do the inhibitions that safeguard us.

We all know that these inhibitions are not concrete – given the daily murders, rapes, robberies, etc – but we may not fully realize the extent of our interdependence, or, perhaps, how we take it for granted. There is an old joke about an out of town businessman that hires a taxi at night to get to a destination in a rural area. The taxi driver speeds through two consecutive red lights, leaving the passenger with an unsettling feeling, but then the driver stops at a green light and looks to the left intently. The passenger asks "why did you run through the last two red lights and stop at this green light?". The driver responds "my brother takes this cross road to get home". 

Thus, it is only through convention that we can rely on one another for our mutual safety and well being, and we should not mistake our safety or success as anything less than this interdependence that we have come to rely on so indifferently at times. 

The Enlightenment of Surprise

That surprising moment when you think you are adjusting the volume in your rental car via the steering wheel controls, but you are, instead, increasing the speed on the cruise control :-) ... It is these moments, where the mind is faced with the unexpected, when enlightenment can be achieved, very much like when, upon having a nice, relaxing cup of tea with the Zen master, he tosses you through a window and starts beating you mercilessly with a stick ... It is typically only in moments of surprise where the observer can be separated from the observed.

The Asymmetry of Chance

I am struck by the asymmetry of chance: the intellectual genius born in a third world country that lives and dies in obscurity for want of the logistics required to realize their potential; the intellectual idiot that lands their own reality show in the US, and sits on a 14 carat gold toilet seat, self assured of their mastery of the world. In reality, a world out of balance.

The Long Fast

The Long Fast -- Every day I have two major hurdles to clear: (1) limit myself to 1 cup of coffee, (2) get through the 'long fast', which is, essentially, that period of time between 7am, when I have my breakfast, and 9pm, when I have my dinner, with 1-2 hours at the gym between 7pm and 9pm. It is an interesting everyday challenge. One that - surprisingly - is rather easy to do, once you clear the afternoon hunger. It has allowed me to drop 40lbs without losing _any_ strength in the gym (not that I am really that strong in the gym, mind you). I would encourage anyone who is trying to lose weight or trying to effect more personal control in their lives to give _something_ like this a shot. It eliminates the burden of having to make good food choices in the middle of a hectic day, since you are making no food choices. The upside is mental _and_ physical homeostasis

Film Review: Prisoner

Prisoner: A superb, gritty film that depicts the out of bounds, immoral lengths people will go to in support of the moral imperative to save loved ones. It also has more than a hint of the pros and cons of following one's intuition -- it wins the day and destroys lives at the same time. Not sure if the movie was based on a book, but if it was, then I imagine that the book must be a page-turner. As with End of Watch, this movie is proof positive that Jake Gyllenhaal excels in good guy roles (e.g. Cop roles) that bleed over into bad guy behavior.

Planning versus Execution

Every day for all if us there is the struggle when things do not turn out the way we want them to: "Am I failing to execute a successful plan? Or am I successfully executing a failed plan?" Drawing the wrong conclusion can lead to unnecessary thrashing in planning or methods or both, so take a step back before engaging in the corporate equivalent of a 're-org'.

Love the Man, Hate the Methods

For those of us that have trouble with our parents, mine primarily being with my father, there comes a time when, after the stigma of youth, you realize that some of your best, inherent qualities are derived from these very parents (or parent) even as these very qualities in them served as the basis for the underlying issues. A good friend of mine - Jim De Geus - once said, in reference to a difficult uncle, I believe, "love the man, hate the methods". This is so insightful, as it is so useful to make the distinction between who people are and what they do. As surely as wolves are not inherently evil, even as they tear little baby bunnies to pieces, it is probably the case that most of the people we would deem as evil or feel justified in hating, are, in fact, as noble and pure as wolves in a pack, but are driven to do 'bad' things by the need to survive, the pressures of life and the inability to see their 'bad' behavior vis a vis others. This view is, I think, the only view that allows me to acknowledge that I love my father. 

IVs, Samurais and A Way of Life

I recall reading an article in HBR about how Stephen Spear went into a hospital that was experiencing 20-30 deaths per year from IV-related infections, and how, just by changing methods and procedures, as well as creating a more expository form of tracking and signaling IV usage, he reduced this number to ZERO. I was reminded of this article while watching The Last Samurai (with Tom Cruise) the other day, wherein he wrote an entry in his journal about how his 'captors' were a strange and beautiful people, and how, from morning to night, they dedicated themselves to the perfection of everything they did. In this world of bureaucracy, technology and infrastructure, I believe that one's own personal commitment to the perfection of everything they do, and the constant examination of the methods, tools and results is, indeed, the most gratifying way of life, despite the fact that, at the end of the day, in this world, it will all still be erased :-( ... though the experience of living this kind of life might very well come with us when we leave :-)