Frozen Food

Went on quick grocery run after work yesterday and was glad to see many people with their masks on. It was reassuring and also helped not to stick out. I always look at what is sale in the frozen food aisle even though I rarely buy from there. It serves as an interesting indicator of what the grocer thought would be a hit with their customer base and ended up being a miss. A lot of vegetarian meal options were on sale last night. If I had to guess, the merchandizing was driven by market trend analysis and perceived buyer interest that ended up not squaring with reality.

The fact is if a person is not vegetarian but open to trying it as an option or even has a strong preference for it, if they are at the frozen food aisle on a weeknight chances are that the food has to meet an immediate need. They are likely hungry, had a long day and want to go home eat  and retire for the day. So a meal that looks like it may be too lite or too little will lose over something that is tried and true - involving a familiar protein like poultry or meat. This theory seemed to be borne out in every shelf - empty spaces where the the chicken and meat versions of the product were non-discounted and stacks of the vegetarian options deeply discounted. When a person is hungry and wiped out after the day, its hard to stay true to fads, trends and interests. They need food they are used to. 

Using Adversity

This video from the essay on love addition got me thinking about the value of novelty in sustaining intense romance. Helen Fisher provides a few examples of what might constitute such novelty in a relationship and it is sensible advice. But in real life, this can be way more messy and complicated to allow for the types of novel experiences Fisher suggests as simple as they are. And also novelty can come from outside sources unbidden. Change in jobs, needing to travel to unexpected places driven by needs of family or business, adversity coming from the outside, relocating temporarily, picking a new hobby, meeting a new neighbor and so on.

If what is coming at the couple does not pull them apart, chances are it serves to fuel the intense romance Fisher speaks of. The more the rhythm of the couple's life is unchanging, the higher the likelihood of ennui and therefore by Fisher's logic the fading of that romantic intensity. It was interesting to consider how adversity and generally unpleasant events that could happen to a couple could end up strengthening their romantic bond. There are many other uses of adversity in a relationship - it can serve as a stress test for the long-term commitment phobic. It will reveal the core of the person without adornment or embellishment so it becomes easy to stay or leave.

Looking like Writing

In The Liar's Dictionary, the author talks about how people can come to resemble their hand-writing:

I’ve heard people say that dog owners often look like their pets, or the pets look like their owners. In many ways David Swansby looked like his handwriting: ludicrously tall, neat, squared off at the edges. Like my handwriting, I was aware that I often looked as though I needed to be tidied away, or ironed, possibly autoclaved. By the time afternoon tugged itself around the clock, both handwriting and I degrade into a big rumpled bundle.

That definitely holds true for me - not so much in the actual shape and form of my writing but more so in its overall affect to whoever is trying to read it (or trying to build a working relationship with me). There is a overall sense of order, clarity and tidiness to my writing specially when looking at it at a glance without trying to actually read anything. 

But upon closer inspection, there are more aberrations that one can count. The letters and words are only directionally what one would expect them to be. "Is that an L or a J?" would be the kind of confusion the reader would encounter as soon as they try to read it. That is likely what is it to get to know me as well - easy at first because there is nothing dramatic, stressful or complicated about having a conversation with me. I have been told many times, I am very easy to work with. So that's all positive but that's probably where it ends. After that point its the equivalent of "Is that an L or a J?" 

Using Adversity

Read this great quote by John Coltrane on who innovates in the world:

Innovators always seek to revitalize, extend and reconstruct the status quo in their given fields, wherever it is needed. Quite often they are the rejects, outcasts, sub-citizens, etc. of the very societies to which they bring so much sustenance. Often they are people who endure great personal tragedy in their lives. Whatever the case, whether accepted or rejected, rich or poor, they are forever guided by that great and eternal constant — the creative urge.

This reminded me of a Forbes article I had read a while back on why dysfunctional families great great entrepreneurs. 

..of children raised in a dysfunctional family, some emerge from childhood with a keen ability to focus and take action despite discord. They develop skills to cope with uncertainty and learn how to thrive even in the face of instability. Their brains are wired for resilience.

Additional research supports the suggestion that a difficult upbringing begets a successful entrepreneur.  The pivotal trait that enables a dysfunctionally-raised child to develop into a ground-breaking entrepreneur is resilience, or adaptation in the face of adversity or trauma.

I remember chatting with J at the time about the high co-relation between family dysfunction (which she had experienced in spades by that time) and the success of the child. She asked me a question that I could not answer then or now - does that mean having an idyllic childhood a recipe for mediocrity? And what about her own kids - is she meant to create chaos in their lives just to give them a better shot at success? 

Intuitively, both questions should be answered with an empathic No. Childhood is meant to be idyllic and serve as a reservoir of happy memories that get us through more challenging times. Parents are meant to provide a stable, nurturing, loving environment so a child may thrive and blossom. But does having all those early advantages take away from grit and resilience that are key to long term success, ability to fight and prevail against adversity - I am not sure what the answer is. 

Love Addiction

Interesting essay on the addictive power of love. It got me thinking of my own life experiences and those of others I have known over the years -  women particularly because it makes it easier to relate. Some girls can spin out over relationships where as others can stay very grounded. 

Love addiction is not the same as cocaine addiction at the neurological level: important differences, like how long it takes for the desire for another "hit" to occur, do exist. Rather, the authors see this as an opportunity to reconsider our approach to addiction in general and to think about how we can help the heartsick when they just can't seem to get over their last relationship.

Lot of good advice on how the brain can help in the process of building and sustaining a happy partnership. Putting personal observations together with this essay, it seems that the tendency to spin out in the intense period of romantic love could be related to the target being unattainable in some way and often for good reason that we don't want to accept. What we cannot and must not have can get us to various degrees of longing and desperation - depending on the type of personality. It can get a person to act love-sick and mopey or love-crazy and manic or something in between those. In a stable situation - where both sides are in and for the right reasons, it would be unlikely that anyone acts like an addict anymore. 

Working Parents

My friend M is has one kid graduating college this year and the other who is a rising senior at high school. M's oldest goes to an elite university and it is expensive. Parents pay for most of it as there was no clear expectation that the child would pitch it too. There seems to be this implied understanding that parents will pick up the tab for school - however long that experience lasts. Even when times were tough with one of the parents being laid off, expectations were not recalibrated. The kids have learned to be oblivious to the issue of money - it just comes along as needed. Now the oldest wants to go to grad school at the same time as the youngest will start college - presumably a fancy one like the big sister given her profile. 

While the kids in this case may not be financially hobbled for life given generous parents with income to support their education, the impact on M and her husband is starkly obvious. They are both committed to staying in the workforce for years too come battling ageism and risk of displacement by younger cheaper employees. M took up a global role recently too afraid to turn it down and be out of a job entirely. Now she works round the clock except for few hours of sleep. Clients have crises every hour and day of the week and M is the point person. 

She has not taken a vacation in over a decade - there is never any time for that. Any downtime she gets, she stays home and recharges her batteries while her husband picks up the slack. His job is highly specialized making it very difficult to have career mobility at his age - so he hunkers down and does what he can to contribute financially. Sometimes it seems like their marriage hangs by a thread - that of educating their children, there is no time or mental capacity to think beyond that. The plight of parents who are working hard to ensure the financial freedom of their kids is no less remarkable. 

Smaller World

You know you are person of certain vintage when you don't recognize a single song or band that makes the top 12 list for the summer. I take that back - did know a few names there.  I am very impressed by people of my age and older who keep up with trending music and are able to discover new things they like apart from the music they grew up with. My theory is that their brain and hearing is more nimble, receptive to unfamiliar stimulus and most importantly then minds are still young. 

There is no glory in becoming unable and unwilling to stay in touch with the times, it only makes your world shrink and get crowded out by the newness that you cannot be part of or relate to. I listened (or attempted to) to all the tracks in the list and nothing except one stuck. 

Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” is a bit of a Rorschach test for music lovers. Depending on whom you ask, the Philly soul-inspired collaboration from Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak is an obscene exercise in retro-fetishism or an immaculate homage; a been-there, done-that cash grab or a serendipitous meeting of two pop-R&B figureheads. When the song arrived out of nowhere earlier this spring, the jokes about its overwhelming palatability flowed like water—and the hammy singers were right there waiting with their Lacoste brand deal, eager to lap it all up.

Given my challenges with new music  - inability to wrap my head around things that lack "overwhelming palatability", I make extra effort with movies and books - it seems a lot easier to find things to like and relate to. I would love to keep my world from shrinking and turning inward as I grow older but that is much easier said that done. 

Selling Dreams

Manipulating sleep as a way to get a person to by more beer is a troubling idea. Would be easier to get people to agree on that - nothing useful is coming out of this process for the consumer. But imagine EdTech running with this idea and telling parents that their kids could outperform their competition if the learning continued to happen as they slept. I can see that sit much better with some of the same folks who would not like to be sold beer without their active participation. 

“You could have this sort of 1984 situation where advertisers buy advertising time on these devices, and nobody ever knows they’re hearing them.”

It wouldn’t be an entirely straightforward process. To sell a project involuntarily through dreams, the potential advertising campaign would have to be linked to adverts people see while they are awake.

Stickgold said it could potentially be done by playing a certain sound every time a product – a Coors beer, or a Corrs album, for example – is seen during a television or YouTube advert.

Replaying that sound while someone is sleeping, potentially through a home device, would, in theory, then trigger dreams about how nice it would be to drink a beer, or listen to an Irish guitar and violin-driven musical ensemble.

When this type of manipulation is aimed towards a beer-selling problem, it is easier to dismiss it as a cool party trick. Things get way murkier if the seller is able to make a plausible argument that this could be for self-improvement of some form - that is when we get ourselves into real trouble.

New Greeting

I met a L, a young mother of two recently. I know both her daughters - they are both in elementary school, very chatty and adorable but had not met their mom yet. I introduced myself to L but we did not shake hands - not a thought that crossed either of our minds it seems. It was an awkward few seconds but it passed quickly - we both sensed that the handshake would be even worse than awkward. Since I am still working remotely, this issue has not surfaced in the workplace context but I am going to guess many people are going to be wary. 

We’re at a critical inflection point when it comes to the handshake. The greeting, which has faced scrutiny practically since the advent of germ theory, has come under withering fire in recent years. In 2014 Vox published an article with the unambiguous headline “Handshakes are a filthy, disease-spreading tradition” The Atlantic ran a piece simply called “Handshakes are Disgusting” which pointed out that up to 80 percent of all infections were transmitted via hands and came to the conclusion, “it would be more sanitary to intertwine almost any other part of our bodies, apart from our lips or genitals.” When the pandemic kicked off in 2020 Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that he hoped Americans never shook hands again.

Would be very glad to see the namaste become the standard way to greet people. It makes for a level playing field. There are no complex rules of etiquette for getting the namaste perfect. 

Burning Embers

Nice essay about keeping traditional knowledge and skills alive by using it continually. 

But the most important technology at Jingu is social - it’s the transfer of skills and techniques from one generation to the next, ensuring the temples and artifacts can continue to be reproduced accurately. This sort of knowledge is difficult to document - it exists as reflexes and muscle movements that are beyond the reach of language, or as decisions that are so context and environment dependent that it’s infeasible to explain them. The techniques used to build Jingu depend on experience and expertise; learning them requires practice and feedback. Transferring the knowledge required to build the shrines can’t be done with words or text. The only way to pass it on is to create the conditions for someone to acquire it.

In small and local scale, we do this in our homes when we learn how to cook from our older family members who know recipes from times far pre-dating us. Home remedies we learned much the same way or skills our parents and grandparents taught us as kids. It prevents knowledge from dying completely. It's like having embers scattered but no roaring fire. If all of this expands to larger scale encompassing many people across generations, it creates enormous value like in this example of shrine building passed down from 2000 years ago without any loss or breaks in the chain of learning.

Comfort Objects

..Seats offer massage, vents emit refreshed air and sound-dampening materials eliminate outside ruckus. To avoid jarring seat-belt reminders and other car alerts, Lincoln, which is owned by Ford Motor Co. , worked with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to compose soft chimes to play instead. A lighting display that activates when approaching the vehicle is called the “Lincoln Embrace,” .. 

This WSJ story makes for sad reading. Being highly stressed is apparently a burgeoning market segment for all things from cars to cereals. It won't be long before the data science people are tasked with identifying features in consumer data sets that are most valuable in predicting degree of stress in a prospect or a customer.

Our response to stress can vary a fair bit so it would be a challenging problem correlate to personal buying behavior. The more achievable goal is what these brands are going after - target the overall high-stressed population with an assortment of comfort objects. The aggregators of data can see if the person under stress buys smartwater or Frooty Pebbles and that may reveal some higher truth. Sad business all around that our collectively impaired mental health is something that to be exploited at scale.

Bird Song

Wasted no time downloading Merlin Bird ID as soon as I read this article and can't wait to try it. Some mornings, the incessant chirping of birds in the yard don't let me snooze. As much as I love they are out there and being noisy, I wish they would start a bit later. Now, I might learn what birds are out there and if we installed a bird feeder that would prove helpful. I find myself using the Seek app all the time when we go hiking and over time, I have learned to recognize some plants and trees I did not know by name before. 

To me this is a lot like know your neighbors and community - it is isolating when you don't know who is out there. I like that I now know what weeds and wildflowers are growing in my yard and that I can recognize them in the wild as well, understand if the flowering bush in my yard is unhealthier than its peers around the neighborhood. It will be fun to know the names of the birds we often see on our hikes - thanks to the wisdom of the crowds that went into building this.

Merlin Bird ID is more than just a sound identification app, though; it’s the result of tens of thousands of bird watchers and citizen scientists submitting over a million avian audio recordings to Cornell’s Macaulay Library through the eBird app in just the past few years. Given the volume of data, Weber and Macaulay Library research engineer Grant Van Horn, plus other members of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, wondered last summer what it might take to create a birdsong identifying feature of the Merlin Bird ID app

Game Watch

If you were the parent of a teen gaming his nights away, falling asleep in school and getting close to failing grades, how might you feel about a system that policed your child's gaming habits?  The system in question:

".. includes a ban on minors playing video games from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., as well as limiting their playtime to 90 minutes a day. The law also prohibited minors from spending more than $28 to $57 a month on micro-transactions. New rules requiring all individuals, regardless of age, to register for games using their real identities and prohibiting citizens from playing games that include “sexual explicitness, goriness, violence, and gambling” were also implemented. "

At first blush a harried parent who can't get a grip on their kid's gaming habit, might find this an useful intervention. But the relief may prove short-lived for many reasons. Kids as we know will find ways around such clamp-downs and choices made in desperation will prove bad or wrong for them. So now instead of just having a gaming problem they might have legal ones too. The interventions if any need to happen at home and delivered by the primary authority figures in the child's life. Ideally, the situation does not escalate to the point where an intervention is even needed. 

Finding Bliss

A few days ago J was texting me quite excited to share news of a kid she had re-connected with after a long hiatus. Little S as I remember her was one of the girls from J's dance class. She was a couple of years younger and we typically met at once J's class ended and hers began. The mother was intensely focused on S's education and all around development. At the time S played four sports, took dance lessons, studied art and robotics outside of school. While all time was structured time but S was a free spirit in a quiet sort of way. J was excited to report that S had reached out to let her know she is off to college soon and will be following her dream - she was going to study art and art history. S maintains a great blog on art - her own art portfolio is impressive and so are her ruminations about her favorite pieces of art from visits to various museums. S's love for the subject shines brightly - her blog is the place she is most herself, quite unlike that harried kid I once knew her to be. 

J was happy for her - for being able to keep her real passion alive despite the over-scheduled, over-committed, over-extended life her well-meaning parents created for her. She pushed through all that noise to nurture what made her happy. Not every kid has the inner-strength to swim against the tide of parental good intentions to connect with their personal source of bliss. Like J, I am glad that Little S did. She was a wonderful dancer too. Maybe in time, those other things she spent years working on thanks to the opportunities her parents gave her, will find a meaningful way to enrich and complete her life. I do believe this story will have a happy ending for all concerned. 

Counting Chicken

There has been a lot more choice of organic eggs in the grocery stores since the pandemic hit. I wondered if it was because people were not eating out and had extra money lying around for indulgences like pricey eggs laid by cheerful hens. It's one of those things where the per unit price is low enough even for the most upscale product so its a relatively easy splurge to make. 

I like Happy Eggs myself but learned that they are up to no good and are being plainly deceptive to consumers. Is this a piece of information I really needed - I don't know. But having run into it by accident,  I felt compelled to make a fact based egg buying decision and not be swayed by the mental image of clucking hens roaming free and wild in acres of green.

Also learned that there are scorecards that show how organic something really is. The reason for eggs to get expensive during the pandemic are explained differently by those in the know, but it seems once people adjusted to the higher price point for the factory farm egg, it made it possible for the cheerful variety to acquire more space on the shelves - they did not look quite as absurdly priced any more. Eggs of other stripes seemed to have had their moment in the crisis too. 

.. women she sees are freezing their eggs because of the pandemic, not in spite of it. Women who normally travel for work, like Arenberg, are grounded. Those with busy social lives are alone at home. Their schedules are open. But that time in isolation has also afforded space for reflection. “Everybody had to take a hard stop in their lives,” Covington says. “And I think what happened with that is that it gave people the time and the space to kind of reassess their priorities and the directions that they’re taking in their life.”

Many single people feel as if they’ve fallen a year behind on their life plans. Dating was almost impossible at the beginning of the pandemic. Even now, near-strangers must negotiate a difficult social dance with one another when they agree to meet up for a distanced drink—when can they hug, kiss or even just go indoors together? 

People and Companies

Read this take on how winners and losers are being determined in Scott Galloway's Post Corona

The thing about capital market predictions is that they are to an extent self-fulfilling. By deciding that Amazon, Tesla, and other promising companies are winners, the markets lower those companies’ cost of capital, increase the value of their compensation (via stock options), and enhance their ability to acquire what they cannot build themselves.

Being anointed a winner works about the same at the person level as it does for a corporation. If a person is a presumed winner, forces start to conspire to make it so. Some of them less ethical than others. Similarly what he says about value of brands of companies apply at the individual level too. 

As much as we humanize them, brands are not people—they are assets to be monetized. Letting one die is only a bad thing if you don’t get all the value out of it in its golden years. Too many managers try to Botox their aged brands into a semblance of youth, when they should be letting them go to a profitable hospice.

People may have had the moment of brilliance or profundity once, did something game-changing or innovative some decades ago but there is no spark left now. Yet, they want to burnish their image using glory from a distant past. 

Virtuous Cycle

This story makes for a heart-warming read. The children come ahead here with two mothers instead of none which is where divorce can leave many. It takes for two strong, confident and loving women who have the right priorities to make something like this work. My friend T shares a very similar relationship with her ex's new partner. Her two daughters are beneficiaries of the co-operation between the women. T does still does not like her ex but is grateful he chose a good woman who loves the girls. She knows its in her best interest to nurture that relationship irrespective of the issues she has with the ex. Such people should serve as role models for those struggling to make their blended families work. 

Maybe at the root of all this is fundamental decency and the desire to do right by children no matter what works and does not work between the adults. T is by nature a generous and social person. She is more likely to get along with someone than not. Leaving her ex was a choice she made very consciously - maybe that helped as well. The ex for all his faults is a good father and T is appreciative of that. That is a lot going in favor of this family already. The new woman liked T right away and did not see her as the enemy or competition. There is a significant age difference there and T has become a big sister like figure in her life. The fact that the women get along makes the ex's life a lot easier so he is incentivized to keep it that way. It is a virtuous cycle that puts the children in the next best position to having a happy, intact family.  

Ray Shorts

Watching Ray on Netflix was a good experience but it left me wishing I had actually read the stories on which this series is based. Notwithstanding, as a Ray fan who has watched just about every movie he made, I echo the sentiments of this reviewer: 

But try as they might, the sizeable cast and crew are unable to bring out the depth in Ray’s stories. As an artist, it is important to understand the context in which Satyajit Ray created his oeuvre.
In the early ‘70s, Bengal was ushering a new era of corporate bigwigs. Under an ever-growing capitalistic market, the cultural babus were choosing to denounce years of arrogance from ancestral zamindari days and join the workforce to earn an honest living. Ray’s works then became a mirror to society, a direct naysayer to the reigning communist government of the time.

This production is not about nuance and it anyone comparing it to the the subtle qualities of movies like Agantuk or Seemabaddha would only come away disappointed. I was willing to accept a modern interpretation that is more in your face, does not try too hard to be multi-dimensional with layers of meaning a viewer can unearth over the years and multiple viewings. 

The leading men in all four stories are complex characters. There was a lot more potential to play out that complexity even in the interest of making the stories more "sticky" in a modern day digital marketing sense that Ray might have never approved of. Since no one sought his approval anyway there was no harm in putting more effort into character development. Despite my peeves I am very glad to see this effort and its presence on Netflix and will gladly watch any more to come in this series. There is no sense in allowing perfect standing in the way of good enough - there is no Ray anymore to deliver perfection. 

Circular Logic

Renting clothing makes some sense if the rental location serves a population in driving distance. There is no shipping and return involved but at the same time the aisle is not endless as it would be online. So it's no surprise that the current model is not helping the planet. 

Many experts and activists believe that the circular economy could help the fashion industry become more sustainable. The problem is that many brands have co-opted one small aspect of the circular system—like using some recycled materials or renting clothes to keep them on the market longer—and then marketing their entire company as sustainable.

The idea of wearing clothes until they were literally unwearable - as in falling apart, torn beyond repair - was a good one and served people well for ages. Maybe its best not to fix what was not broken. A lot of creativity went into giving clothes a second and third lease of life as children grew into clothes of their older siblings, daughters inherited their mother's dresses and so on. It took artistry to make an old hand-me-downs into something personalized and unique. 

Servicing Out

I took my best friend out for dinner as a birthday treat a few weeks ago. One of the first times I have sat indoors in a restaurant with everyone including the wait-staff being mask-less. It felt awkward and uncomfortable. Everyone around seemed to be trying too hard to make things appear normal. This was far from a dinner time scene pre-Covid times. We were all making an effort that is for sure. 

Our waiter was a young kid who aimed to be nice and friendly but was not sure if he was getting too close to us for comfort. So he lurched back anytime he felt he might be less than six feet away from our table. It was an acrobatic effort for him to land all the food and drinks safely on the far edge of the table while staying away from us. Times have clearly changed and in some cases there is not path to return to "normalcy". The robotic service option may grow more wide-spread with more spill-over effects:

..suppose you’re a business, and labor suddenly becomes really expensive, so you decide to install an automated ordering system for the customers. Then you think “Hmm, wait a second, could I also use an automated system for the wait staff, hosts, and chefs to communicate instead of having to walk over and talk to each other?” So they go around looking for more communication tools to buy. Software companies realize this is a big market, and start making more and better restaurant productivity tools. Along the way they develop cool new methods of remote communication that other software companies adapt for completely different markets, like factories or big-box retailers. Innovation leads to more innovation.

The way this cycle of innovation would go would be to remove people from the service business which can be a good thing if these folks can move into jobs that are better paying and more interesting. It is unclear that would be the case though.

but lots of people who stop being waiters in restaurants will end up doing things that it’s hard for us to predict. The thing is, humankind has had many waves of technological innovation before, and somehow there is still plenty of work for everyone to do

This logic does not account for the fact that in many cases these employees are not wait-staff despite having ample choice of employment and creating new jobs are are require skills far higher than what they have or are likely to gain will not make their employment prospects that much better. The spill-over will end up being at the lower-end creating opportunities of  Lime Juicer ilk. 

Captain Fantastic

 Watched Captain Fantastic recently and could not help thinking about parents including myself try so earnestly to do their best by their kids and end up missing the mark wildly. We come into parenting with our own traumas, baggage and ideas about what perfection means. The people we are raising are not attached to any of that. More often than not what we feel the need to over-correct is not an issue for our children. I was very vacation deprived growing up because my father had a job that kept him on the road a lot and when he was home he just wanted to rest and recover. Travel for fun was not a concept that came to him readily. Visiting ailing grandparents was the only travel we did regularly. 

The rest was considered overboard. Based on such experience, I made overzealous efforts to fit travel into J's life once she was old enough to enjoy and be able to recall the trip. It turned out that J had a very full and complete life in school and outside of it. Fitting a vacation in required her to give up something that she was quite passionate about. So I felt I was putting all this effort and it was mostly in vain. She enjoyed the time out but I never experienced the kind of satisfaction I was hoping to get out of it - I gave my child something wonderful that I did not get myself. The whole process was stressful and underwhelming. We traveled until the year she left to college. I hope she recalls those trips later in life with fondness. 

Any overzealous parent is guilty of what Captain Fantastic does in this movie, He well-intentioned and gets many things rights as a parent but some things end up being way off kilter, It's only a matter of degree.

On one hand, Ben has clearly raised his children to be respectful, bright young adults, but he’s also guilty of sheltering them in his own way, withholding how to interact with others when and if they ever decide to leave the bohemian forest life. It’s as if he hasn’t factored actual adulthood into his parenting plan, giving them each names as unique as their respective intellects, with the socially awkward result that they all sound like characters from “The Lord of the Rings”

Discard Rescue

I have rescued my fair share of discarded Ikea furniture glad that I would have the finished product without spending time on assembly which does not come to me naturally. Reading this story made me think about stuff from Ikea that I have discarded - could think of planters, dish-towels, sheets and such. 

In February, Ikea launched disassembly instructions for six popular products. That effort, combined with its furniture-rental programs and the ever-expanding buyback initiative being hyped in the new Norwegian ad are all consistent with Ikea’s People & Planet-positive strategy unveiled in 2018, in which the company committed to becoming fully circular by 2030. That involves designing products with reuse, repair, repurposing, and recycling in mind from the beginning; using only renewable, recycled, and recyclable materials; and eliminating waste.

Though the reputation is that Ikea furniture is not meant to last too long, my rescues have done well for themselves. They met some specific need and were not subject to intense use. A community discard center of disassembled Ikea furniture has potential to becoming a makerspace of sorts. People can come in, mix and match what they find to create items that were never imagined by Ikea. Not a new or novel idea as it turns out.

Pollen Tracking

This season I had one of the worst allergies I have ever had. Talking to the nurse who was my first call after suffering from the symptoms for a week was illuminating. He said this year people were coming in with severe conditions - and in large numbers. So I was definitely part of the trend. He had a hypothesis that this could be related to climate change - things were blooming out of order to create combination of things in the atmosphere that our bodies does not know how to process. 

This was not his professional opinion even though there are studies that show this is happening. That conversation with the nurse made me think it would be great if people could become aware of what they are breathing in their environment and doctors could use that data to better diagnose and guide the treatment needed. As it turns out, such a device is already possible to assemble so it's probably a matter of time before it become commonly available. 

Morphed Love

Red at the Bone is not my kind of book but even so, it was worth browsing through it. Ran into this line for instance that holds a deep meaning for me. It comes in the context of a bunch of ninth graders challenged to think about the image of Christ hung to the cross and left to die. They had to think "Literal or Metaphoric. Truth or Fiction." The narrator takes says:

.But now I knew there were so many ways to get hung from a cross—a mother’s love for you morphing into something incomprehensible.,

A mother's love is a very complex thing. It took me close to four decades to make sense of my mother's love for me. It involved setting up figurative walls, moats, bridges and dams to deal with its heedless flow. It is indeed love but expressed in ways that can be destructive if the recipient does not know how to channel it. 

My my case, I was salvaging what was left of my life at that point when I came to such realization. I have learned as a mother myself that my love for J is a product of what I come from and my life experiences. It took the separation in the form of her leaving to another country for college that I was able to begin the process of releasing us both from that baggage. I think I know what it feels like to be hung from the cross of a mother's love.

Much Choice

I spent a good part of a recent weekend on the phone with a young woman I mentor. P is on the cusp on what could be her first serious relationship. The man in question is a good bit older than her, with more experience and more ready to settle down than she is. He also has a lot more money to spend than she does. Both factors skew the balance of power between them. Some gestures could come across as effusive without it really being so. On the other matters that appear problematic may have a logic path to resolution that a couple with such disparity cannot always solve together. 

P wishes this man would be the one so she would not have to spend the next decade of her life looking for that person and many women her age end up doing. The man wishes the same because P is perfect for him and he does not see the point of staying in the dating game if she decides in his favor. But that is the question that neither can answer. P is too young to make a decision so big. The man has no way of knowing how this woman will morph in the time that it takes for her to make such decision. I was reading Teatime for the Firefly around the time P was talking to me about her concerns. Set in a different place and time, where the couple comes and stays together for reasons that are not grounded in reality of having tried to live the life that would follow after marriage. 

Young people of P's ilk would not understand how one could possibly find a lifelong partner this way. The component of luck is as important as acceptance of the marriage as a final destination is key to things working out. Comparing the two made me think about how a capitalistic outlook towards life impacts attitude towards relationships too. An infinite number of partner choices is not unlike an endless online shopping aisle. People buy and return things all the time, there is no risk or obligation. Compare that to having only one store in town that sells two options of an item that you need with no possibility of return. You will live with your choice. 

Own Home

On our walks in the evening that takes us through the woods nearby, sometimes we run into turtles sunning themselves by the side of the trail. The other day we saw one that was much bigger and older than what we typically see and moved even more slowly. The shell was muddy and looked old - like a house that has not been maintained well over the years. It reminded me of a rather dusty RV I see parked not far from where I live. 

Soon after the big turtle sighting,  I read about this two-story RV with a balcony that looks beautiful, It makes the concept feel way less claustrophobic. Something like this could well replace a condo for some people - if they are willing to pay the price tag. RVs are having a moment with the pandemic so maybe it comes easier to mind for many folks these days. Back to the turtle, I was curious about what kind I had seen and it turned out to be an alligator snapping turtle and was likely pretty old. 

Integrated Whole

I have been working with marketers for more years than I can count now but it was only recently that I learned how the Hero's Journey is put to work. The person who explained this concept to me is an brand consultant with a liberal arts education. I have worked on and off with P for a while now and was impressed by how she always had the most unique and refreshing ideas of anyone else in the room even when there are a lot of creative types around. 

Every encounter with P is a learning opportunity. She reminds me of my friend A who is largely self taught and tinkers around with mechanical and electronic things. He is able to bring his education into real life every day - at home and at work, it is well-integrated whole. P has similarly brought her education to bear upon every real-world interaction she has, in ways that are seem unique to those of us who don't have the background she does. 

When a person is able to integrate learning, work and life in a beautiful symbiotic way like these folks have, they are able to be create unique value where those words intersect. A is able to rig up remote controlled a houseplant watering system out of remnants from other projects an hour before he has to leave town for a couple of weeks. There is a practical need in his life that he is able to meet using what he has learned over the years and used at work. 

P is able to make graphic art to illustrate branding concepts to clients that end up as posters in her studio, serving as wonderful conversation starters. When she is a buyer of a good or service, she engages in that experience in a way that yields invaluable lessons for her and her client. We would go through the same shopping cycle and miss out most of what there was to be learned and understood about the business and the market it serves. 

Saving Us

I listened to No One is Coming to Save Us on my walks the last several days and found it generally interesting and informative. Notwithstanding the pundits who held forth on their areas of expertise, the most memorable nugget of wisdom for me from the Gloria Riviera's young son - famous last words at the end of the last episode. I don't recall his exact phrasing but in the best way that a child could say it, he asked his mother what is the point of her going to work to some place just to pay for a sitter to take care of him in another place. That question hit hard and took me back about fifteen years in time when J had asked me her variation of that very question. I am going to guess this is top of mind for any child in that age group who has a working mother and therefore needs childcare during the day. 

J was very lucky to have her grandparents around her until four and a half years old. Her daycare days were the bridge between that age and kindergarten. Even during that period, the grandparents were around during summer. In summary, the "problem" in J's case was relatively short-lived and yet I was asked this question during one of those gaps where there was no family to take care of her. This is clearly a big deal. I was never asked why do you leave me with grandparents so you can go to work - it was not a valid or logical question so it was never asked. But when the care-giver was paid for their work and not family, the very point of my working for a salary was brought into question. For a child it does simply not compute and that was my big takeaway from the podcast. Riviera's son had said it all. 

A lot of time and effort in the podcast was focused on what the government should do to help every working mother who needs help caring for a baby. I raised J alone as a new immigrant and a single mother in America so I am well aware of the challenges though mine were not nearly as dire as other mothers I have known over the years. Multi-generational, joint and extended families are a mostly untapped resource and should be talked about a lot more in this country. Government has a definite role to play but families can help their own out too. 

I was blessed to have my parents pitch in for J and have known friends who had two sets of grandparents helping out with their kids. My friend L, also a single mother, travels extensively for work for decades and has raised two kids along the way. Her sister and parents live in the same town and were her reliable support system. I was disappointed the importance of family was completely ignored in this podcast besides a nod to villages in Africa where indeed the whole village parents the children and there is no concept of a child being the exclusive possession of its birth mother. I wish the lessons learned from that observation had translated to actual calls to action for those in America. Not to generalize but no matter how wonderful a paid care-giver, if there is a loving grand-parent, older cousin, uncle or aunt who is willing and able to step in for the child whose mother is working, they would generally win hands-down. What is possible in an African village likely isn't in American suburbia but it is well worth the trouble to figure out what is. 

Going Digital

Recently, I met a friend's grandfather who happens to be an avid birder and photographer. Birds are often the subject as can be imagined but he has an amazing eye for people too - all in candid settings. He showed us one picture that I found competition worthy and told him so. Apparently he had tried but was too late for consideration. 

Later at dinner, we joked about grandpa making an NFT out of it. He was intrigued but the idea was a bit alien to his mind. Reading this other NFT story featuring the inventor of the internet (a fact which seems to make the creator feel a lot older than his real age), reminded me of my friend's grandpa

“Three decades ago, I created something which, with the subsequent help of a huge number of collaborators across the world, has been a powerful tool for humanity. (...) NFTs, be they artworks or a digital artefact like this, are the latest playful creations in this realm, and the most appropriate means of ownership that exists. They are the ideal way to package the origins behind the web,” Berners-Lee said in a statement.

The grandfather had been a photographer all his life and embraced his DSLR camera whole heartedly when he first got one. But that is his line. He would never enhance his pictures digitally - that would mean being a traitor to the art form. So he would wait until the conditions were right for the perfect shot. Sometimes, that could take several days and hundreds of shots. Maybe making an NFT of his potentially prize winning shot was over the line too.

Slowing Down

Interesting benefits to our lives as we crawl out of the pandemic. The ability to choose a home that is not dictated by the short commute during rush hour.

The coronavirus pandemic, however, is no two-week Olympics, no localized earthquake. It has lasted so long that people have discovered new preferences and lost the muscle memory of old routines.

We know that the longer disruption lasts, the more likely it is that long-term changes in society follow, said Giovanni Circella, a transportation researcher at the University of California, Davis. Disruption can also prove more lasting, he said, when it intensifies existing trends than when it creates entirely new ones. And the most notable trend in commuting for the last generation has been the steady rise of telework.

For every single person that does not have to plan their lives around rush hour traffic, there is a benefit to society overall. Lower stress, safer driving, less road-rage, more time to spend will a loved one and the ability to think about whatever matters instead of just doing without pause. Ability to live where one wants to instead of being shoe-horned by drive time at rush hour is just one of many benefits.

 

Last Straw

This story about an employee quitting because she was being prodded to show to work in person is understandable. For the past year and a half she had opportunity to live a very different kind of life and the comforts of being able switch off the camera and take a mental break. There is no way getting up to an alarm, dressing up, commuting to work and being in work-mode around a large number of people all day can seem more enticing. 

"..If anything, the past year has proved that lots of work can be done from anywhere, sans lengthy commutes on crowded trains or highways. Some people have moved. Others have lingering worries about the virus and vaccine-hesitant colleagues.

And for Twidt, there’s also the notion that some bosses, particularly those of a generation less familiar to remote work, are eager to regain tight control of their minions.

“They feel like we’re not working if they can’t see us,” she said. “It’s a boomer power-play.”.."

It is a privilege to have a job where working remotely is a viable option. Many among us were never given a chance to exercise it and for no good reason. Employers no longer have a compelling reason deny this option - people are not interested in partaking corporate culture nearly as much as having agency over their time. Till the pandemic hit, they were running around like hamsters on a wheel, when in fact there was the choice all along of running free in the yard.  

I know this from experience, no matter what age your school-going child, they experience a sense of comfort coming home to a parent, a chance to talk about their day and maybe get a simple home-made snack. A parent who missed those opportunities to bond with their kid in the past, will not want to let go of what they earned during the pandemic. 

Chance Encounter

We were walking past an El Salvadorian restaurant the other day and reading the menu posted on the window, wondering if we should stop by for dinner after our walk. On the sidewalk, a young man who we guessed might be a chef there was taking a smoke break. Watching us trying to make a decision he broke into a big smile and gave us an impromptu education on the cuisine and some of the signature dishes. We were back an hour later, hungry and ready to try some of what we had heard about. The food was amazing and the prices very reasonable. Every sauce was made from scratch. The attention to detail that went into preparing the dishes was amply evident. 

The young man served us, made us our drinks and also introduced us to three different jalapeno sauces - each distinctly different from the other. If not for him taking that smoke break exactly when we were passing by, we would have never discovered this place. Once we got home, I checked the reviews of the restaurant. It turns out that the establishment is highly rated and has been featured in a ton of local and not so local publications. The young man who explained to us how a  papusa is made and why we must try it is the chef-owner of the place. 

The experience made me think about happenstance in life and how being at the right place at the right time opens certain doors that lead to paths we would not have otherwise taken. That evening we would have walked on and never known what we had missed. Masa Harina may now become a staple in my kitchen.