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A meditation on entering flow state. A snack beckons. I stand up and head a few feet away to the kitchen area. A hojicha latte is on my mind, and also a bite. My brain is at operational capacity, and I am in a flow state. The metabolic need feels high, and I need to keep my energy up. I make the latte, iced with almond milk. I devour an oat bar. It’s the time of year when projects are in full swing. The seasons also drive business. Today started with syncing on UK time, getting on a call with Simon and then Jeff joining. We reviewed work and made plans. I know what’s immediately ahead of me today, and I steel myself mentally. It’s funny how the pressure from a timeline and deadline can focus you. Because I am a shokunin, I have my design mise en place laid out both in the mind, and at the physical desk. The plan appears, as I percolated on it after the call. I am now executing it. Windows are open all over: a browser with a tab count I can't even see, a few design tools, two deck tools, communication tools, and note tools. I stop to consider that I'm working across multiple variants of the same core pieces of software but in different flavors and with different purposes or are inputs from others collaborating. The mise en place is multi-modal. I am traversing them, wielding a strange authority over them all. After all afternoon and as the evening beckons, I share the file, toggling on collaboration. A message goes out to all parties. Flow state will come for us all. This is just the beginning. Visit this post on the web or Reply via email
My operating rules and way of living. This is a m.o. (mo) page, or modus operandi page. It lists out the way I approach my life and the rules I apply to it to thrive. This is a living document and will be added to as more comes to mind, or as I develop new ones. It is mirrored at /mo. Feel free to make your own. Let me know if you do, and I'll list yours at the end of my mo page. Simplicity and defaults keeps things simple: stock apps, stock methods. Only specialize and customize if a need really can't be met. I stay away from almost every chain when it comes to purchasing something. I seek out locally-owned businesses or small niche businesses. Given the option between a small business and a tiny business, I opt for the tiny one. Even more so if it's owned or operated by BIPOC, immigrants, and/or queer folk. Scale and choice matters. I want people to be unafraid to start tiny businesses and to be encouraged to continue to do so. I do not buy from Amazon. I am not a hardcore minimalist, but operate like one. If something comes into my possession, it has to be necessary. If something comes into my possession, it should do more than one job. If something comes into my possession, it must do its primary job best. Most items should be thought of as tools: to enable me to do something. Items owned should be of the highest quality possible at a reasonable budgetary spend, but would likely be too much money than most would consider reasonable. I seek items that can be repaired whenever possible or have as long a life as feasible. Items should be grail items: it is the pinnacle of its kind, is timeless, and durable. Buy used: modern culture treats life as disposable. I rail against that and seek things that you will pass down to your grandchildren or similar. Walking is preferred, when possible. Take public transit when possible. Ride a bicycle. Drive less, and only drive when I must. I own a vehicle. It's used. It's now 17 years old. It's made by Toyota. It enables me to go very far, and into the backcountry. It is driven mostly for adventure. It is parked when in the city and at home. I will do my best to extend its lifespan and keep it running until it can no longer. I do not ingest highly processed foods. I eat whole foods as much as possible. I am restrictive in my diet, partly out of age and care for my body, but also because I have been diagnosed with SIBO and have nummular/discoid eczema (a rare form). I was able to come off long-term topical steroid use and keep my horrendous all-over eczema at bay because of adopting the AIP protocol. I will pay for high quality food. My body requires movement. I provide this to it through running (formerly decades of cycling), rock climbing, yoga, strength training, and general physical play. I am not an early adopter of technology. Most tech should be repairable, easily replaceable, or used until it reaches end-of-life. See item purchasing above. Phone is Airplane mode at night. I'd keep it in another room like others do, but I tend to wake up in the middle of the night and need music (downloaded) to listen to, to fall back asleep. Computers, modems, and wi-fi are powered down at night. I love Airpods because of my hearing loss and physically smaller left ear, but detest that they are ultimately disposable products. I am moving back towards wired headphones. I wear natural fibers on my body almost all of the time. I keep synthetic clothing to a minimum — typically limited to running shorts (lowest friction for my eczema) or for outdoor pursuits (rain shell, down jackets). I wear cotton and merino wool. With my eczema status, all plastic-and-oil based clothing feels creepy-tingly-gross on my skin. At an eatery: prioritize establishments that have reusable dinner- and silverware. Coffee shops: for here, please. Worst case scenario: paper or compostable containers. When possible, and remembered, I have a Snow Peak titanium spork on me to reduce utensil use when eating out at a fast casual or for food to-go. I love to cook. You don't need to, but you should be able to do some basic cooking so you can feed yourself. Pick up food takeout when possible and tip the restaurant versus using a delivery service which is already gouging you on pricing, and getting reamed on their cut of the profit. Pay them directly. Do your own groceries. Spend the time to get out in the world and community and talk and be amongst people. I do not pay for video streaming services, but am paying for a YouTube Premium subscription because creators and artists and filmmakers and nerds and enthusiasts have better and real stories to tell. Always take the stairs. Always walk the travelator. Visit this post on the web or Reply via email
I turned another year older. A collection of small moments and choices that let me be me. One guidepost for each year I've been alive — some I've practiced for decades, and a few new ones. Feel out the day and go where your energy wants you to. Your energy is precious. Don’t let someone else take it. Show up and do the work. Your partner, friends, family, pets, and loved ones are more important than any passing digital connections. Spend more time with them at this age. We’re all getting older, and some have already moved on from this plane. Check in on your loved ones and friends. Build a resilient life. Seek diversity. Walk in someone else’s shoes. Walk in the shoes of a BIPOC or queer person. Sometimes, you just need a chocolate croissant. Make it a point to travel. Travel to a place where the people, language, and culture are nothing like yours. Call your mom. Dance. Never stop air drumming. Go find a space to play real drums. Talk to your neighbors. Befriend them. Smile at passersby. Give pedestrians the right of way. Say goodbye when you leave a store. Hug more. Go to a show. Support artists. Always take the stairs. Always walk the travelator. Don’t hog the sidewalk. Be aware of your surroundings. Wear a light long-sleeve shirt/hat/pants instead of sunscreen. Eat real food. A.B.C. Always Be Curious. Never stop learning. Stagnation is death. Let your skin feel the sun. Let your skin feel the rain. Take a walk in warm rain. Take your shoes off and feel the ground. Find a quiet place and just be. Do something you love that doesn’t involve making money. Do something that’s yours and for you only. Listen more than you speak. Reflect on the day, the week, the month, the year, the decades. Talk to people. In person. Or pick up the phone and listen to their voice. Or get on a video call to see their face, their expression, their smile, their laugh. Be genuine. Feel the feels. You’re human. Make a life you love. Have no regrets. Visit this post on the web or Reply via email
Writing, giving, and soliciting feedback via your inbox. For over 25 years, I’ve been using email to collaborate and work with people. Before there were any messaging platforms, project management tools, and hybrid tools like Slack and Discord, phone calls, Skype and email were most of what you had. Along the way, and to this day, I’ve developed some simple rules for getting your point across, and receiving the right feedback in return. Write an email like you’re a lawyer. Stick to the facts and keep it brief. Clarity and conciseness are your friends. Keep your sentences trim and strive for non-ambiguity. Use headers. Or bold them. And even use italics. I like to break up longer emails or denote themes by using section headers. Rich text email can be your friend here. Lists are your best friend though. I love to use lists. There is nothing better than utilizing the format to allow people to scan specific pieces of feedback that they need to pay attention to. Even better, use a numbered list. Give the recipient a number to hook onto. It’s much easier to reference “In 3, let’s go with…” than to say, “In the fourth list item…” when visually, the numbers are already there and cognition is formed on both ends. Order your asks or feedback in lists by order of importance. Go from biggest to smallest, most important to least important. Unless the item you’re addressing is sequential by time or order and is easier to follow as experienced. Consider length and device context. An email that looks good on your deskop computer or viewport is much longer on a mobile device. Respect the end recipients. See 1 and 2 (see what I did there?!). Mind your manners. There’s a fine line between brusqueness and being an ass. Kindness and politeness still go a long way. Read your email before you send it. Does it make sense to you? Are the important parts addressed with clarity and feel actionable? Rewrite or edit if you need. Here’s an example email I’d write: Hi, Jamie, Thanks for your time on the call yesterday. The video draft you cut is shaping up great. Below is some feedback: Typography 1. Let's use our brand fonts for all titles. The Dropbox folder is here. 2. For each speaker's name, let's reduce the size by about 20%. Music and vibe 1. The music could use some energy. Are there some other tracks we could try? 2. The footage is a bit dark. Can we brighten it up? 3. The color feels a bit cold. The event was sunny, and we'd love to see some of that warmth come through. Thank you, and look forward to the next cut, Naz. In summary: stick to the facts, write clearly, keep it brief, use headers, sections and lists, and be kind. Visit this post on the web or Reply via email
More in literature
If I had been in the house all day reading during a long Ohio winter, invariably my mother would say, “Go outside and blow the stink off.” My parents took a kid reading as a reproach, something unnatural and probably unhealthy – one more reason for me to be secretive. When I was twelve, getting a room of my own with a door that locked was a godsend. Three years ago I wrote about a poem by Walter de la Mare titled “Books” published in the July 1906 issue of The Bookman. It includes the lines: “Books—to wax solid on, to wane less fat; / To grasp what long-gone Wisdom wondered at.” Now I find he published another poem with the same title and collected it in one of his books for children, This Year: Next Year (1937). The 289-line poem is composed in rhyming couplets and begins: “A boy called Jack, as I’ve been told, Would sit for hours — good as gold — Not with a pie, like Master Horner, And plums, for dainties, in his corner. But silent in some chosen nook. And spell-bound — by a story-book!” In my case it wasn’t always stories. I also favored biographies and nature guides. I read about people like Mark Twain and Marie Curie, and learned to identify butterflies, trees and wildflowers. I saw no disconnect between what I read and what I experienced in the real world. Today, that’s basically an article of faith, one of the reasons I so dislike the way most academics treat literature, as though books were cadavers and they were pathologists. Jack’s mother in the poem echoed mine: “How often his mother would sigh, and cry — / ‘Up, Jack, and put that trumpery by! / See, Spring is in the sky! / The swallow is here, the thorn’s in blow — / Crimson, pink, and driven snow; / Lambs caper in the fields . . .” We didn’t have a lot of lambs in Cleveland but the message was identical. Jack, you see, “In books found marvellous company, / Wonder, romance, and mystery.” De la Mare cites fairy tales (Andersen, Grimm) and nursery rhymes, the earliest texts most kids encounter, followed by Gulliver’s Travels (bowdlerized, of course), the Arabian Nights, Robinson Crusoe. Nice to see the poet reproducing my boyhood reading list fifteen years before I was born. De la Mare lends Jack a sort of poet’s apprenticeship: “Never believe it! What Jack read Refreshed his senses, heart, and head. Words were to him not merely words — Their sounds rang sweet as bells, or birds; Nor could he tell, by any test, Whether he loved — he once confessed — Their music, or their meaning, best.” Dela Mare reminds us that books are more than escape, for children and adults -- an understanding that trivializes the power of reading. Sure, they fill idle moments, and that’s perfectly respectable. Consider de la Mare’s closing lines: “This seems to me at least to hint. That if we give what wits we have To Books, as Jack himself them gave — To all we read a willing slave — The while we dream, delight, and think. The words a precious meat and drink. And keep as lively as a spink. There’s not much harm in printer’s ink.” A spink, by the way, is a finch, often the chaffinch. A lovely phrase in Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy: “Like a summer flye or Spinxes winges, or a raigne bow of all colours.”
On jellyfish babies, my father’s pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific The post After the Fallout appeared first on The American Scholar.
Sometimes two people will stand next to each other for fifteen years, both feeling out of place and alone, like no one gets them, and then one day, they look up at each other and say, “Oh, there you are.”
