Author: neil

Opportunity

A single mum of two adolescents and loves working with her hands and enjoys solving problems. A young woman four years out of her high school, and never worked with technical tools.
 
They are two of the less than ten women in my company who work in the field in a male-dominated domain. It’s remarkable that two years later, doing similar jobs, they hadn’t met each other.  A chance conversation with another colleague/friend last week became the seeds for an idea that I’m currently working on. I’ll help them share their stories to a caring, curious audience that I have had the privilege of curating over the last couple of years.
 
There are an incredible number of opportunities around me that I have not paid attention to. They are like the shadows I ignore, despite being right in front of me. Changing orientation, or the source of light, or the perspective will provide a rich texture to the life and people around me I take for granted.
Hemingway Readability Index: 9

Finding Joy

Negative on the first test. Awaiting second PCR test results tonight. It seems inevitable that COVID will infect the household. The hope is that vaccinations will likely temper the effect of the virus. My daughter is the only one so far that isn’t showing any symptoms.

While all that’s going on, I found joy in relearning how to draw/sketch this last week. Pencils and paper. Light and shadow. Perspectives and lines. Observation. Learning to see what I often ignore or take for granted. I want to draw portraits or carricatures of a few close people. It’s given me renewed interest in this art form I so loved as a child/adolescent. Feynman’s story – that he started taking drawing lessons at the age of 44 – was the inspiration I needed.

Friday morning chaos was my excuse for skipping the 6th day of push-up challenge. Instead of doing it later that day, I put it out of my mind. I will re-do week 2, and improve on form. Reading and coding didn’t get attention this week either.

Small things done (or not) every day for long periods of time. That’s what habits are. I will do well to remember that.

Hemingway Index: Grade 4

Fears and Action

Aim for Clear, Credible and Persuasive writing, recommends Darius Foroux.   Whether writing for an audience of one or a thousand, the argument holds, and the effects are felt in every other part of life.

It’s been ~140 days since I started writing publicly again, and consistently this time. It still terrifies that someone might find this writing, read it, and get disappointed. The fears are endless, and not only with writing. The fear of being found out to be an impostor is bubbling forever under the surface. I’m not alone.  Some are rich brave enough to admit it in public. Most seem to have everything under control, or pretend convincingly.
 
I often have this fear that paralyses me into inaction. Breaking that pattern, I repeatedly learn, is to take a small action. Whether it’s sketching, doodling, reading a book, writing out a quote in my calligraphy notebook, repairing some broken link on the station’s website – something, anything that takes the focus of attention away from “i, me” helps.  But doing something is not always appealing.
 
I ended the work week by aiming to find and persuade four young women to talk about their journey as technicians in a male-dominated industry. I found two and persuaded one. The fear of connecting with other humans because they are different doesn’t have much hold on me. Learning to use that power as a way to get out of the rut in other parts of my life has been invaluable.

Spencerian: Julia Cameron

If you work on your creativity, you will grow spiritually. If you work on your spirituality, you will grow creatively. Creativity and spirituality are so close they are intertwined. We call God ‘the Creator’ without realizing it is another word for ‘artist.’ The Creator is the consummate artist. As we explore and express our artistry, we are imitating God. Is it any wonder we begin to find spiritual support?

From “The Miracle of Morning Pages”

Spencerian: David Graeber

Everyone is familiar with the sort of jobs that don’t seem, to the outsider, really to do much of anything: HR consultants, communications coordinators, PR researchers, financial strategists, corporate lawyers or the sort of people who spend their time staffing committees that discuss the problem of unnecessary committees. What if these jobs really are useless, and those who hold them are actually aware of it? Could there be anything more demoralising than having to wake up in the morning five out of seven days of one’s adult life to perform a task that one believes does not need to be performed, is simply a waste of time or resources, or even makes the world worse?

Source

Milk

It was inevitable: CoVID finally arrived at our doorstep. My 11year old, 3 days into school, returned home with the chills and a fever. The rapid antigen test showed a faint second line, so a second test was done. It confirmed the suspicion.

For the first time in forever, he’s asleep in bed at 7pm. A headache, a slight temperature, occasionally chills, and a runny nose are his current symptoms. Paracetamol is doing its work, and rest will hopefully do the rest.

It also means that all of us too are in isolation for 7 days along with him. Should someone catch it, 7 days from that person. Worst case scenario is a month of isolation for the household.

It wasn’t so long ago that I wrote about everything coming into sharp focus when life throws its challenge. This is yet another one for us.  It wil take its toll for sure, and a stoic approach will help us get through it.

The biggest worry both my wife & I had was what do we do when the milk runs out. Life without milk in the coffee? I don’t think the Stoics had to worry about it 🙂

Spencerian: Viktor Frankl

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.