Category: Writing

Not earth-shattering news but I slept well last night. The medication was effective at suppressing the cough, and I’m still only at day 1. Tests start on day 7 to discover root cause.

A revealing moment as I was making coffee just then was how I processed the improvement.  I have long standing plans for the next 3 days meeting people I care about and who care about me. In the last 72 hours or so I wasn’t sure I was going to keep those commitments, so I let them know I wasn’t.

This morning, feeling rested (& seeming fit), I began wondering if I could keep them after all.  I continued to extrapolate – if I’m already feeling better on day 1, and the symptoms disappear, do I really need to do the tests?

The kettle was boiling, and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself. Of course not doing the tests is entirely the wrong thing to do. Merely because the symptoms have been subdued with drugs whose names sound like the mafia (Panafcortelone, really!) doesn’t explain why I keep having these episodes every so often, and that lays me low for weeks at a time every two years or so.

Short-term day-dreaming taking over long-term decisions.

The better thing to do is to try to get to the cause, even though it is expensive, takes time, and requires effort. Of course I will. I’ve learnt that expensive lesson in the last 3 decades of my life.

My reflection from this anecdote: daydream all you want, but remember to take time to think through decisions about the most important things. It’s not usually life and death.

And if it is, I’ll know, and decide accordingly.

The coffee tasted so much better too 🙂

It’s a liberating feeling to know I can express how I truly feel about the people I work with, to their face.  And to know that they’ll return the favour.

I remember reading Ray Dalio’s Principles and the concept of radical candor as a management principle. It takes a certain strength of character and a humility of mind to both speak so and to listen to it. And I’m grateful for the group of humans – I will call them friends rather than colleagues – that I get to spend my days with.

I truly love working with them because they see the world differently to how I do, yet want to create a future that I want too. We discuss, argue, oppose, interject, play devil’s advocate, and a thousand other things but I’ve discovered over time that we never question intent. We share our individual challenges, and potential ways around them. We ask for help. We treat each other with respect, and people around us too.  We know we don’t know most things, so we continue to have fun while we get mud on our faces and learn.

Knowing someone’s got your back, and that they’ll call out your bullshit to your face without trampling your identity, is a wonderful sense.  It might last only as only as this group is together, but we’ve learnt how to create this from scratch.  Several times over.

That I think is worth celebrating.

 

I spent much of today, between coughs, struggling to write a thank you note to the people who have become part of a community I created out of hope that things could be better.

I struggled because I wanted to express how I really felt, why I really did this effort. I had no idea who I was really writing for.

And then it stuck me – it is not for the masses. It is a letter to anyone – any ONE – who comes across it and reads it. The words flowed then, and it was much easier.

I hit another roadblock soon after. Mere text, as heaped with meaningful  emotions as it may be, is not enough (or so I thought). I’ve spent hours this evening learning about photo saving formats, uploading them to Google Photos, reorganising them into a collage, and then finally getting them on to this internal social platform.

I am now struggling to hit “share”. And at 10pm, I’m so ready to give up, along with my body who’s screaming for rest, and my lungs who are struggling to get more oxygen in.  I get to see a doctor tomorrow night (finally!).

I haven’t done any voice training (duh!) today. But calligraphy, I can and will before I shut down for the day.

 

I’m not out of the woods yet, but have regained enough strength to get out of bed a couple of times today.

Digital consumption though didn’t stop. I’ve been watching some talks on Long Now. Neal Stephenson  reading from his book Termination Shock  followed by a wonderful Q&A. Long Term Thinking by author & journalist Bina Venkatraman.

Glenn Campbell’s amazing rendition of Gentle on my mind that I never get tired of . His daughter Ashley wrote a song for him as Alzheimer’s slowly took over his life. “Remembering” is incredibly beautiful.

Walk Off The Earth is a band that gets me in the feels. They’ve done a fantastic bluegrass version of GNR’s Don’t Cry (& their neighbour Cindy knows!) and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” (which got the attention of the original songwriter!)

We’ve got a sewing machine that stays packed away until my mother-in-law makes a trip here whenever. I have been wondering what it would be to learn to use that machine so watched a youtube video. Maybe it will come out from hibernation this Christmas break.

The Tommy Emmanuel interview with Rick Beato. They cover so much great ground and Tommy’s ideas and philosophy apply not just to music but to life generally.

Guitar warm-up exercises that go beyond merely the boring scales by Marco Cirillo

Learning how to use Microsoft Sway  by Kevin Stratvert.

And I’m not sure why I watched this at all 🙂 A family’s 4X4 trip on the famous Oodnadatta trail

Women fall sick, and they make sure the world still goes on. Men fall sick and the world is about to end.  Man-flu, is how they describe it.

Man-flu or otherwise, I’ve laid low now for the second day in a row. The laptop’s close enough so I can at least get out of my head, if not my bed. I’ve been watching endless youtube videos, and the best I can do I suppose is to at least list them out here. (There’s got to be a better way than having to look at your history in YT, surely??)

A 92 year old man singing Christmas carols.

A nurse specialist, Ana Frapell, reading aloud a letter to her kids, followed by a palliative care doctor reading a letter to a former deceased patient about Do Not Attempt CPR

A different explanation, confirming the concept, of how electricity flows video I watched last week

Prof Rob Hyndman of Monash University explaining how RMarkdown changed his life.

An ex-McKinsey consultant sharing how to write storylines and action titles in his slides,  how to conduct workshops 

Geoff Castellucci (a bass singer)’s version of Mele Kalikimaka 

An energising rendition of Crazy by “Walking Off the Earth”

Toni Lindgreen (the amazing guitarist who backs Reina del Cid) teaching Bob Dylan’s Buckets of Rain in open E tuning. (and her testing of how much stress can be put on the guitar with this tuning!)

Top recently released features in MS Teams (didn’t know about the Q&A feature which will come in really handy!)

Magnets are fascinating!

Stevie Wonder’s improv and songwriting chops when the electric piano stops working!

Lex Fridman (this guy is an incredible role model!) responding, humbly, to Joe Rogan’s criticism of his interviewing style.

How to Learn to Code When You have No Time and No Money is an honest and inspiring talk by a military wife & mom.

Re-watched Nancy Duarte’s analysis of common structures of great speeches from TEDx 2010. Her quote to finish: “The future isn’t a place you can go. It is a place that you get to create“.

I’ve been reading:

Brett Scott’s “Altered States of Monetary Consciousness” was a recommendation

McKinsey on “Getting Real about hybrid work“

Seth Godin’s post from a couple of days ago (Precision and Accuracy) got me thinking, again, on the topic of measurement errors in organisations.

Seth’s quick way of differentiating between precision and accuracy (also a statistical term?) is thus:

Precision is granularity of measurement.  Accuracy is about describing how we’re doing what we intended to do.

You can drive in the wrong direction at precisely 54.3kmph

The last few months, I’ve observed an obsession with precision. Armies of analysts (reduced significantly through retrenchments) continue to pore over minute differences in metrics. Assuming or sometimes being explicitly told that precision is crucial, and every number counts (pun intended). The ship might need to turn shortly but everyone keeping the engines going can’t hear the captain’s orders over the din.

What would it be like, if the captain/s actually went down to the folks in the engine room and asked them what was happening down there? Do they still have the tools to keep the engine going? Do they know and realise why they’ve being asked to “do more with less”? That they may have to change heading pretty soon and may need to learn completely new skills?

Leverage, my friend A keeps saying. And despite the leverage of so many great and wonderful minds, few captains of industry seem to know what to do.

***

I may be down with a temperature and rambling on, but write I will 🙂

 

Blogging makes it easy for anyone with an internet connection and a few half-baked thoughts to type them out and share for the world to see.  Or to record a video or some else new-fangled social media app that ‘takes the friction out of ________’.

But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Some days, when I don’t want to write here, the excuse that floats into mind is just STFU. No one needs or wants to hear or read what I have to say, so why do I bother.  It’s a valid reason. No one reads anything here anyway. It’s a lot of effort. It’s not paying anything. It takes time away from other things I *could* be doing.

The only reason I keep doing this is so the words can flow out of me better when I DO have something to say. Constructing an idea is hard when all I have are simply marks on a piece of paper. Letters of the alphabet. The hope that what I say/write is in fact what I mean. And a constant battle to learn how to do it.

 

 

Every so often, a letter or a video pops up in my feed and leaves me in tears.  It isn’t because I can relate to the people in them – I can’t relate to Adele. It is because they bring back memories that lay in the attic of my mind like old books. Covered in dust and cobwebs, undisturbed for decades, and unless examined a little more carefully, not anything to cherish.

That short video today reminded me of my own English teacher in Year 8, when I was 12.

I write every day now. Typing out a blog post, writing out in my journal, a quote, or a page or two of calligraphy. I write to remain ‘sane’. To get the weight of the thoughts off my mind on to a paper where they become weightless. To create more room for other thoughts and ideas to float in, flow by. Occasionally to stay and shape me.

My English teacher in year 8 started his class with handwriting exercises. Rather than tell everyone why they needed to improve their handwriting, he simply gave everyone a few minutes at the beginning of the class to make marks on their 4-ruled copywriting notebooks with a fountain pen. He didn’t tell anyone what to do: he showed us. Writing with his beautiful hand on the whiteboard with a chalk – I realise now what an impossible task it is at that angle! – he inspired a view of the handwriting world that was possible.

I’ve written about calligraphy and pens before, of my interest in it since I was much younger. What I did not have until I was 12 was a teacher who taught through inspiration – the foundations and the possibilities.

I don’t know how many students of Year 8 at St Josephs remained inspired, but Br. Samuel lit a spark for me that continues to give a steady warmth to my life 3 decades later.

Thank you Adele for the reminder.

And more importantly, thank you Br S!

Music and words.

For as long as I can remember, those two have been the longest running threads in my life. Weaved into every event, major or minor. The words to a song. The lone violin or cello. The screams of a rock or metal band, softening into the bansuri or flute, requiring mastery of breath.  Sony Walkmans and iPod and streaming music on YouTube or Spotify. Podcasts, interviews, sometimes a movie.

I’m not alone of course.

Just two shapes of lego blocks – words and music-  can, and do, created emotional rollercoasters for every human.  The love letter you write. Or receive.  (Perhaps not anymore, in these days of texts and ephemeral videos?) A song dedicated to a crush at a fete, saying the words you never would dare say to your crush in person. Sometimes, no words are required. The instruments draw out memories gathering webs in the corner of the mind, with every draw of the bow or flow of air through a reed. Or as happened this morning, listening to someone else read the words of a deeply personal letter from a father to his newborn son.

I’m truly grateful for the words, the music, the combinations of words and music. The only thing I’m more grateful for today are the people who in my life who turn 26 letters and 12 notes into a composition that is truly unique for me.

 

72 days ago, when I leapt headfirst into my 100 day experiment, I was feeling overwhelmed. This was too hard, it was taking a lot of time, ideas for writing were excruciatingly challenging to come up with, ad infinitum.  Pain was the predominant feeling/emotion. Consistency was not a feature until that point of time.

I have evidence now that 3 of the 5 things I listed are daily, enjoyable, system-building habits. I write in my journal, a little blog post, and have been doing Spencerian every day. Both my handwriting and my Spencerian calligraphy have improved. Words are easier to find in my mental drawers (and the Thesaurus helps when they’re not).  I’ve been reading a chapter a day of the 100 ways to improve your writing aloud, and with practice, training my voice and slowly improving the way I pronounce and enunciate words.

All of that takes no more than 30 minutes. Of late, I’ve been doing them before I start my working day. The sense of satisfaction allows me to then focus on helping other people succeed at work, or to tackle challenging circumstances with equanimity.

There are other areas of life I’d like to apply this same approach to.  Exercise is the overarching system, not merely walking.  Long term investments (money, people, ideas, etc) over focus on reviewing portfolio (financial, network, idea list).

There’s one habit I want to kick that has stayed with me over 25 years. No one notices it but me. I don’t wish to draw attention to it either. And on the eve of my 44th trip around the sun, it is time to retire the habit for a different one.