Winding down the week

I’ll be pitching in London on Monday, clinical and business meetings scattered at various locations through the rest of the week, so its shaping up as a busy period again.  But a series of late afternoon storms rumbled through Parkstone, breaking the heat along with my concentration.  ‘time to gather my notes and move down to the beach for the afternoon, start to plan a weekend that is genuinely ‘off’.

The circus is in town, there’s a regatta in Swanage: the festival schedule has abated as school term ends and people leave for summer holidays.  I’d rather be boating but need to finish my qualifications before I can charter out with the dinghy.  In vino veritas, In wine, there is truth: I settle in with a glass and collect thoughts.

-- I’m planning a dinner, building out into my social circle, so there’s the menu to think through.  The butcher has some great ideas for a lamb loin, and veg and wine selection is easy.   I’ve finally mastered the varieties of potatoes to make good accompaniments.

But my go-to summer desert, panna cotta with a fruit coulis, has fallen from favor because I use animal gelatin.  I’ve ordered agar and xantham gum alternatives, and have got a series of experiments setting in the ‘fridge this morning.  There’s no good leaf-to-powder equivalent, so I’ll see what amount strikes a balance between mushy and rubbery.

If it all fails, I’ll move on to spuma foams.

-- The Shrink and Sage reflected on Wisdom last weekend, it’s still on my mind.  ‘Grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can’, so the Shrink counsels that Wisdom lies in knowing the difference.  I think that’s perfectly horrible advice: I always envision the good possibilities, cannot accept the bad ones, and so I always see opportunities for change and redemption.  My life is not simply accumulating a  sum of days and accepting what comes; it is actively observing the good and the bad, understanding alternatives, and making wise choices while holding others accountable for theirs. 

In this, I am much closer to the Sage: Wisdom is the capacity to see which problems matter in life, and what aspects are crucial to solving them.  Work, living, relationships: it means putting one’s life experiences to good use while still being open to learning.  It is about making the most of my capacity to make and to acct on choices.

-- I go back to thumbing articles on my tablet, one eye towards the ‘boarders paddling past.  My brother alerts me that Cambridge has fallen to #4 on a league table, behind Harvard, Stanford, MIT.  No worries, we’re ahead of Oxford at #5, and with an 800-year history, we take the long view of these things.  Amazon is starting a book subscription service, not yet available in Europe unfortunately, but a promising idea.  I hope that it doesn’t undermine libraries, though.  The Times reports on new language learning apps, promising, but no substitute for the immersion of just plunging in with courage over a newspaper, a dictionary, and good friends over coffee.

-- Must increased happiness correspond to decreased unhappiness, or can both increase together as cheerful melancholy, asks Arthur Brooks in the Times?   Brooks argues that the two opposites can co-exist because of a discordance between extrinsic and intrinsic goals, things we do for public or private purposes.  But the two intermingle, as on social media: ‘How could it not make you feel worse to pretend to be happier than you are, while seeing how much happier others seem to be than you?’

That seems simplistic, even though true.  Private thoughts can certainly be a blend. I can be happy on a se-cliff walk while being unhappy that I am not sharing it; my contentment in the moment is accompanied by regrets and worries about past and future.

I’m half-way through Lesser’s book, Broken Open, where she writes that when we try to appear happy and consistent, we suppress expression of our failures and longings. 

Publicly, then, we live with only half our lives.  Echoing Brooks, we try to be as happy as we think others are, as confident as they want us to be.  We cut ourselves off from other’s wisdom and compassion, from being able to offer any perspective or tenderness in return.

It all sounds soft and could easily be overdone, but I think that there is a truth here: that we need to be able to participate with our full selves in social relationships, both committed and vulnerable, aspirational and longing.

In the end, after discussing materialism as a route to happiness, Brooks also comes full circle back to the importance of people in our lives.  He concludes simply that the only key is to Love People; Use Things.

I agree, noting that we should never, ever, to invert the two.

(not) east to the Netherlands

My plan was to head to the Netherlands after the Tour de France, a sprint drive arriving by midnight.  It’s been a very long time since I was last east of the Channel, and my work was stacking up: design reviews, legal and accounting meetings, tax filings.  Maastricht has suffered a bunch of storms recently, and I’d also been told that there was significant water damage to one wall of the apartment.  Lovely.

I was driving off onto the exit to the Channel Tunnel when BBC cut in to say that there were seven hour delays in crossing to Calais from Folkstone.

Too late: I was already embedded into a long line of cars and trucks with no exit back onto the motorway.  Drivers passed rumors up and down the line: a train collision, a fire in the tunnel (actually, it was a power failure).  A truck driver had a disagreement with the passenger car line inching past him and edged over to block the lane; the police arrived to untangle the dispute. 

My new-found ‘it can wait’ attitude would have suggested immediately turning back towards Poole to try another day.  But I wasn’t going anywhere, quickly.

An hour passed: I did a little reading:

• On the home front was an article passed to me by a friend about a familiar artwork. 

I was born in Lakewood, Ohio: the High School was adorned with a huge terracotta sculpture of Johnny Appleseed over the entrance to the Auditorium.   Appleseed (John Chapman) was a legendary nurseryman who, around 1800, walked the Midwestern US, and especially future Ohio, planting orchards. As homage to the settlers, the image “Early Settler” was created as civic art, although the school board thought it was ‘too eccentric’ to grace a public building. 

In any case, it’s in need of restoration, and the community is seeking funds.

• Third Wave Feminism is a version of women’s rights that came into practice during the past 20 years.  Its been a tricky movement for me to understand: First Wave in the 19th and early 20th century dealt with basic human equality and voting rights while the Second Wave in the 60s and 70s addressed social and economic equality.  The Third Wave was described as ‘post-colonial and post-modern’, not very helpful.

I found a really good article by Clare Snyder that made much more sense.  She described how the new movement is both more individual (greater individual expression) and more universal (greater inclusiveness), less overtly political and judgmental, while still building on ideas of empowerment and opportunity.

It’s interesting to reflect on: I can see clear roots of my attitudes about gender equality and balanced partnership in the Second Wave, yet observe how my daughter’s attitudes stand clearly in the Third.  The 80’s contradictions about how to think about men, capitalism, or women outside of the first world are ones that I similarly struggled to fit into my thinking over the years, and the intellectual resolutions are intriguing. 

I don’t pretend to have more than a novice insight into the topic, but it was a very generative article with lots to think about.

• On a lighter note, Lucy Kellaway debated whether we should feel ‘passionate’ about our work, vs. perhaps just liking it or finding it fulfilling.  I found two thought-worthy aspects of the essay.

One involved the perceptions of expressing emotions at work.  In general, emotional displays are perceived negatively by co-workers, reflections of personal issues or lack of self-control that is inappropriate for the office.  However, if emotions were described as a result of passion for one’s work, then they were seen much more positively.  ‘

Good to remember the next time I get elated or frustrated (or weep over a failed PowerPoint, as Lucy relates).

The other involved the difference between ‘Harmonious’ and ‘Obsessive’ passions, as described by Robert Vallerand. Harmonious Passions are a "significant but not overwhelming part of our identity”, things we love but can ultimately leave.  Obsessive Passions are those in which our level of performance during the activity drives self-esteem and identity.

Harmonious = beneficial: Obsessive = toxic.  ‘Worth remembering the next time I get too wrapped up in work and need a bit of perspective on my broader life.

An hour and a half passed, the lines inched forward, and I finally reached the ticket booth.  I’ll come back another day, I told the agent, feeling Wise, Balanced, and Harmonious.  He smiled and handed me a coupon and re-booking instructions and directed me out a side exit. 

It could have been worse.  The M11 had been closed for two days by a chemical spill the day before.  As it was, I was back in Poole just after sunset.

Three essays for the weekend

I’ve had these articles tucked away in Pocket for a while and, before heading off for a couple of days rambling in Exmoor, wanted to pass them along as good weekend reading:

 

Travel Writing:  Essays about faraway places should make people feel like they are there, writes Perry Garfinkel.  Thus, any travel writing must begin by completing the phrase “Here and now I am…”  Good writing should also connect physical observations with larger themes, the Particular and the Universal.  Finally, travel essays should transport the reader from their ‘here and now’ to the fantasy of where they want to be, here and now.

I really like this guidance, and it holds well for expatriate writing as well.  Too often, its easy to slip into travel-guide overviews of places and events, superficial advice, or particular feelings that I am experiencing.  While insightful detail and point of view matter, its first and foremost important to tell a good focused story. 

This essay is a good stimulus to thinking about ways to improve (I’d also recommend listening to From Our Own Correspondent podcasts)

Home:    This meditation on the meaning of “home” resonated with my reflections on what the word means for an expatriate.  My Family, my physical home, my citizenship, are all in the United States, but I’ve spent little time there over the past ten years.  My “13 boxes” filled with personal items and business hub are in the Netherlands, the apartment along the Maas feels like home because thee things in it are familiar and mine.  The room that I rent in Poole is proximate to my business and relationships, housemates, associates, wezen and friends.  Then there’s my home-on-the-road: time shuttling around in my car and on the train to meetings with investors and contractors.

Amidst all of this, where is “Home”, what defines my Place, when I don’t have a simple stationary point of reference?

Roger Cohen describes a James Wood essay that explores the choices that expats have.

Is home defined by Where You Came From, the place that you feel homesick for?  While formative and evocative, one’s origin increasingly distant and alien with passing years. 

Is home defined by Where You Are Allowed To Live, the land of opportunity, freely chosen, where identity and purpose can be redefined.  He concludes, as I do, that you always remain an outsider despite legal and economic connections: the long-term personal ties are missing.

In the end, the question comes down to If I had only a few weeks to live, where would I go?

Home, to the place that I feel most welcomed by the people most important to me.   

Real love:  This essay by David Brooks builds from a list compiled by Lydia Netzer about 15 ways to stay married for 15 years.  Her advice is lovely and contain a lot of wisdom that I know to be true: the importance of managing conflict wisely, of being kind to one another, of  committing to the long term together.  Her specific suggestions (Go to bed mad; eat pancakes together in the morning, and Let your spouse hear you talking about them, foolishly and obviously, in glowing terms to other people) are funny and wise.

What I most like, though, is Brooks recognition that we are all imperfect in our being and in our relationship, “to varying degrees foolish, weak, or just plain inexplicable”.  We are each made of “crooked timber”, he asserts, and we need to see each others failings as ironic, to be addressed with wry humor and bemused affection. 

“We move from lofty hopes to loving one another’s frailties,” he writes, “learning the intransigence of imperfection and how to befriend every stupid stumble.”  ‘

Wonderful truths that I wish I’d read sooner.

Catching up

I’ve been scarce the past week, a combination of travel, work, and reflection that filled the days.   The photos below illustrate the range of the week’s activity.  ‘And most of the news is good: with strong results in-hand the business is rushing ahead with operations and fundraising.  This put me in Maastricht, Dorset, London, and Nottingham day-by-day, meeting with my clinical, financial, and industrial partners.  

Its great to be moving again, people’s confidence and interest building as we hit modest, then more substantial milestones. 

After cash, confidence is the most important quality for a startup to cultivate.  I used to think that this was simply a matter of articulating a clear goal and a plan for getting there, of looking confident. 

But, if things start to drift sideways unexpectedly, if plans are necessarily revised and timelines extend, people lose faith.  Their perception of the risks increase, they wonder if they are still part of a capable and winning team.  This erosion can’t be stemmed with a shrug and a smile.

The key qualities seem to come down to communication and execution.  It’s important to be clear and concise about what has happened and what is being done about it, managing the perception early. Then it’s vital that milestones be set and hit.  They can be small and close, but doing those things that you say you will are more important than saying things will get better.

And never, ever present good news until it’s a fact, not a belief.  Once trust starts to erode, confidence can never be regained.

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I did not make it to TEFAF this year.  Making choices, my priorities lay in serious conversations with friends and in closing important design reviews.  The show was extensively covered in major media (two articles in the Times, alone) and attracted a more glittering patronage than usual, although there was suggestion that the Contemporary Art exhibitions, my favorites, were less substantial.

The travel has left me more time for reading, though, whether ploughing through Cross-Channel seas or rumbling along the north-south rail lines.  ‘Two excellent recommendations:

The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal, observes Ben Horowitz in The Hard Thing About Hard Things.  The hard thing is laying people off if you miss that goal.  It isn’t hard to hire great people…set up an org chart…dream big.  The hard part is confronting unreasonable demands….getting people to communicate….waking in the middle of the night in a cold sweat as the dream hits reality.  Ben argues that entrepreneurship is a struggle, and that endurance and persistence are needed to succeed.  Rooted in personal experiences building companies, his observations and prescriptions ring true with my own.

Work stops being fun when you’re triple booked through your day; stress and fear build when someone else calls the shots for you.  And losing commitment to relationships and meaning in life is to turn away from gaining wisdom and peace.   It sounds New-Age, but the book comes from the Mayo Clinic and summarizes recent research about why our minds wander, why we tend to dwell on the negative, how that affects our life, and what we can do about it.  The psychology resonates with me (especially for the wandering mind associated with long, solitary days on the road) but I haven’t bought into the five prescriptive remedies (managing attention, gratitude, compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness).  I’ll find practical points to adopt, though, and even the pink-cloud sections give me things to think about (in the recommended focused /attentive way).

All of these psychological points seem to circle concepts of mindfulness, extensively covered in the business press as the path to creativity and productivity.  I’ve long been interested in flow states, optimal experience where a focused mind enjoys enhanced creativity and insight.  The ten qualities of  flow  have a complimentary fit with these other books, and I’ve been reflecting on the overlap, looking for the best ideas. 

‘nothing conclusive yet.  But, as the business regains its footing, this seems like the right time to reconsider these topics.

‘if only to avoid the traps that caught me in 2013.

Aspriational reading

A week’s travel doesn’t make life much easier, but it is a good chance to catch up on reading.  The news has gotten somewhat depressing of late: the Americans are beating war drums again and the British are in an angry mood debating it.   There isn’t much tech news; and  now even the travel recommendations seem sparse.

So, ‘time to turn to the Management / Leadership section for some long-form self-help.

“The biggest problem in the business world is ‘too much’ — too many distractions and interruptions, too many things done for the sake of form, and altogether too much busy-ness,” notes the Economist.   Remarkably, they cite vergaderziekte, a Dutch phrase for “meeting-sickness”  as another consequence of our over-rushed lives.  I sympathize:  One of my biggest issues with corporate was how others could grab control of my days through Calendar.  Skype can be almost as intrusive (berichteziekte?).

The essayist’s solution is “leaning back”, doing less, thinking more.  He suggests more time looking out the window, or making a “stop doing list” as the answer?  Certainly leaving voids in the day and enforcing a ‘tea break’ for reflection is important: either 15-30 minutes centered-relaxation or free-association according to another author.

Or maybe a few eye’s-closed minutes with Dutch singer Anouk drifting through her ballads and practicing my luisteren skills.

“Creative people’s most important resource is their time—particularly big chunks of uninterrupted time—and their biggest enemies are those who try to nibble away at it.”

Flybe’s  in-flight business magazine offers seven keys to “Edge Leadership”, mostly pabulum, but I liked#2:  The ability to have difficult conversations.  I struggle with angry, unreasonable, and vindictive people and situations that overwhelm my usual rational fairness.  I’m reading psychologist Mark Goulston, who offers a lot of practical tips.

Mastering Difficult People is a delight:  How to keep an emotional distance from life’s takers, bullies and whiners who think the cheating world owes them something.  He offers a variety of disengage / respond techniques that help avoid the strong emotions that difficult people try to evoke in others.

How to Listen When Someone is Venting is similarly specific.  Asking three key questions, What are you (most frustrated / most angry / most worried) about?  are good advice for self-reflection as well as for getting through to others under stress.

On the lighter side, I really enjoyed Sarah Lyall’s repatriation story Ta-Ta London. Hello Awesome.  She reflects both on the enduring characteristics of  peoples and changes in their circumstances on both sides of the Atlantic.  There may come a time when I must repatriate, and I hope  that I do it with as much insight and grace.

I visited my immigration lawyers today to assure that it didn’t happen as a simple consequence of turning 60.  No worries, and they think they can convert my 1-year visa to a 5-year. 

It would be ironic if I pass 65, the age limit for requiring language proficiency before I can actually pass the language exam.

Recent reading (and Bubble Tea)

I’ve been on the road all week: London, Southampton, Poole and  Cambridge, angels and hospitals, critics and friends.  It’s meant a bit more windshield time than usual, some time browsing reading in outer offices waiting for appointments to arrive.  ‘Taken in the right spirit, it’s better than it sounds.

What have I learned?

That US web sites host more porn than any other country.  Followed, of course, by the Dutch with 187 million red-light pages.   Yes,that’s ten for every inhabitant.

That Arnhem is hosting a “Fashion as Art” show, featuring works by Alicia Framis and others.  Details on the Museum voor moderne kunst site, of course.

That a Swiss saleswoman refused to show Oprah an   expensive handbag because she didn’t think someone overweight and black could afford it.  The article notes that upscale shops often assess potential customers with simple rules: As long as she is also carrying an expensive handbag or accompanied by a man who looks like he has means….  I’m dumbfounded that this still goes on.  In Europe.

The FT reports on the further deterioration of the Dutch housing market.  Austerity measures sap consumer confidence, household spending falls, and house prices follow.  They are currently down 21% from 2008, and 30% of all mortgages are under water.

A bunch of stories have appeared about my 5-2 diet, originally on BBC Horizon. It’s been rebranded “The Two-Day Diet” and has spawned a guide, website, and cookbook. I’m not sure why: you simply eat normally and then you don’t.  There is no cookbook (but then there would be nothing to sell…).

Lifehacker and NPR have both featured it, but my favorite bit came from the Telegraph: My children force-fed me to stop my mood swings from the 5-2 diet”.

Although I don’t blame the diet, I’m still not sleeping great: up every two hours and restless.  ‘Lifestyle is healthier than two months ago: I’m respecting the work day’s boundaries, a few hours morning and evening for a swim, errands and chores, variety in the kitchen and container pots.

Thyme has been a struggle though.

I can’t explain why: the books say it’s a matter of strong sun and dry soil, but mine still turns thready and dies back within a week.  The rosemary and parsley are fine in the same container, and there’s no stopping the basil and mint.

One forum suggested that the problem could be the source: there’s a difference between thyme pots for cooking and thyme for growing.  The garden store confirmed and put me on the right track: a hardier variety grown a bit more mature.

Same, to a lesser extent, with rosemary.

Then there was the Bubble Tea experience.  University of Southampton, a very Japanese corner of the Student Union.  Partly a coconut-milk and fruit smoothie concoction, but infused with little membrane-y flavour-balls.  ‘Hard to describe, but tasty and interesting.  It just needs some carbonation for a hot day to make it perfect.

And I am trademarking the name “Smiles, Hugs, and LPTs” for a band I want to assemble.  Don’t ask…

Dutch light, thinking and reading

When I’m 80:  Oliver Sacks wrote a marvelous essay in the Times last weekend reflecting on how it feels to become old.  I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over, he reflects, but he also finds the freedom to explore, to take stock of one’s own life and those of others; to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.

His most charming passage had real resonance with me:

I am sorry I have wasted (and still waste) so much time; I am sorry to be as agonizingly shy at 80 as I was at 20; I am sorry that I speak no languages but my mother tongue and that I have not traveled or experienced other cultures as widely as I should have done.

At the end of my Journey, I know that I will look around me, look back, and value less the things I have than I will value the things I’ve done.  Good and bad, my experiences and actions define me, for myself and for others.

And I’ll have done what Oliver Sacks wishes he had.

The Stronger Sex:  I’m a soft touch for any article citing bonobos, but this review from the Guardian goes in some surprising directions.  ‘not sure what to believe, but it should make for interesting conversations over fruit beers along the river.

The Hiding Hand:  A friend passed me a piece from the New Yorker about economist Albert Hirschman,  who postulated that creativity is stimulated by stress.

Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened. In other words, we would not consciously engage upon tasks whose success clearly requires that creativity be forthcoming. Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be.

In other words, people don’t really seek out challenging tasks. Rather, ”they take on and plunge into new tasks because of the erroneously presumed absence of a challenge—because the task looks easier and more manageable than it will turn out to be.”  So, an entrepreneur takes risks but does not see himself as a risk-taker, because he operates under the useful delusion that what he’s attempting is not risky.”

Then discovering the truth, and because it is too late to turn back, they’re forced to finish the job.  Creatively.

I really like this thought: it certainly fits the opportunism and optimism that I have when I take on goals and options.  It’s cautionary as well: consider what happens when things go wrong, as they always will.  And then, from that crisis, I am forced into finding creative solutions, ultimately (ideally) building something more valuable and successful.

Hirschman’s corollary recognizes that there are two strategies for dealing with stress: Exit (voting with your feet) and Voice (staying put and speaking up).  My bias is towards the latter, and Hirschman argues that keeping critics enhances creativity.  Some days I cast myself as Will Smith facing the oncoming zombie hoards, palms out, yelling “I can fix this!"

Still, he died in the end. Courage requires the willingness to always be on guard against oneself. (Gladwell, Colorni)

Tablets in Bed:  Since getting the Nexus, I’ve become much more of an e-reader.  On the good side, I am reading more; but PCWorld points out that tablets also have knock-on effects.  The screen hues and brightness are not restful and it becomes too easy to check e-mail and social sites on a whim.  It chirps sympathetically when Skype gets a text message, irresistible to check.

There are apps that purport to adjust the device’s sounds, luminance, and spectrum to match the time of day.  But these apps, or simply closing the lid, still leaves it too easy to fiddle when I’m sleepless at 2 m.

Instead, I’ve gotten into the habit of overnight power-downs.  A rest and reboot is good for everyone for a few hours each day.

Narrative stress:  The Guardian published an essay about the increasing (and irritating) use of “we” instead of “I” among personal bloggers.  I have to confess to falling into the trap: I’m writing a thought and want to generalize the point or reach out to the reader.  So, National Rail never gets us to London on schedule instead of …gets me… 

I regularly root out the error, and I take the point about good writing.  It would probably be even better to say National Rail is always late.