arrange • compose • conduct
When we learn to make connections between two phenomena, we can make better choices and have better reactions. There’s a particular color the sky gets before a severe thunderstorm; a distinctive pale green that sort of hangs in the air. It takes awhile to learn to recognize the color; but […]
It’s my wife’s birthday, and she did a Facebook birthday fundraiser, inviting friends to support a GoFundMe devoted to raising court costs to help transgender youths in Grand Rapids get their names legally changed. Part of the reason that the fundraiser has raised over $1,100 in the last 12 hours […]
In recent days, I’ve been doing a lot of listening. George Floyd’s murder ignited a broad conversation about systemic racism in our country, and I am deeply committed to being a part of that conversation, listening deeply, and amplifying the reality. I have been quiet for three good reasons and […]
If you can face a new challenge with confidence, despite not knowing how to yet to solve it, it’s because you can say to yourself, “I’ve solved problems before.” Best to have solved all kinds of problems. Home maintenance problems and musical problems and trigonometric problems and rhetorical problems and […]
Like many colleagues, I am moving vast quantities of data right now. Downloading 20GB before breakfast is not unusual, and processing the audio and video I’ve been working on has pushed my two home computers to the edge of their capabilities. I bought a 128GB SD-card last week and it’s […]
My friend told me his secret to finding a four-leaf clover is to get really good at finding three-leaf clovers. Get so good at recognizing the patterns in three-leaf clovers, and they’ll fade into the background. Suddenly the four-leaf clovers jump out for their obvious difference. Learning to lead is, […]
Algorithm : a procedure for solving a mathematical problem (as of finding the greatest common divisor) in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation broadly: a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end Merriam-Webster This week, my mantra has been, “I’m all about the algorithm.” […]
My son mentioned recently that any possible arrangement (there are 43 quintillion) of a Rubik’s Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less. (This is confirmed mathematically.) But it’s not the solution most of us are going to take. We’re more likely to look at a scrambled cube and […]
“What choices would the me that I want to become make?” That’s as good a motivating question as I can think of. Of course, it leads to other questions: Who do I want to become? What choices do I make unconsciously every day? How do I change entrenched choices? And […]
Ira Glass, in an interview I read a long time ago, talked about an important early step in his growth. (I’m sorry I can’t currently find the link.) He described the three weeks of full-time mixing of his own voice that it took for him to stop feeling uncomfortable listening […]