connection and support............

 

We've been saying that human beings are social creatures; in essence this simply means that each of us as individuals cannot provide everything we need for ourselves.  We can't confide in ourselves, romance ourselves, mentor ourselves, or help ourselves move a sofa.  We need others to interact with and to help us, and we flourish when we provide that same connection and support to others.  This process of giving and receiving is the foundation of a meaningful life.  How we feel about our social universe is directly related to the kinds of things we are receiving from and giving to other people.

-Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

In such silence and stillness............

 

...the mind wanders wide ... and wonders never cease.

activate our presence..................

 

Does it need to be said? We are not machines. Our lives are not data problems that can be quantitatively optimized. And the actual human ability to attend is something much more expansive and much more beautiful than a tool for filtering information or extending our time on task. True attention lies at the heart of personhood: reason, judgment, memory, curiosity, responsibility, the feeling of a summer day, the burying of our dead. All of these require and activate our presence. As for mental functions that can be measured and indexed — and ultimately bought and sold — they are precisely the kind of attention we need to escape.

-from the essay, “The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Battle for Your Attention Is Built on a Lie”

thanks Rob

Not much improved....................

 

     Technology is fine, but the scientists and engineers only partially think through their problems.  They solve certain aspects but not the total, and as a consequence it is slapping us back in the face very hard.

-Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock, 1983

Imperfection...............

 

     To deny imperfection is to disown oneself, for to be human is to be imperfect.  Spirituality, which is rooted in and revealed by uncertainties, inadequacies, helplessness, the lack and the failure of control, supplies a context and suggest a way of living in which our imperfections can be endured.  Spiritual sensibilities begin to flower when the soil is fertilized with the understanding that "something is awry."  There is, after all, something "wrong" with us.

-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection

The deadening effect...............................

 

..............................of managerialism:

Managerialism is a form of political economy in which the middle-man steps in with a claim that he has some special competence, through the exercise of which new efficiencies can be realized, or some process of production or distribution can be optimized through quantitative rigor. But a funny thing then happens. His metrics easily come detached from the underlying things they are meant to track, no doubt because the incentives of the manager are tied to metrics, rather than directly to the thing. The latter orientation is characteristic of the craftsman, via the “internal rewards” and satisfactions that are intrinsic to some skilled practice (such as making good television), as opposed to the “external rewards” of money, or social position, or other goods that may be a second-order consequence of getting to be really good at something. But you can’t get good at something while focused on external rewards. You have to go deep into the practice itself.

-Matthew B. Crawford

Science......................?

 

     Throughout history, there have always been those who would manipulate others in order to gain sex, money, or power.  We have not yet put that era behind us.

-Richard Brodie, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme

seen and valued......................

  

So whether you're in retail, finance, real estate, education, health care, computer services, transportation, or communications, you have an incredible opportunity to be just as intentional and creative—as unreasonable—about pursuing hospitality as you are about every other aspect of your business.  Because whether a company has made the choice to put their team and their customers at the center of every decision will be what separates the great ones from the pack.

     Unfortunately, these skills have never been less valued than they are in our current hyperrational, hyperefficient work culture.  We are in the middle of a digital transformation.  That transformation has enhanced many aspects of our live, but too many companies have left the human behind.  They've been so focused on products, they've forgotten about people.  And while it may be impossible to quantify in financial terms the impact of making someone feel good, don't think for a second that it doesn't matter.  In fact, it matters more.

     The answer is simple, if not easy: create a culture of hospitality.  Which means addressing questions I've spent my career asking: How do you make the people who work for you and the people you serve feel seen and valued?  How do you give them a sense of belonging?  How do you make them feel part of something bigger than themselves?  How do you make them feel welcome?

-Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect

Ben Carlson is genuinely.....................

 

..........a smart guy, but I disagree with him on this one:

"The stock market is the only place where anyone can invest in human ingenuity."

your innate humanness...................

 

There's a common illusion that spiritually evolved, loving people never have any negativity, as though they are already angelic.  They get annoyed that they still have negative feelings, and then it's compounded by their guilt and self-frustration.  They have to realize that feelings are transitory, whereas their intention to evolve remains constant.  Let go of feeling guilty that you are still just an ordinary human despite your angelic ambitions!  Having compassion towards your innate humanness, its nervous system, and the brain function that goes with it allows for greater equanimity.  Heavenly ambitions do not necessarily make us angels!

-David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender

Nature designed us...............

 

     But something incredibly human and essential to society gets lost in translation in the digital expression of life.  After all, we're social animals wired to be with and around other people in real life, not just from the chest up on a grainy 2D Zoom call.  Nature designed us to see each other face-to-face.  To make eye contact and sync up with others.  To gauge their body language, catch their ever-so-slight facial inflections, and to pick up on their tone of voice.

-Kevin Ervin Kelly, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

"here to help"........................

 

The frustrations of entering into that Kafkaesque world of chatbots that are “here to help,” or phone menus that seem imported from some generic template, are such that it is worth taking an hour to drive to the CVS pharmacy, or the DMV, or the UPS store, or some medical practice, and collar a human being. Usually they are able to solve my problem in short order.

-Matthew B. Crawford, from this substack

ideas.......................

 

To be successful, leaders must consciously work to stay in touch with the best ideas of the people they lead.  . . . This is not just a process of installing a relief valve, and it's not just a way to harvest ideas.  It's also a process of involving people in—and make them take responsibility for—the shaping of their ideas.

-Oren Harari, The Powell Principles: 24 Lessons from Colin Powell

Tools..............................

 

.................................of versatility and adaptability.

connections................

      By being truly alone I had seen how deeply reliant I am on human ties and in ways that were unexpected.  It was not simply a matter of having company to pass the time, or backup in case of emergency.  During the expedition, I found that the absence of others had shaped my behaviour, my thoughts, my actions, my reasoning.  I had seen for myself that it is human relationships that bind us to places, time, and purpose, human relationships that make us who we are as individuals and that our contentment, and our happiness, depend on those precious human connections.

-Felicity Aston, Alone In Antarctica

Gone but not forgotten..........................

...............................Tommy Smothers

 

life its ownself.........................

 Sometimes you can learn more about a person by watching how they talk to a waiter than by asking some profound question about their philosophy of life.

-David Brooks, How To Know a Person:  The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

Be careful what you wish for.............

      Driverless cars will finally solve the problem of moving people around with maximum efficiency, by ceding human control to impersonal algorithms.  They promise to bring a messy, dangerous domain of life under control at last.  Traffic jams will likely become a thing of the past, and accidents will be greatly reduced.  So we are told at any rate.

     In this case we can detect a familiar pattern.  Driverless cars are one instance of a wider shift in our relationship to the physical world, in which the demands of competence give way to a promise of safety and convenience.  The skilled practitioner becomes a passive beneficiary of something more systematic, rendering his skill obsolete.  

-Matthew B. Crawford, Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road

thanks Michael

an act of mercy...........................

 Given that pain and suffering are literally and permanently unavoidable in human life, teaching others to be resilient rather than teaching them to be victims is an act of mercy, and cultivating resilience in yourself is an act of essential personal growth and adult development.

-Freddie deBoer, from this substack post

understand things rightly...............

 Human beings find their fulfillment in mutual love and self-giving, but they get to this point via a long path of self-development, in which imitation, obedience, and self-control are necessary moments. This is not a hard thing to understand once we see the development of personality in the terms suggested by Aristotle. But it is a hard thing to practice.  Nevertheless, when we understand things rightly, we will be motivated to put virtue and good habits back where they belong, at the center of personal life.

-Roger Scruton, On Human Nature