Things I Like
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At the root of this is the American obsession with self-reliance, which makes it more acceptable to applaud an individual for working himself to death than to argue that an individual working himself to death is evidence of a flawed economic system. The contrast between the gig economy’s rhetoric (everyone is always connecting, having fun, and killing it!) and the conditions that allow it to exist (a lack of dependable employment that pays a living wage) makes this kink in our thinking especially clear.
I'm not much of a fan of the gig economy or the sharing economy or whatever else you want to call it. I think it's a bunch of BS and is using nice talk to disguise how it's screwing everyone but those at the top. And this article shows how that spin works to the companies advantage but the workers disadvantage.
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I know not everybody wants to write on the web, and that’s fine. But it makes me sad when people choose not to publish their thoughts because they think no-one will be interested, or that it’s all been said before. I understand where those worries come from, but I believe—no, I know—that they are unfounded.
Jeremy's dead on with this sentiment. I haven't written many longer pieces lately, but there are things brewing and I do a lot of drafts as I think through things. And I do write other places, mainly my work blog, but this is my home on the web, even if I'm not always writing longer form pieces but am talking about books and links for a long while.
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Accept that all I really want is a small, slow, simple life. A mediocre life. A beautiful, quiet, gentle life. I think it is enough.
A friend sent me this link with the words "thought you might like this" and she's right, I do like it. I like it a lot. I live a very slow and unplanned life. Most weekend we have zero plans and we love it. I love time to putter, ponder, listening to myself to see what it is I want to do with my free time.
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All of this is much more than just moving the goalposts from where they were for past candidates. It’s a disembowelment of Christianity’s most cherished principles, ethics we have deemed to be part of America’s moral bedrock since its very founding.
If you've ever been a part of an Evangelical Christian community, this read is really interesting. Most of the people who know me now don't realize that I studied theology in graduate school and while I'm no longer deeply involved in that community, I do know many who are and this piece describes how many of my friends felt after the election.
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The quote above comes from something she tweeted once that stuck with me: “for anyone trying to discern what to do w/ their life: PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU PAY ATTENTION TO. that’s pretty much all the info u need.”
Love this quote and it is very true. I don't track my days and time as some do, but I've shifted my attention a lot recently and it's been amazing.
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True diversity means true disagreement. Political correctness exists at public institutions, but it doesn’t dominate them. A friend of mine who went to Columbia and Yale now teaches at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York. “When you meet someone at Hunter,” she told me, “you can’t assume they see the world the same way you do.” That’s about as pithy an expression of the problem at selective private colleges as I can imagine. When you meet someone at Columbia or Yale or Scripps or Whitman or any of scores of other institutions, you absolutely can assume they see the world the same way you do. And anyone who threatens to disrupt that cozy situation must be disinvited, reeducated, or silenced. It’s no surprise that the large majority of high-profile PC absurdities take place at elite private schools like Emory or Oberlin or Northwestern.
It is somewhat ironic that I hesitated to post this link. But this link captured a lot of how I feel in some of the communities that I participate in. I didn't go to a small liberal arts college, but rather a huge university with a total of 50,000 students (graduate and undergraduate), but today as I age and I struggle to keep up with some of the fast paced changes in our culture, I often feel I can't express thoughts or work out how I feel in certain places. I censor myself and instead have a group of trusted and safe friends with whom I talk about these things. And in some ways that's probably the way it should be, but in other ways I am saddened that people can't work out their thoughts without being targeted in some way, that we can't be our true selves with most of the world.
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As political artefacts, standards embody certain ideologies. For the internet, it is an aspiration towards openness – open systems, open access, open source. In the US, this ideology has deep historical roots. Some ideas inherent in this openness can be traced from the civil liberties driving resistance towards England’s Stamp Act in the mid-18th century to 20th-century ideals of open societies as alternatives to fascist and communist regimes. The philosopher Langdon Winner argued in 1980 that artefacts have politics, beliefs and assumptions about the world and society that are embedded and written into their very fabric.
I really wanted to quote this whole thing, but you know, you should read it. It reflects on so many good things about how we make things and how we move forward and it reminded me of The Real World of Technology in all the best ways.
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Without homogeneity, there would be no variation. It is the mechanics of sameness in some areas of our life that allows us wild diversity in others.
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When the world is brash, fast, and stupid, we must seek out what is quiet, slow, and intelligent to brace ourselves against the world’s madness.
I'd never heard of the films that Chimero talks about here, but now I want to watch them. I also appreciate, more than I can say, how he points out how hard it is for our culture to slow down, to be patient, and to soak in things that may be hard or different or something we're not used to. I've been trying, especially in the last month, to do just that—focusing on one thing at a time and leaving behind the distractions. It's a change for me, not always easy, but it's been worth it for the calm it brings into my life.
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People stop taking values seriously when the public rewards (and consequences) don’t match up. We can say that our culture requires treating each other with respect, but all too often, the openly rude high performer is privately disciplined, but keeps getting more and better projects. It doesn’t matter if you docked his bonus or yelled at him in private. When your team sees unkind people get ahead, they understand that the real culture is not one of kindness.
I enjoyed this article and found it fascinating. I don't think too often about work culture, but this article hits the nail on the head about how culture actually works, not the way we want it to work. And it's given me a lot of food for thought about places I've worked and where I'm currently working. Hat tip to Rob for pointing me towards it.
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I think about the topic of busyness and how to slow down in a life a lot. Over the years I've essentially started habits that've helped me say no, make time for myself, and given myself time with no plans so that my mind can wonder. And when I come across some links that are helpful, I usually read through them. In Vox, a professor talks about how he's become less busy and it's through really small, simple things. And in HBR, there is a list of things that can be helpful to making small changes that can slowly work into larger changes. I especially liked the part about questioning your thoughts to do away with negative thinking, something I have a hard time with much of the time.
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What seems universally true is that we could all use a little song, a good poem, and a fine picture in our daily routine. (Speaking a few good words seems entirely optional.)
I really like the way Kleon digs into the origins of this list. But I agree with the list, taking time to appreciate is extremely important, not just trying to create.
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Even the most persuasive argument — that compulsory voting violates free speech ideals that include the right to silence — misunderstands how compulsory voting works. Voters are not compelled to support a candidate or even to cast a valid ballot. They are obliged to turn up.
This was really interesting to me and I had a hard time picking out the right quote, because I also find the argument about fringe parties not being able to get elected since swing voters, rather than turn out, are what matter. I found a lot of this compelling since our recent elections elected a president with small fraction of the population actually voting for him.
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The divisions are not just happening through commercialism though. School choice has led people to self-segregate from childhood on up. The structures of American work life mean that fewer people work alongside others from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Our contemporary culture of retail and service labor means that there’s a huge cultural gap between workers and customers with little opportunity to truly get to know one another. Even many religious institutions are increasingly fragmented such that people have fewer interactions across diverse lines. (Just think about how there are now “family services” and “traditional services” which age-segregate.) In so many parts of public, civic, and professional life, we are self-segregating and the opportunities for doing so are increasing every day.
This is an interesting read about how several institutions used to force more mixing of people from different backgrounds. The military is one such example, but college dorm life was something I wouldn't have thought about before reading this (even though it makes complete sense). I think about this a lot and about how to bring more influences (in real life as opposed to voices on social media) into my own life.
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A beautiful image and short post about a book that I now want to read as it sounds amazing.