Robin's Interesting Thoughts

“We spend our lives rushing around hardly pausing
to breathe” my friend said. “Are we
human beings or human doings?”

I wondered the same as I sat
at a committee meeting listening
as the debate circled back for the third
or fourth time.

And yesterday at the department of motor vehicles
as a representative reached for a form,
assisting the gentleman twenty six ticker spots
ahead of me

And as I drove home, stopping behind
a woman cautiously awaiting an opportunity
to turn left

While a crane leisurely hoisted a beam
into its place on a new overpass, then meandered back
to the pile where a few thousand more
were ready

And this morning as I sat at the window
watching the birds in the soft morning light
as a light snow fell around them.

I think I am both.

A human being
impatient
And a human doing
nothing.

(inspired in part by “The Present” by Billy Collins,
from The Rain in Portugal)

“Life-alienating communication both stems from and supports hierarchical or domination societies, where large populations are controlled by a small number of individuals to those individuals own benefit. It would be in the interest of kings, czars, nobles, and so forth that the masses be educated in a way that renders them slavelike in mentality. The language of wrongness, should, and have to is perfectly suited for this purpose: the more people are trained to think in terms of moralistic judgments that imply wrongness and badness, the more they are being trained to look outside themselves — to outside authorities — for the definition of what constitutes right, wrong, good, and bad. When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings.”

-Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication (p.23)

The building blocks of community, as outlined by Peter Block (in his book Community: The Structure of Belonging) and summarized for the Enlivening Edge community conversations:

• Invitation rather than mandate
• Possibility rather than problem-solving
• Ownership rather than blame
• Dissent rather than resignation and lip service
• Commitment rather than barter
• Gifts rather than deficiencies

In the entire history of the world, not one person has ever chosen to be born. It’s simply not a power we have. We’re a planet composed of people who found ourselves here and are doing our best to make the most of it.

All this is obvious, yet it’s just so existentially strange.

I suppose the uneasiness many people feel about birth control has to do with this. Deciding to have or not have children really is a way of playing god.

Dear Williams College Presidential Search Committee,

As you know, one of the challenges facing higher education right now is the paradox of wanting to create a diverse and welcoming environment yet not knowing what to do with the diverse set of people who disagree with that aim (whether full-on white supremacists or those who just dislike affirmative action).

I believe that many college leaders have been far too heavy-handed in dealing with this challenge — and therefore not as effective as they could be. For example, Williams’ outgoing president has repeatedly said that tolerance and respect for diverse views is “the one thing that’s not up for debate.” The grave downside to this approach is that it misses out on the critical educational opportunities that come from debate and conversation. If it’s just “not ok” to have racist beliefs, what is the racist community member to do? Stay silent and stay racist? Act out with racist graffiti as we have seen? If the debate is allowed to happen, I believe that the thoughtful community at Williams will have the opportunity to test their ideas, learn how to have difficult conversations, learn to empathize with “the other”… and perhaps break out of this polarizing cycle that the nation and world is caught up in.

Note that the leader can (and hopefully will) still firmly support diversity efforts. The trick is to do it in a way that invites conversation rather than denounces it. I have seen this done effectively by some leaders. For example, notice in this community letter how the author avoids any moralistic language but rather invites the reader to consider the consequences for community members of color.

There was a lovely article in a recent alumni magazine about a Williams professor who grew up as a white supremacist. He came to Williams and learned a more full history of the South and came to understand the problems (both moral and logical) with white supremacy. He now passes this on to students in a simple way. He doesn’t explicitly condemn racism — he doesn’t need to. He simply shows students primary documents that make the conclusion obvious.

This led me to wonder whether the Williams of today should offer admission to a student who was openly white supremacist? It may be an interesting question to ask candidates.

If yes, does that violate community standards? If no, how could we have modern successes of the type in the story? I hope Williams’ next president will be able to grapple with the subtleties and tensions in this sort of question and will not resort to a firm yes or no.

Indeed I have come to realize that overcoming hatred and division is not a matter of right and wrong, inclusion or exclusion. Rather it is a process of having difficult conversations and learning how to empathize with marginalized communities and those doing the marginalizing. Only then can we truly move forward together. My hope is that the Williams leaders of tomorrow will be able to grasp these subtleties and will not resort to moralistic thinking which simply deepens the divide between “us” and “them.”

Best,
Robin Stewart

“Maya Angelou suggests there are four questions that we’re all unconsciously asking each other all the time: […]

1. Do you see me?
2. Do you care that I’m here?
3. Am I enough for you?
4. [Am I] special to you?”

-Katherine Schafler (via Thrive Global)

As we interact with others, we can be mindful to demonstrate — through our attention and body language — that the answer to each question is YES.

“Here you have this wonderful, wonderful drug: placebo — that because of the way it was studied in the medical world, anybody who was trying to assess the efficacy of a drug was upset when it didn’t outperform the placebo. However, that placebo was curing a lot of people, so it’s a very, very powerful medication.”

-Ellen Langer (via On Being)

“We’re told to get an idea, build a team, then go out and make your idea real. But the people who succeed — what they have at the beginning is not really an idea. It’s more like a sense that there’s something broken. A hunch. […] The only thing that you can guarantee is… that you’re going to be learning by mistakes.”

-Luis Perez-Breva,
as quoted in MIT News (July/August 2017, p.10)

I randomly stumbled onto the world of Zentangling a few weeks ago when browsing the local library. It’s a meditative type of drawing where you follow a loose set of repetitive instructions to create art, from doodle-like scribbles to rich textures and designs.

Trying it out, two thoughts came to mind.

First, it reminded me that there are many ways to meditate (besides deep breathing in lotus pose, which gets boring after a while)! Many types of art, music, exercise, rest, caretaking, dialog, and ritual can be meditative.

Second, it reminded me of sketching user interfaces. Since software tends to deal with significant amounts of data, when you sketch interfaces by hand you end up needing to draw the same basic component many times. Perhaps there are many items on the screen (as in a long list or data visualization) or perhaps you are drawing the same screen many times to test changes in state or different variations on an idea. Either way, I sometimes get impatient or wonder if it is really a good use of my time. Zentangling was a reminder that it’s indeed ok to spend some time on repetitive tasks, to relax into it, and to enjoy the beautiful results that inevitably come when you put care into your work.

The word “budget” tends to make me cringe. I think that’s because budgets have mostly been something that I was subject to as an employee or volunteer. They were yet another tool (and symbol) of power and yet another grounds for politics and resentment. At best, they were something I simply didn’t have to worry about when there was generally enough money to go around.

But budgeting can be a source of great creativity and can hold deep meaning if framed as an answer to the question: How can we best use the resources we have in service of our organization’s purpose? The answers are profound in that they reflect our deeper priorities and beliefs about what seems possible and what is most worth pursuing. And there is always creativity to be applied in finding ways to make progress — both with and without significant funding.

What’s preventing the budgeting process from reaching its full potential? I think one of the more interesting impediments may actually be the widespread use of grids of numbers — i.e., spreadsheets — as the medium for the task. Focusing on raw numbers and arithmetic emphasizes scarcity — literally the zero-sum nature of allocating money. If our goal is to be generative and in touch with our deeper aspirations, we need budgeting tools that emphasize instead the infinite possibilities for how the money can be spent and the flexibility with which we can adjust the plan in response to new information and ideas.

The numbers still have to add up, of course. But computers can do the math faster than we can blink. Software can alert us to any problems and mismatches — and even better, it can support us in exploring the space of possibilities. It just might help us take budgeting to the next stage of its evolution.

As you might have guessed, I have some ideas for such a tool. Let me know if you are interested in contributing in some way to its creation. For starters: how would you like to evolve the way your organization does budgeting?