Reflections on communication

Much is written these days about the importance of communication and of being able to communicate regularly, properly and well. We live in a society that prioritizes communication in all its forms: regular mail, emails, text messages, telephone calls, instant messaging, multi-media sharing, TV, radio, newspapers, books, movies, internet, etc. There are so many ways to communicate as well as a huge emphasis on doing so. One need only walk down a city street or order a coffee in a local café to register that we as a society are connected to others on a nearly-constant basis. One is constantly bombarded with individuals talking into mouthpieces that one cannot see; I have wrongly assumed several times that I am being followed by a crazy person talking to himself or herself, until I realize that no, he or she is talking to another person on an otherwise hidden phone with an invisible headset. We have a plethora of ways to communicate and a plethora of devices with which to communicate, and yet, relationships between people on personal as well as global levels have not noticeably improved, evolved, or reached perfection during the past decade. The latter is an impossible goal anyway, although advertising would have you believe that as long as you are connected to everyone around you at any given time, you can achieve communication nirvana. I cannot understand that there is so much to say to anyone that one must be connected at all times to another person, be that person a spouse, a child, a friend, a colleague, or a parent.

I don’t know when silence and reflection became de-prioritized in our society. I only know that I prioritize them more than ever before, in a society that cannot be quiet. It does not even attempt to be silent at times, except during very rare moments of global silence in response to a death or a historical event. I go to work and am told I must network and communicate more with my colleagues. I thought that is what I have been doing, when necessary, all these years. I don’t need to be told to do more of it. I don’t wish to burden my co-workers with every single thought that emanates from my brain. Because what happens is that words become devoid of meaning, messages become empty, and people become weary of the ennui associated with ‘communication’. Besides self-promotion, I detect a note of desperation in the constant cry for attention on the part of administrators and other well-meaning souls who simply cannot accept that not everything they say is worth listening to in a work context. I don’t need to be told repeatedly, in the form of well-meaning emails, seminars, leadership courses, lectures and whatnot, how to do my job or how to communicate with my colleagues. I try to apply the golden rule in my dealings with others: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think that’s a good rule, and I wish it was practiced more. Respect for others, for their thoughts and words and for what they value, is at a premium in my workplace. The tough cookies who run the show run roughshod over the poor souls who sit in the meetings where they are expected to participate, yet when they do, they are told that what they say is not relevant or important; or when they talk, they are constantly interrupted by those who wish to take over the show. If this is communication, spare me.

There are ways of communicating with others that work, and ways of communicating that guarantee a failure to connect with those one wishes to communicate with. The ‘emperor’s new clothes’ philosophy does not work for me. I don’t want ‘same shit, new wrapping’ foisted upon me in a communication context. I want to choose how, when and where I wish to communicate. I am not available 24/7 to anyone, not even to my spouse, and certainly not to my job. My home life is valuable to my development as a kind and good human being. My home is my haven, my port in a storm, a place where I find peace and quiet. I don’t want it invaded by constant chatter in any form—empty gossip, superficial conversation, TV blabbing, mindless radio chatter, and all the rest that passes for communication. Because now we come to the crux of the matter, at least for me. What is communication? Wikipedia defines it thusly: communication ‘(from Latin commūnicāre, meaning "to share" ) is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior. It is the meaningful exchange of information between two or a group of living creatures’. For me, the emphasis is on meaningful. There is far too much meaningless communication in our world. And if we fill our heads with too much of it, there is no room for reflection, peace, quiet, or creativity. And if those disappear, real communication dies. 

For a good friend

Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd

by Walt Whitman

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, 
Whispering I love you, before long I die, 
I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, 
For I could not die till I once look'd on you, 
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you. 

Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe, 
Return in peace to the ocean my love, 
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated, 
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! 
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, 
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever; 
Be not impatient--a little space--know you I salute the air, the 
ocean and the land, 
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love. 

My mother and her generation of women

Today, September 22nd, is my mother’s birthday. Had she still been alive, she would have been 93 years old today. I wish she had made it to that age. Sadly, she passed away in March 2001. There is not a day goes by that I don’t think of her and miss her. She lived her life her way and did things her way (like Frank Sinatra whom she liked a lot) and while that could be amazingly frustrating at times, I think it’s what kept her going through the hard times in her life. And there were a number of them, as in the lives of most people. She was not an aggressive or self-seeking person, nor a particularly talkative one. You had to pull personal information out of her about her formative years, her childhood, and even young adulthood. What I did learn from her is that her mother (my grandmother) went blind, probably in her late sixties/early seventies. My best guess is that her mother had glaucoma that was either too far gone when it was discovered, or that there were not very good treatments for glaucoma at that time (1940s). I actually searched online for an answer to the latter and found it here: http://www.brightfocus.org/questions-answers/what-was-the-primary.html. I never had the chance to meet my grandmother since she died before I was born. My mother put her own life on hold for a number of years to take care of her mother, including postponing her ambition to go to college. She had to work and she did so, probably supporting the two of them on her salary as an assistant librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. It was there that she met my father in the early 1950s, and they were married in 1955, a year after her mother died. Whenever my mother talked about her own mother, it was always in a kind way. I never heard my mother utter one unkind word about her mother or about having to take care of her. She did express regret at not being able to finish college; she started but then had to quit. Once married, she had three children and raising them became her life. And when my father became ill with cardiovascular disease, she took care of him too, without complaining about her lot in life. She just did it.

Her birthday today reminds me of all of the older women in my mother’s generation whom I’ve had the privilege and honor of knowing, and they are not few. Most of them are dead now (had they lived, most of them would be over 85 years old): the women in my childhood neighborhood; the mothers of my close friends; my aunts; some really wonderful teachers in grade school and high school; the women I got to know in the different jobs I’ve had through the years. They inspired me with their values, sense of responsibility, commitment, loyalty, and charitable behavior. They were women of faith, many of them. They credited their faith with getting them through the hard times. They also believed in the value of family. They had their imperfections and faults, but they tried to live up to their ideals. That’s all I could really ask of role models when I needed them. I only hope that I can be half as good as they were when it’s my turn to be a role model for young women starting out. I certainly don’t feel as though I’ve got it all together. But I do look to my faith to help me through the hard times. And I remember the supportive natures of most of the older women I’ve known. If I can hang onto my faith and be supportive of others when they need my support, I guess I’ll be alright. Plus I know I’ve got my mother in my corner, rooting for me.  

Reaping what you sow

When we were children, we were taught that we could not expect much justice or reward in this life if we counted ourselves among the good people who followed the rules and behaved well, rather that we would find praise and reward for being good in the next world, after we were dead. This was provided you believed in an afterlife, which was a given on the part of the religious instructors we had as children in Catholic grammar school. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve wondered about a lot of things, and this is one of them. I’ve never really liked the philosophy that good people have to suffer at the hands of bad people, or that they have to accept that suffering without standing up for themselves or fighting back. And I loathe the idea that bad people get to do what they want at the expense of good people, without ever having to account for their behavior or without getting caught or stopped. What do I mean by bad people? Psychopaths, sociopaths, true narcissists, the holier-than-thous, those who believe the rules don’t apply to them because they are too smart, too good-looking, or too rich. Those who mess with others’ heads to achieve their own egotistical aims, those who miss no opportunity to badmouth those around them, those who aggressively cross others’ personal boundaries over which they have no business going, those who actively seek to destroy their co-workers in the quest to get to the top. How do you do the latter? By doing the first three things.  Why do I bring this up today? Because I have been witness to a few comeuppances recently, and I must say that I am glad I didn’t have to wait until I was dead to experience them. And because I have experienced a small amount of joy in watching these people get their just deserts, my conscience has bothered me. But these people have reaped trouble--lost top leadership positions, experienced being badmouthed and attacked themselves, got told to back off or get out of people’s lives--because they sowed trouble.  They deserved what they got, and the reason I felt glad about any of it was because it happened in this life and not the next. The people around them are now spared their nasty slimy behavior.  

I believe that good people should stand up for themselves and should fight back, insofar as that is humanly possible. I’m not sure what Christ really meant by turning the other cheek, but I don’t think he meant that good people should let themselves be attacked and/or killed, or that they shouldn’t try to dissuade bad people from behaving badly. I think he meant that they should set an example—good behavior—not that they should let the nasty people ride roughshod over them. Good people have the right to defend themselves if they are physically, verbally or psychologically attacked. I include spiritually as well, because some people cross all sorts of boundaries in their dealings with you, and expect you to simply accept their transgressions because that is who they are. But if good people are exposed to enough bad, unethical, nasty, slimy, evil behavior, they risk being contaminated themselves, if they never fight back. They risk being inundated by so much crap that they slip under the surface of slime. They risk becoming like those who are not worth emulating. Sometimes, they even end up ‘casting their pearls before swine’, a very favorite expression of mine. They throw away their values in order to live among the bad people. It can happen gradually, one pearl at a time, and suddenly, they’ve given their souls away, to be trampled upon. It’s worth thinking about. 

The song Alive, by Empire of the Sun

A more recent effort from earlier this year, from Empire of the Sun, that I like very much. Watching them in the video inspires me to fight my fears of being different and of standing apart from the crowd. They are different and they embrace their identities and destinies as artists. I think that is why art is so important and why we can never just embrace the rational sides of ourselves. We would become rather cold automatons. Art in all its forms reminds us to be ourselves, to be human, to throw off the masks of propriety and conformity. It gives us permission and the means to be 'alive', to be emotional, to cry, to open our hearts, minds and souls to something new. It opens us and teaches us at all points in our lives. It exists within us but also apart from us, and that is the curious thing about it. We are all artists in one form or another. It's just that the excessive emphasis on conformity in our society, especially when we are adults, prevents us from fully expressing ourselves a lot of the time. It is no wonder that many people feel like prisoners in their own lives. 


Alive

Days go by my window,

World slows down as it goes,

Goodbye to last night,

Lost my eyesight,

Can't you help me see?

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Alive, alive

Waking in the snow,

Tracing steps of you,

Swimming through the smoke,

Wrapped in velvet gold,

Can't you help me see?

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Alive, alive

Can you describe to me

All the world that you see?

Oh, I need you so much,

I'll just wait

Freedom is within you,

Giving makes us feel good,

Hello to my people,

Say hello to the future,

Freedom is within you,

Giving makes us feel good,

Hello to my people,

Say hello to the future

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Alive, alive

A beautiful song by Empire of the Sun

I fell in love with this song when it was released in 2008. The lyrics are somewhat cryptic, but when I hear the song, I am transported to another realm, helped by the dreamlike video. I am reminded of what's important in life when I hear it--love and personal relationships, but also that life does not last forever and that we must face losing those we love, as reflected in the words 'I can't do well when I think you're gonna leave me, but I know I try'. The leaving could be the end of a relationship, or it could be death. I think it is the latter. The imagery in the music video was inspired by the ancient Mexican festival Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) according to online sources. But to each his or her own interpretation. In any case, the song is beautiful and I'm including the YouTube video at the end of this post.  


We Are the People

We can remember swimming in December,
Heading for the city lights in 1975,
We share in each other,
Nearer than farther,
The scent of a lemon drips from your eyes

We are the people that rule the world
A force running in every boy and girl
All rejoicing in the world
Take me now' we can try

We lived an adventure
Love in the Summer
Followed the sun till night
Reminiscing other times of life
For each every other
The feeling was stronger
The shock hit eleven' Got lost in your eyes

I can't do well when I think you're gonna leave me
But I know I try
Are you gonna leave me now
Can't you be believing now

I can't do well when I think you're gonna leave me
But I know I try
Are you gonna leave me now
Can't you be believing now

Can you remember and humanize
It was still where we'd energized
Lie in the sand and visualize
Like it's 75 again

We are the people that rule the world
A force running in every boy and girl
All rejoicing in the world
Take me now' we can try

I can't do well when I think you're gonna leave me
But I know I try
Are you gonna leave me now
Can't you be believing now

I can't do well when I think you're gonna leave me
But I know I try
Are you gonna leave me now
Can't you be believing now

I know everything about you
You know everything about me
Know everything about us

I know everything about you
You know everything about me
Know everything about us

I can't do well when I think you're gonna leave me
But I know I try
Are you gonna leave me now
Can't you be believing now
(repeat 2X)

A teensy weensy second in a universe of seconds

I was witness to an older woman’s attempt at conversation in the hospital cafeteria the other day. She was trying to talk to the younger man at the checkout counter while she was paying for her meal, whereas he was just in a hurry to get done with her. There were no long lines of people waiting behind her to pay, so he could have taken the very short amount of time she seemed to need, to listen and perhaps to say a few kind words. Acknowledge her, in other words. She seemed like a nice older woman who perhaps had family members that were sick, or perhaps she herself was sick. It was hard to tell. What was clear to me was that she needed some warmth from others. It would have been a kind gesture to have tried to give some warmth. My heart goes out to people like that. She ended up apologizing for taking up his time, which then softened his attitude toward her a bit. Of course, there are always multiple ways to look at a situation. So I will try to reinterpret the above situation in several other ways:

• Perhaps the young man at the checkout counter was having a bad day and did not have the extra energy to extend himself.
• Perhaps he had been told by his superiors not to waste too much time talking to customers as it would hold up the line of people waiting to pay. This was a problem in one other hospital cafeteria and was solved by removing the person who talked too much to the customers.
• Perhaps the older woman had been a bit pushy with him before I got in line behind her. But I have to admit by looking at her, that she didn’t seem the type. She rather seemed worried, weary and a bit defeated, like life had worn her down.

Whatever the explanation, I wonder if it isn’t simpler to just opt for extending oneself for one teensy weensy second out of a universe of seconds. To expand one’s heart ‘three sizes’, as what happened to the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and to err on the side of compassion and friendliness. To light one candle in the darkness of someone else’s life. God knows we may need the same one day—and how nice it would be if someone’s kindness was the light we needed to get through yet another tough day.

Let’s talk about me (me, me, me)

It strikes me more and more how society is becoming increasingly self-preoccupied. There have been countless articles written about this, so I won’t launch another tome on the subject. But I’ve begun to experiment a bit in conversation (if you can call it that these days) with colleagues, acquaintances and even strangers. I’ve reflected on it, and come to the conclusion that I ask questions of others—how was your day, how was your summer vacation, where are you from, do you like it here, what was this or that like, what are your interests, what books do you like—out of genuine interest and curiosity, not merely politeness, but that the interest is seldom reciprocal. This is not true of my conversations with good friends and family, so I know that it should not irritate me as much as it does. But it does irritate me, because it is symptomatic of much of what is wrong with our society. Showing interest in others' lives and in what others have to say is not nosy or intrusive; in fact it’s quite the opposite, it’s a kind and civilized gesture that makes people feel included. Asking others how they are or about their lives is a friendly gesture, and I am appreciative of that gesture when people ask me how I am or how my summer was, and really listen to my response. What I have experienced, just in the space of the few weeks I have been back at work, is the following:

• The ignorers--those colleagues who never or barely (grudgingly) acknowledge their co-workers in the hallway—no smile, no greeting, complete disinterest. But if you stop them and ask how they are, they will hold an extensive speech on how things are going with them. This makes me wonder if academia is a uniquely self-preoccupied profession. Well, I guess I know the answer—it is.
• The interrupters--people who ask you how you are or how your summer was, only to give you exactly thirty seconds to reply before they launch into their own stories about their own lives. Or the ones who interrupt nearly every sentence you utter with some comment that diverts the conversation back to them. I would find it amusing if I didn’t find it so irritating. They’re like children clamoring for attention from their parents. Me, me, me…….
• The self-promoters—those who use any and all conversational attempts as an excuse to tell you how wonderful and great they are. Similar to the interrupters except that you rarely even get the chance to say a word. It’s as though they’re on promotional tours to tell you about a new book, and of course that ‘book’ is their life. My world and welcome to it……
• The besserwissers--people who don’t really listen to what you are telling them, and who are just waiting for an opening to jump in and insert their own comments about your situation. They’re champing at the bit. These are the aggressive people who always know better than you. In fact, they know it all, or they know best. Who can always tell you how you should have done something or how they did it and how you too can achieve or experience the same as they did, if only you do so-and-so.

The experience of actually being listened to, or of listening to others, is transforming. If you’ve ever wondered how to make someone’s day, try putting yourself aside and really listening to what another person has to say. Acknowledging others is important in conversation, and I don’t see much of this anymore. It can be as simple as a nod of the head, eye contact, or a smile from the person who asked you a question and is now listening to your answer.

Reconceptualization and revitalization

Everywhere I turn in Oslo, whether I walk down a (once) quiet side street or a noisy major thoroughfare, there is a building project underway. Some of them are quite extensive, involving roads that have been ripped up in order to install new water pipes. Others are renovation projects—store facades that need sprucing up, brick buildings that need sanding, or co-op apartment complexes that are adding balconies or new windows to individual apartments. Still others are major new construction projects—new apartment complexes being built (the Akerselva river is riddled with large new complexes--not a trend I like very much, because they will end up choking the life out of the river), new parking houses, new ‘super’ malls. It doesn’t matter what kind of project is involved. All of them are indicative of how wealthy this country has become. This country has so much money that its communities can design and build local neighborhood shopping centers, only to reconceptualize them eight or so years later, which involves extensive renovations to the existing structure. It’s all about ‘concept’ these days--finding the new concept that replaces the old. The turnaround time for concepts is very short now. A good case in point—the St. Hanshaugen shopping center that opened perhaps eight or nine years ago. When it opened, there was a good bakery, a bookstore, a flower store, a women’s clothes boutique, a liquor store, a Nille (like the Dollar store in the USA), a supermarket, a dry cleaning store, a home design store, a pharmacy, to name a few. What’s left of the original stores in the center? The supermarket and the dry cleaning store. We hardly get a chance to get to know a local shopping center, and poof, it’s gone or changed several years later, reconceptualized and replaced by a ‘new and better shopping center’ that will likely be replaced yet again in several years. This is the way it’s done now, and the locals have no say in the matter. I do know that I don’t like the constant change because it destroys the continuity that is necessary to build a loyal customer base in a city neighborhood. And it's the creation of small neighborhoods with their own stores, local cafés and restaurants that makes cities feel a bit less impersonal and overwhelming. The old center had bakery with a little café where the retired and elderly would sometimes meet for coffee and cake. I enjoyed seeing that—the locals gathering to sit and chat for a while as part of their daily routine.

The Kjellands Hus shopping center is the closest local shopping center to our co-op complex, and is no more than about two city blocks from the St. Hanshaugen shopping center. It started out (in 2006, if I recall correctly) with a supermarket, bookstore, a very large computer/electronics store, sports boutique, a flower store, and a couple of restaurants. The computer/electronics store closed about a year ago, and the space has been converted into three new stores—a liquor shop, a pharmacy, and a Nille. Guess where they moved from? The St. Hanshaugen shopping center. It doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m not sure which shopping center did better business or attracted more customers, but it seems to me that the St. Hanshaugen shopping center is on its way out, even though the changes are presented as a kind of revitalization. Time will tell.   

Quotes about infidelity

I suppose I will not be able to post these quotes today without someone wondering what triggered the desire to post them. I would answer that there is a psychology column written in the weekly magazine section of Aftenposten, the Norwegian newspaper. Sometimes I read it, most weeks I skip it. Today however, the column had to do with infidelity, a topic I have some personal and painful experience with from several decades ago (an unfaithful partner in a short-lived marriage). The writer, a ‘married-with-two kids’ young woman in her thirties, had written to the psychologist to tell him about her experience with infidelity. She had seduced a married colleague and according to her, they had experienced a wonderful time together. For reasons that she did not elaborate on, their affair ended. She had no regrets about having seduced this man, who let himself be seduced so he is not off the hook by any means, or about having betrayed her husband, whom she had not told about the affair and with whom she was still having sex. She missed her former lover and essentially stated that she would go to bed with him again in a minute. That was how much she missed him. I read this, and then thought, rather than writing a post and commenting on such a loaded topic, suppose I just go online and see what others have written about infidelity. I can tell you that in my online research, I came upon a book by Suzanne Finnamore, called Split: A Memoir of Divorce. I thought many of the quotes from her book were rather apt. So here are some of her quotes and pithy quotes from others about infidelity.

• I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.   ― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
• I know one thing about men," Bunny says with finality, leaving the room to check on A. They never die when you want them to. ― Suzanne Finnamore
• Bushwhacked, I examine my hands. Same hands. Rings still there but no longer valid. ― Suzanne Finnamore
• Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned. ― Suzanne Finnamore
• Fuck you for cheating on me. Fuck you for reducing it to the word cheating. As if this were a card game, and you sneaked a look at my hand. Who came up with the term cheating, anyway? A cheater, I imagine. Someone who thought liar was too harsh. Someone who thought devastator was too emotional. The same person who thought, oops, he’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Fuck you. This isn’t about slipping yourself an extra twenty dollars of Monopoly money. These are our lives. You went and broke our lives. You are so much worse than a cheater. You killed something. And you killed it when its back was turned. ― David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary
• Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him, saying 'You gave me the wrong key! ― Anaïs Nin
• When your lover is a liar, you and he have a lot in common, you're both lying to you! ― Susan Forward, When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal
• Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact. ― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
•  ...there was only one thing that interested her and that was getting into bed with men whenever she'd the chance. And I warned her straight. 'You'll be sorry one day, my girl, and wish you'd got me back'. ― Albert Camus, The Stranger
• It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through -- a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage. ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes
• Affairs are like a seventh day. They are a break from all duties and obligations and responsibilities. I'm not saying this is right and I'm not saying it lightly. This is just how they are. You can't be responsible when you're with your lover. And since you already know you're way out of line, you go the extra distance. You throw yourself in headfirst. You become the very personification of irresponsible. You are way alive. Every detail sings. It would be a great way to live if it weren't so ruinous.  ― Wendy Plump
• I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender. ― Rodney Dangerfield
• It had been years since she questioned his fidelity, but he'd stepped on to the old fame track again, and that was where the road had taken them before. Infidelity could be forgiven, but forgetting it was impossible. Strangely, that wasn't what bothered her the most. What bothered her was that she didn't really care. ― Kristin Hannah, Distant Shores
• Most women think cheating is 'disgusting' … until they fall for a man that likes them back; but isn’t willing to leave his lover for them. ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
• So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed, It would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed, It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star, I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far. ― Leonard Cohen

A beautiful poem by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney

The Blackbird of Glanmore

On the grass when I arrive,

Filling the stillness with life,

But ready to scare off

At the very first wrong move,

In the ivy when I leave,

It's you, blackbird, I love.

I park, pause, take heed.

Breathe. Just breathe and sit

And lines I once translated

Come back: 'I want away

To the house of death, to my father

Under the low clay roof.'

And I think of one gone to him,

A little stillness dancer -

Haunter-son, lost brother -

Cavorting through the yard,

So glad to see me home,

My homesick first term over.

And think of a neighbour's words

Long after the accident;

'Yon bird on the shed roof,

Up on the ridge for weeks -

I said nothing at the time

But I never liked yon bird'

The automatic lock

Clunks shut, the blackbird's panic

Is shortlived, for a second

I've a bird's eye view of myself,

A shadow on raked gravel

In front of my house of life.

Hedge-hop, I am absolute

For you, your ready talkback,

Your each stand-offish comeback,

Your picky, nervy goldbeak -

On the grass when I arrive,

In the ivy when I leave.

---------------------------------------

‘Fake it until you make it’ (then what?)

I subscribe to a number of email publications having to do with the business world and its ever-fascinating opinions, buzzwords, mantras and current trends. Nothing too complicated; most articles debate the following types of issues: qualities of good leaders, how to break through the glass ceiling, is there a glass ceiling for women, have we achieved gender equality, how women should act in a male-dominated profession, and so on. The new mantra for women on the way up is apparently ‘Fake it until you make it’; this is proffered as a way for women to feel ok about the fact that there are a number of men in top-level positions who are not qualified for them, but since they act as though they are (they fake their competence and/or readiness), they get promoted whereas women don’t. So if men do it, it’s ok for women to do it too. This expression makes me cringe whenever I hear it uttered, at least in the way it’s currently used. It conflicts with nearly every moral principle I was taught since I was a young child. We were taught to be honest, forthright and not to lie. We were certainly not taught to ‘fake’ anything. Fakers were frowned upon; if you look up the word ‘faker’, some of the synonyms are liar, pretender, fraud, phony, pretender, and impostor. Sorry, but these are not the type of personality descriptions you want attached to you, not in the business world, and definitely not in the academic research world. We were taught to work hard at whatever course of study we chose to pursue, and in that way, we would achieve success in our chosen profession. And if our eventual goals were to be the boss or leader of a department, for example, we accepted that we had to earn that position; that it would not be handed to us in our twenties or early thirties without having earned it. And by earning it, I mean, working your way up from being a project and/or team leader with responsibility for one or two people, to a larger project with responsibility for a few more people, and so on. Slow but steady progress up over. In this way, you gained the necessary emotional intelligence as well as the professional qualifications necessary to assume a leadership position. So that perhaps after ten or fifteen years in the workforce (closer to thirty-five or forty years old), you could be considered qualified to lead a large team of people or even a department. At this point, there would be no doubt that you were qualified for the leadership position; there would be no need to ‘fake’ anything.

Nothing is worse than ‘feeling/knowing’ that you don’t measure up or don’t fit the criteria necessary to do a good job; I have felt that way once in my life, when I was elected student council president in my senior year of high school. I was totally unprepared for the job, naive, not a spontaneous idea-maker, and not particularly social. But I was the smartest student in my class, and that was enough to get me nominated. Enough people had faith in my abilities such that they voted for me. But I lacked faith in myself and my abilities, and I could not fake my way through that year. I cannot say that I failed at the job, but I did not succeed at it either. I walked around with a constant knot in my stomach, worrying about how lousy a job I was doing, about my lack of spontaneous creativity and ability to pull a team together with inspiring words. I do not remember that time as enjoyable; it was a stress I could have done without. I should have said no to the nomination, but I did not, and I don’t know why. Part of saying yes was out of a sense of duty. Many years later, I understand that this type of position was simply not a good fit for me; I did it, but found no joy in the job. Nothing is worse than feeling that the eyes of those you lead or those who look up to you are constantly upon you, waiting for you to slip up so they can say ‘I told you that you weren't good enough, smart enough, confident enough, etc.’ This is how you feel; the reality may be quite another story. Most people probably wish you well and don’t think much more about it. They’re certainly not overly-preoccupied with whether you succeed or fail; they have enough to do in their own lives. Nevertheless, the fact remains that I was not qualified for the job. Several years later, I experienced the opposite. I got a summer job that I mastered with ease; I was hired to ease the backlog of returned orders of pens and pencils whose logos were misspelled or wrong.  We were a group of about ten women, working in the returned-goods department; our jobs were to tackle the returns, figure out the mistakes, and send the orders on for re-processing. I loved this summer job. I got to work mostly alone (my preference in most jobs) on the tasks at hand—dealing with the processing of returned orders and the requisite associated paperwork. Once I learned the rudiments of the job (which forms to file and where they should get sent), it was clear sailing from thereon. It was a simple job, but one that instilled confidence because you knew what to do and when to do it, and you got the necessary feedback (good work, or work harder). The department head took notice of me when I managed to clear my desk of the hundreds of returns assigned to me within a few weeks as well as to motivate the ladies in my department to plow through the backlog and get it done. We hung up posters with the numbers of ‘how many returns down and how many to go’; that sort of thing. We made it and helped the company out of a real tight spot. At the end of the summer, I was offered a full-time job as leader of that department; I was nineteen years old. I would have reported to the man who noticed my work, and would have replaced the woman (in her mid-thirties) who had the position (they would have fired her and instated me). The job would have been a springboard to a career in business. But I did not feel that I was at all ready to lead a department at nineteen years of age; I had no real people skills in the sense of knowing how to deal with different personalities in the workplace. I was ‘book-smart’ but not ‘people-smart’. I am fairly sure that I would have been an unprepared and nervous leader, in short, not a good leader at that time. I chose rather to fulfill my degree in science, and ultimately chose research science as a profession. I did not feel like an impostor in my little summer job, but I might have felt like one had I said yes to taking on department leadership at that age. I don’t feel like an impostor in research either. My view is that you have to like the work involved, but also feel that you can master it. Additionally, you have to have bosses/leaders who give feedback and constructive advice, and who are honest with you about your chances of succeeding in that profession. You have to be able to trust their motives where your future is concerned. These types of people seem to be at a premium these days.

I know that this phrase arose as a way for employees, mostly women, to deal with and overcome feeling like impostors in their positions. The impostor syndrome seems to be widespread among highly-educated intelligent women from what I read; something that strikes me as quite irrational. But does faking feeling successful make you feel better about yourself when you feel like an impostor? Does it make you do a better job? And just because a number of men do this, do women need to do it? What I guess I am saying is that if you feel like an impostor in your job 100% of the time, perhaps your brain and heart are telling you something important that you should listen to—that maybe you’re in the wrong job or wrong profession. Nevertheless, I think we need to reevaluate this expression and stop using it to falsely bolster confidence, especially where women are concerned. Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be: ‘Visualize mastering what you work so hard at. Visualize succeeding at it. Visualize yourself doing it in your mind’s eye. Visualize your impact on those around you’. And if your mind’s eye cannot ‘see’ you doing it with a fairly high degree of confidence, rethink your goals. If you feel only dread and fear about being at the top or doing what it is you think is expected of you, is it worth it? There’s nothing worse than ‘arriving’, only to wonder, ‘what do I do now that I've arrived?’ ‘Making it’ is not a goal in and of itself, no matter how much ‘faking’ is involved; there has to be more substance to the goal. What do you want to do with the top position, and why? Do you want to help your company and your employees, or just promote yourself and your career? I think those questions are worth exploring and answering, and will go a long way toward making you feel like you have the right to be where you are, that you've earned that right, and that you go forward with confidence and the smarts necessary to do a good job. Because there are too many men in top positions who have no business being there; who are miserable leaders and who do not know how to listen or to communicate with their employees. These men have risen to the level of their incompetence, which in some cases is quite high within an organization. I don’t think we need more bad leaders in the form of women who are just like these men. I’m looking for real leadership, inspiring and competent leadership; I’ll take a truly-qualified, honest, humble man or woman over a faker any day.

Summer memories

As promised, photos of my recent trip to New York, Maryland and Virginia. As I was going through my photos, I realized once again how lovely my country is. The order of the photos follows the timeline in my previous post, Summer Moments in New York, Maryland and Virginia. Enjoy.

 

one of two reflecting pools at the Memorial site

The Survivor Pear Tree 

The new One World Trade Center

New Jersey skyline

The North Cove Marina in NYC

view of surrounding area in Gambrill State Park, Maryland

Hunting Creek Lake in Catoctin Mountain Park, Maryland

Hunting Creek Lake

A marsh in north Virginia--photo taken through train window

approaching New York City---photo taken through train window

New York City--photo taken from train

Garrison, New York, on the Hudson River

Garrison, NY

Guinan's Pub (the subject of Gwendolyn Bounds wonderful book 'Little Chapel on the River') in Garrison

Jim Guinan, owner of the pub, passed away in 2009

view of West Point across the river from Guinan's pub

the lovely Hudson River, facing north from the walkway

view of the Hudson River facing south from the walkway

Summer moments in New York, Maryland and Virginia

I returned to Oslo last week after a wonderful vacation in the USA, where I visited the states of New York, Maryland and Virginia. As always, my trip was full of wonderful moments, all a part of my visits with my good friends and family. I did a lot of traveling on this trip; I arrived in Newark New Jersey by plane on a Thursday afternoon and spent Thursday and Friday with my friend Gisele in Manhattan. We visited the National September 11 Memorial, located at the sites of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. It was a very moving experience. On our way out of the site, we stopped in the gift store and I bought a book called ‘The Survivor Tree’, about the callery pear tree that survived the 9/11 attacks despite suffering extensive damage and burns, and was replanted at the Memorial site in December 2010. We got a chance to see this tree on the site; it has branched and grown quite high. One of the tourist guides told us that it is the only tree in which the birds will nest. I bought the book because it will be a positive reminder of a tree that symbolizes strength, hope and survival; something sorely needed in the midst of the sorrow and personal tragedies that the memorial site honors and asks us to remember. Afterward, we walked through Battery Park and up along the Esplanade (west side of Manhattan), where we had lunch at the Merchants River House restaurant. We then walked north as far as Vesey Street and then took a subway back to the Hilton Hotel in midtown. It was a beautiful day in Manhattan, and I shot some lovely photos of the boats sailing on the Hudson River, as well as some night photos of the hotel and the surrounding area. New York City at night is always a photographic adventure—the colors, the lighting, the digital effects.

On Saturday, I took the Vamoose bus from Penn Station to Bethesda Maryland to visit my cousin Karen and her husband Naj who live in Potomac. The Vamoose bus is the cheapest way to get to the Washington DC area and I recommend it; the wi-fi on board worked very well and the bus made one pit stop during the four hour trip. Karen, Naj and I spent Saturday talking and catching up; on Sunday, we decided to hike in Gambrill State Park, a lovely mountain park located on the ridge of the Catoctin Mountains in Frederick County. After hiking we ate a delicious brunch buffet at The Cozy Inn & Restaurant in Thurmont Maryland, not far from the presidential retreat Camp David. The inn has an interesting history, having been visited by a number of presidents through the years, understandably a source of pride for its owners. Maryland is a beautiful state, with lush green forests and meadows; this was reinforced for me when I took the Amtrak train further south (from Washington DC) to Williamsburg Virginia to visit my sister Renata and her husband Tim (from Monday until Wednesday). The train passed through some amazingly beautiful rural areas and marshes in Maryland and Virginia on its way to Williamsburg. My sister picked me up there and we drove to their home in Poquoson (not far from the ocean), where they were living up until this past week. We had a very nice time hanging out, watching movies, talking, eating and laughing. Their dog Dale ended up with his head in my lap while we were watching movies; this kind of trust from a dog that has been reasonably skeptical to having me around on previous visits. I also had an early morning visitor in the form of their cat Sugar, who spent one hour with her head in my armpit, sleeping and purring. I have not spent much time in Virginia; I remember that we may have visited Virginia on a family vacation long ago when we were children, but details of that trip are mostly forgotten. In any case, it too is a lovely state from the little of it I got to see.

I returned to Manhattan by Amtrak train (an eight hour trip) from Williamsburg on Wednesday; I thought I might go stir crazy sitting all that time but the trip went surprisingly well. Of course I had my iPad with my Kindle books, music and Candy Crush game to keep me occupied. Again, the onboard wi-fi worked well and I was able to write and send some emails as well. So time passed fairly quickly. I was however quite tired by the time the train arrived at Penn Station in Manhattan, and I still had to get to Grand Central Station, where I boarded yet another train to take me to Peekskill. My friend Jean picked me up there, and from then on I was in upstate New York, in Cortland Manor where she lives and where I love being, until I left to return to Oslo the following Monday. Thursday found us in Sleepy Hollow, first to have lunch with my brother Ray and his children (my niece Tamar and nephew Eli), and then to visit the cemetery where our parents are buried. Our friend Maria joined us on Friday, and we hung around, talked, laughed, ate, watched a movie, went to see Menopause the Musical (quite funny), went to her nieces’ birthday party for cake and coffee, then to hear her brother Jim and his three sons play good ol’ rock and roll in their band Crucible (the youngest son, Dean, is fourteen years old and an unbelievable drummer). We also managed a trip to the Garrison train station so that I could see Guinan’s Pub (now closed) which is situated right behind the train platform on the river side. It was the subject of Gwendolyn Bounds wonderful book Little Chapel on the River (I wrote about this book in a March 2013 post---http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2013/03/reading-about-and-remembering-hudson.html). Someone had written on the pub’s green door—R.I.P., referring to the owner Jim Guinan who passed away in 2009. I took some photos of the pub, and took a long look inside through the dusty windows. The bar has long since been emptied of inventory and furniture, but I could ‘see’ how it must have looked in its heyday. If you walk down to the Hudson River from the pub and look across to the other side of the river, you can see West Point; it reminded me of the parts of the book about the West Point cadets who sneaked across the river in order to visit the pub and have a beer or two. 

On Sunday, another sunny blue-sky summer day, we drove to Poughkeepsie and walked across the Hudson River on the old Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge that was converted to a pedestrian footbridge and opened in 2009 as The Walkway over the Hudson (http://www.walkway.org/, and http://nysparks.com/parks/178/details.aspx). It is the longest footbridge in the world, according to Wikipedia, about 1.28 miles long. A very nice walk, with signs hung up along the bridge with interesting information about its history, the turbidity and pH of the Hudson River at different locations, the bird life in the area, and so on. As we stood on the bridge facing north, we could see and hear the freight trains passing on the Highland side of the river, but we were not sure where they ended up. Each time I am in the vicinity of the Hudson River, it hooks me, and I want to explore it more, hopefully with them. I decided then and there that on future visits to New York, I want to do the Hudson River Walk as well as to take a boat ride up along the Hudson River. This river is in my blood, I grew up in a small town on its banks, and its history continues to fascinate me.

My friends and I always manage to do a lot of interesting things in the time we have together, and it's always enjoyable because we are doing those things together. And the same goes for my family too. I only wish I could spend more time with everyone. That will come to pass next summer, God willing. I will be posting some photos of this trip in my next post.

A new poem

Reflections on an August morning

On the train again

Hiking my way onward

To those places that grab my heart

Pulling me in a million small ways

The sound of cicadas; mosquitoes swarm in

Lying on my back in bed, remembering

Watching sunlight play on the trees

Green and leafy outside my window

Dusty panes reflected in the sunlight

I am no stranger to reflections

I have the time, I am on the train

Watching the greenery and life go by

Staring out onto the land

I never knew how green my country was

Or how beautiful, but now I know

Part of it is the wanting it to be so

Dream-like state, this passage

Through the trees and surrounding lakes and marshes

Leading through one state

On my way to yet another

copyright 2013  Paula M De Angelis

I wrote this poem while I was on the train from Washington DC to Williamsburg Virginia. The train passed through some beautiful countryside and landscapes in both Maryland and Virginia, and I reflected on how lucky I was to be able to experience the tranquil beauty of my country in this way.