Quote of the Day - 1/30/2012

Absolute certainty is an intense and impossible demand that our emotions make on our intellect. - Stephen T. Asma in Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads : The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums 

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As we become more knowledgeable in an area, we realize that absolute certainty is quite elusive. When we feel strongly about that certainty, it becomes faith and additional knowledge ceases to be so important. We discount whatever ambiguity might exist and simply accept.

In those areas that we aren’t so emotional about, we can retain our knowledge-seeking mode for a longer time but even then we want things to stay simple. Assumptions are made and we move on. This has to be done to keep us from getting bogged down in the trivial; the assumptions enable us to make a decision and take action; it is ‘good enough.’ Later, we might remember the assumptions…or we may treat it is an absolute certainty.

The challenge comes when our absolute certainty collides with some new piece of information that is counter to our faith or assumptions. In the case of a collision that involves faith - the emotional element becomes extreme. For an assumption, the result could be an intense period of objective exploration of assumptions or result in emotional arguing against the new information.

It is healthy that our emotions push us toward certainty; it is even healthier to realize that increasing, rather than absolute, certainty is what drives us to discovery.

How can you leverage your emotions to drive your intellect toward increasing certainty in an important area of your life? Remember that the intellect may have to drive actions that feedback more information to result in increased certainty.

Quote of the Day - 1/29/2012

Scientific work requires intelligence, creativity, education and determination.  As a result, the history of science is always the history of a select group of individuals. - Margaret Alic in Hypatia's Heritage (Beacon Paperback)

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Which of the requirements for scientific work (intelligence, creativity, education and determination) is the most challenging for the US population today? Determination would by my top pick and the others lag behind it by quite a lot. There are plenty of intelligent people…lots of good ideas…education is available but linked to determination just as closely as scientific work is. Our high schools and colleges have plenty of capacity in science and engineering yet we hear frequently that there are not enough US students - even though scholarship programs that support science and technology studies are available to top students. So - it comes back to determination and perseverance.

And that is going against the grain of popular culture which has tended toward the sound bite, the quick gratification, instant feedback. After a while it becomes harder to focus on one thing for very long. Determination is needed for scientific work because it can’t be accomplished without deeper thinking…and that takes longer blocks of time. It takes a commitment that evidently few are willing to make.

The ‘select group of individuals’ that make scientific history is becoming more and more self-selected based on determination rather than anything else. Statistically, it is still possible to see gender bias in some fields of science but there has been tremendous progress over the past 50 years that has accelerated in the last 20. The instances of women doing scientific work but not receiving appropriate credit are gone.  

The future health of the economy, both in the world and the US, is highly dependent on the innovations that come from the scientists and engineers among us. There needs to be a cultural inflection point toward viewing determination….thinking and acting for a longer term objective…as a positive attribute for more of our population. It would improve our capacity for scientific work and a lot of other endeavors as well.

Quote of the Day - 1/28/2012

Art is a method of laying claim to the physical world. - Joan Aiken in Morningquest

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Maybe this is why I enjoy photography so much. It has become a favorite method for me to ‘claim the physical world.’ I know that with camera in hand, my attention is more focused on details of light and intensity (or not) of color. And then when I look at it later on a large screen, there is often more in the image than I realized.

Fortunately for me, digital cameras are a technology that has advanced rapidly; it no longer takes a lot of fiddling with technology to capture the images I want. Being in the right place and composition are the challenge. The camera I’ve enjoyed for the past year of so is a Canon PowerShot SD4500IS 10 MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD, Brown . All the problems I’ve had with it have been self-inflicted (leaving the SD card in the laptop or the battery in the charger). It’s small enough that I carry it in a padded area of my purse or a pocket of my travel vest; it’s always near at hand to capture an image I want to keep in more than my memory. The only extra purchase I’ve made is a second battery for a long day/lots of images captured.

What is your favorite ‘method of laying claim to the physical world?’

Quote of the Day - 1/26/2012

WHEN all the panes are hung with frost,
Wild wizard-work of silver lace,

I draw my sofa on the rug
Before the ancient chimney-place.

(Poems Of Thomas Bailey Aldrich)

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When Aldrich published these lines in the 1880s, fireplaces were a major source of heat in the home. Now our houses are heated in other ways primarily but the majority of houses are still built with fireplaces. Maybe the rationale is articulated by this poem. When we visualize a ‘cozy place’ on a cold winter’s day/night, there is almost always a fireplace in the picture. Maybe the sofa is replaced by a wing back chair or a rocking chair. Maybe there is a footstool or a cuddly quilt. Is there a cat or dog with you? What about a good book/eReader….or is the television on? Next time there is frost…’wild wizard-work of silver lace’… make your ‘cozy place’ a reality and then enjoy.

The book is also available to read online at American Verse Project at the University of Michigan http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/.

Quote of the Day - 1/25/2012

History can’t give attention to what’s been lost, hidden, or deliberately buried; it is mostly a telling of success, not the partial failures that enabled success. - Scott Berkun in The Myths of Innovation

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History is often taught in timeline fashion with milestones of wars as major drivers of change…and always written by the victor who throws away much of the context from the other side. We need more than the this kind of documentation to understand the how and why of the changes that occurred. Some changes were not driven by war at all.

We also should strive to remember that the perspective of the historian is always embedded in the telling; no one is totally objective. We can solve the problem of ‘single perspective’ by getting multiple viewpoints of the same events or time period. This is why we are intrigued by the connections that the ultimate success had to seemingly unrelated or partially related events. Check out James Burke’s Knowledge Web project site for an update on his work since the Connections television shows he created.

In your own personal history - think about your successes? Were there partial failures (or successes) that led to that success and do you include them in your personal history? 

Quote of the Day - 1-24-2012

The Plains

Indians never rode on wheels although they lived

in round tents set in circles, made mounds

(and danced around them) for those whose throats

had shut, in dust, mouths filled at last.

-- Pamela Alexander in Navigable Waterways (Yale Series of Younger Poets No 20)

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Today’s quote, like yesterdays, is snippet from a poem. This one was published in the 1980s. What is the first thing you think about as you read these lines? And the second thought?

My first was about the circle shape. It is the universal round for motion (wheels) and dwellings (tents, hogans, yurts). How different from our homes today full of rectangular shapes!

The second thought was about starvation…the very last phrase ‘mouths filled at last.’  Would this have been the time of year it would have most likely occurred on the plains? 

Note: This books is also available online here.

Quote of the Day - 1/22/2012

There is a hint of desert in the yellow plains, a measure of openness and the suggestions of surprises. - The Kookaburras' Song: Exploring Animal Behavior in Australia, 1st Edition

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This quote is from a book about Australia but it could just as easily be about ‘yellow plains’ anywhere in the world.

I am familiar with the yellow plains in North America. The ones that I think of first are the seemingly endless fields of ripe wheat. The wind ripples through the grain creating waves and eddies that are visible nearby but further away the eye smoothes the vision. The vastness of the wheat field is the same as the fastness of the blue sky above. Both appear infinite. And so it is that anything that breaks the monotony of the field or the sky will be a surprise - a hawk…a row of telephone poles…a combine beginning the harvest.  You notice these things more when the background is just the wheat and the sky.

The other area is the high plains of the Texas Panhandle where scrubby grass grows. It is green when the rains come but turns to a straw yellow when it is dry. In this land there are miles and miles of very flat land broken only by the highway and the yucca along the fence rows. There may be some occasional cows and derelict grain elevators along railroad tracks. And then, the biggest surprise of all, Palo Duro Canyon.

Do you have images of ‘yellow plains’ in your memories…what were surprises for you?

Quote of the Day - 1/21/2012

The world is always so much better than the people in it. - Morningquest

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Isn’t it strange that this is frequently our perception? We accept so much with only a shallow understanding. What is the deeper reality?

• Perhaps it is the reality but only because the world is so resilient to the worst people do. The tipping point - where the resilience breaks down - could be imminent; even if it is, what really matters is the actions individuals take rather than the collective chaos of all people.
• Perhaps our mistake is thinking the worst of the collective of people rather than the best
• Perhaps people presume they matter more to the world than they do
• Perhaps our perception of the world is from inside a bubble that filters out the bad without us even being totally aware that it exists

In the end - the happiest among us inevitably perceive that ‘”the world is always so much better than the people in it.”

Quote of the Day - 1/20/2012

In the earliest periods of human history, 4 foods were recognizably important. In the North there were apples and honey.  In the south there were olives and grapes. - Fruits and Berries (The American Horticultural Society Illustrated Encyclopedia of Gardening)

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Do we associate fruits and berries with locations in our modern world? I do…but it isn’t north/south as much as type of place where they most likely grow. Here are my associations: 

• Blueberries in close proximity to rocky forests
• Apples with locations that have crisp temperatures (not overwhelmingly hot)
• Oranges and bananas with the tropics
• Strawberries of the short and sweet season before the heat of summer comes in any place that has well drained soil

Of course, agriculture is a business that responds to consumers.

1. Food is shipped all over the place so we have a blueberry season in North America in the summer and then our grocery stores have blueberries from South America in January.
2. Cultivars of popular fruits and berries have been developed to produce more than once during the season; strawberries are available all through the year although they are the still the least expensive during the short and sweet local season.
3. Bananas and apples can now be suspended in storage for longer than ever before; our fresh fruit may have been picked months before it is eaten.
4. A thin film (hopefully edible since it does not wash off and we do eat the skins of many fruits) is placed on many fruits and it keeps them fresh longer after they are removed from storage.

In European history, the North’s apples and honey and the South’s olives and grapes are powerful associations. Now that most of us are not farmers, we experience the availability of our food more indirectly and those associations are blurring. This year I plan to make weekly visits to a local farm stand as soon as the season starts to ‘go local’ for produce --- to be more linked to the food sources in my immediate vicinity.

I still appreciate the fresh blueberries of January from South America.

Quote of the Day - 1/19/2012

I live in the tame and visit the wild and never forget the difference between the two. - Janice Emily Bowers (books)

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What an elegant way of articulating what is true for the relationship most of us have with wild environments. It is our preference to feel safe from the wild world where we live while appreciating that the wild still thrives. We want to tame - to control - so that we feel safe and secure. Our control of the wild is minimal; we are less confident that we will always survive or even understand what it contains.

Still - there are occasions where the wild world can be viewed from the security of our tame life:

• Deer coming into the backyard, seen from a window 3 stories above
• A woodpecker in the top of a tree with dead branches on a walk through a formal garden
• Jack-in-the-Pulpits beside a boardwalk through a scrap of woods
• The rosy light of dawn on the winter trees seen from the kitchen window

And those add a blessing to the day.

Quote of the Day - 1/18/2012

Freedom is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. - Viktor E. Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning

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The quote today was written by a concentration camp survivor. The book was originally published in the 1950s. It provides historical examples from that time period but the conclusions are still very relevant today.

Here are some tangents my thoughts took:

• The connotation for freedom is overwhelmingly positive, whereas anarchy is scary. Is it because we associate responsibleness with freedom but not with anarchy?
• Law and regulations bound freedoms in modern society. Aren’t they in place to define responsible behavior? What if the bounds themselves seem arbitrary? What if they trend toward benefiting the few at the expense of the many?
• Do we assume that everyone has a similar understanding of responsible behavior and - therefore - there is no need to overtly talk about it as much as we talk about our desire for freedom?

Quote of the Day - 1/17/2012

It was January and the black fields lay hibernating and desolate under a coating of frost. - Elizabeth Adler in In a Heartbeat.

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What a treat to find a book that fits the current time of year and weather! It is almost like being plopped down into the setting for the book while you read.

Quote of the Day - 1/16/2012

"Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus." - Emerson as quoted by Louisa May Alcott in Moods.

  

Moods are an overlay to our perception of the world. The more we hold moods in check by melding everything into a homogeneous demeanor we can sustain for long periods of time, the more consistent everything becomes. This is often the ‘professional’ behavior that training and workplace metrics encourage. It comes at a cost. We are purposely looking through the same lens…that paints the world the same hue…and only shows what lies in its own focus. It can make life easier for us because we know exactly what to expect of ourselves; it can also help our relationships for the same reason.

It can also be boring and stressful.

Acknowledging a different mood, even slightly, can change the experience of an everyday situation and provide new avenues to address problems. For example, usually Andrea is in a good mood in the morning when she gets to work but one morning she arrives having spilled coffee while driving in and now she is upset, feeling that nothing has started right with the day…she is grumpy. She opens her email and there is, yet another, request for help finding a chart set from a recent review. Usually she replies to these requests with a link to the location. It takes less than 5 minutes to find the location and respond. In her grumpy mood - she realizes this same person has been asking this question pretty frequently and she starts a note with a link to the library and plans to tell the person to ‘find it themselves.’ Fortunately she realizes it will come across as abrupt and rude before she hits ‘send.’ The outcome, in the end, was positive because she wrote up a very simple procedure to find the chart sets and now sends it out when requests come in - just below the specific link to the one requested; the number of requests have gone down because the frequent requesters now understand how to easily find the chart sets themselves.

Keeping moods internal - not showing them outwardly - can be stressful. It is probably healthier than not acknowledging the mood at all since the ‘focus’ for your mood is still visible (i.e. you have not narrowed your perception by only experiencing/acknowledging one mood). Because you restrict yourself from jumping up and down with joy or clomping down the hall with tight fists in frustration, there need to be alternative escapes for the emotion of the mood. Think about what works for you. Physical activity works well for me because it serves to break the thread of activity my mood had created:

• Take 5 deep breaths. Air in through your nose…out through your mouth.
• Walk rapidly to your car…and then back.
• Roll your head clockwise 10 times, counterclockwise 10 times.

Remember - The more intense the mood, the more intense the new perception might be so seek to use the positive aspects of that perception while curbing the actions that could damage relationships.

And - enjoy your life’s “train of moods like a string of beads.”

Quote of the Day - 1/15/2012

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. - CS Lewis

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I resonate with this quote…particularly on a cold winter’s day. My ‘cup’ is an insulated mug and quite large…but I still get up to refill it periodically. The book is a big fat one I bought used. I have a shelf of them that I am working my way through slowly since the majority of my reading is now done electronically (Kindle Fire or PC ). Still - the feel of a book…turning the pages…knowing there are more good ones near at hand - it’s something to look forward to and then savor. The location has changed over the years until now my favorite “cup of tea with book” times are spent in front of an east facing window in a comfy rocker.

Favorite activities are sometimes transitory during our lives but not this one - or at least that is true for me and, I suspect, CS Lewis. How about for you? 

Quote of the Day - 1/14/2012

The passage through the garden is often via stepping stones, which are very skillfully placed precisely to control the speed and direction of walking.  These inner gardens are sometimes damp mossy places … - Bryan Albright and Constance Tindale in A Path Through the Japanese Garden

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I am thinking of gardens…a favorite pastime on a cold January day.

Gardens are different than a natural assemblage of plants in that we have somehow modified the place to meet our intention. I love the contrast of the rock garden and lush plantings…and I need to keep my own garden plans as simple as possible since I have a history of benign neglect after an initial flurry of activity. Stepping stones are something that I do relatively well.

Unless the garden is a very small plot that can be seen and tended completely from its edge, a path is needed into it. Stepping stones perform that function and become part of the garden itself. Somehow the plants, mulch or pebbles around stepping stones draw them into the whole of the garden; dirt or paved paths tend to act as dividing lines.

I am not skillful enough to place stepping stones ‘precisely to control the speed and direction of walking.’ The stones are placed along a route I want through the garden at comfortable step intervals and meet their generally pragmatic function. The picture below shows the stepping stones through the front garden to the water faucet; in the summer there are lilies growing around the stones; the red mulch is evident now. One of my most successful groups of stepping stones is in an area that frequently gets muddy under the deck. They are placed a little further apart than a comfortable step and go in every direction from the door of the house into the garden and yard.

In public gardens, stepping stones are rarely seen. Pathways are paved to handle the increased numbers of people walking through and wheel chairs. The pathways are straighter too. It is a sacrifice we are willing to make to increase the accessibility of the garden.

Quote of the Day - 1/13/2012

Growth comes about when we are confronted by situations that upset our equilibrium and demand change. - Susan Wittig Albert in Work of Her Own

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When was the last time you were confronted with a situation that upset your equilibrium? Was it initiated by a decision you made or did it just happen?

Thinking back - I have upset my equilibrium via key decisions and prompted growth throughout my life: getting married, switching from biology to applied math for graduate studies, going into management, having a child, leaving one multi-decade career path and starting another. Growth was not the reason for the decision but it was certainly a welcome by-product.

Some upsets happen out of our control: a car accident, an illness, gifts, an inheritance, a terrorist event. If they disturb our equilibrium enough…we respond by growing in some way. What we learn…how we grow…helps us achieve control again.

Day-to-day problems are not quite at the ‘upset our equilibrium’ level but they too can prompt growth. For example - several years ago, I noticed that I was always fumbling in the space to the right of my PC keyboard. Since I am right handed, my mouse and writing pad were both on that side. Learning to use my mouse with my left hand was my solution. It was a small change (it took a few weeks to develop the skill with my left hand) but it solved the problem and is now my preferred way of working.

Observing others deal with equilibrium shattering situations may prompt growth activities. Have you observed a kindergarten/first grader recently? Think about what happens as they learn to read. As adults, we ask so much less of ourselves. Why is that? What is the adult equivalent of being in first grade again?

Are your bored? Make a decision that upsets your equilibrium…and let the growth begin.

Quote of the Day 1/12/2012

“Calories don’t count if they’re connected to a celebration. Everyone knows this.” - Janet Evanovich, Hard Eight

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Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels are fun reads (or listens…Hard Eight keep me alert, and sometimes laughing, as I drove long hours on my recent road trip). While being entertained by these books, sometimes there is a sentence that just stands out - one that resonates with your own sometimes convoluted logic. The quote today is one of those points of resonance for me.

Great food is a key component to every celebration for me and my family. From November to mid-January there seems to be something to celebrate: birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, wedding anniversaries, the New Year. Every year I brace myself to gain a little weight during the holidays but I don’t ever follow through to forego any of the treats. My rationalization is exactly “Calories don’t count if they’re connected to a celebration.”

Logically I know that they do count - so maybe my philosophy is really “Don’t worry about calories connected to a celebration” which could lead to carefully defining “celebration” and thereby escaping the holidays without added weight (note to self  - think about next November).

Quote of the Day - 1/11/2012

To say nothing is out here is incorrect; to say the desert is stingy with everything except space and light, stone and earth is closer to the truth. - William Least Heat-Moon

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When we think of deserts, sand dunes are likely the first image we have…space and light…sand (a phase of stone turning to earth dust)…the blueness of the sky a welcome change from the mono-color of the sand.

Another image is of a lone saguaro cactus. I’ve made several trips to locations within the Sonoran desert (the saguaro’s desert) over the past year; while the saguaros don’t grow as closely as trees in deciduous forests, there are indeed forests of them. And there are lots of plants growing in the rocky soil around them. It would be hard to walk cross country and not be caught by the thorns almost all the vegetation seems to have. The vegetation creates a fortress for the land. There is a beauty in these places that hold their own before casual interlopers.

Do we look at land and see ‘nothing’ because it isn’t in a form we know how to exploit - to grow food, to generate energy? The desert is a place to recognize that too often we decide to change something before we understand it. 

Quote of the Day - 1/10/2012

Few plants evoke such nostalgia as the towering hollyhock.  A favorite since Shakespeare’s England, its stately spires of flowers inspire images of country gardens and cottages. - American Horticultural Society Practical Guides: Annuals & Biennials

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Hollyhocks remind me of a great aunt. The image of the flowers growing in the bed to the side of her house surrounding the steps to the side door - which just about everyone used as the main door to the house - is so vivid even after more than 40 years. If I didn’t have that memory, would this quote resonate with me? Probably not.

Do you have a hollyhock memory or are there other flowers that always trigger nostalgic thoughts?

Or approaching from another perspective: think of people that were important to you as a child and into young adulthood. Is there a flower you associate with them? It seems so for me; I associate:

• One grandfather with cannas because he grew so many of them. They were planted to be visible from the road and often screened the vegetable garden that was just beyond. Progeny of those cannas grow in my parents’ garden today.
• One grandmother with roses because she helped me make bouquets of them from her yard to take to my elementary school teachers.
• The other grandmother with gladiolus because everyone cut the long spires from the garden to put under the picture of her as a teenager. She seemed to enjoy having the flowers in the house when she returned from a day at the office.
• The other grandfather with black walnuts - I know not a flower…but I’m counting it anyway - because there was a black walnut tree beside the garage where he had a workshop where all his grandchildren enjoyed small projects with him. 

Quote of the Day - 1/9/2012

Moonlight makes me think of people who are far away and also reminds me of things in the past - sad things, happy things, things that delight me - as though they had just happened. - The Pillow Book (Penguin Classics)

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Last night the moon was shining through the sky light in the wee hours of the morning. It cast a bright pattern on the tile floor and my thoughts trailed to the past. Perhaps

• the silence or
• this time of year when family/friends have returned to their homes and work or
• the increasing gratitude I feel for every aspect of my life

enhanced the crystal clarity of those moments….in the absence of color our minds create it in our thoughts of other times.