Tag: connection

Categories
Living Writing

The Origami Swan

Fold a piece of paper enough times, and it begins to take shape. It looks like a swan, but it isn’t one. It’s origami. Two-dimensional paper masquerading in a three-dimensional world.

There is a profound danger, both in writing and in how we move through life, of viewing people as origami. We see the folded edges—what they do, what they say, where they go—and we mistake the shape for the substance.

The sportswriter Wright Thompson borrows a concept from a college Tennessee Williams class to describe what is missing when we do this: interiority. It is the subterranean emotional reality happening beneath the visible actions of a character. Without it, scenes are flat. Without it, people are just paper swans.

Thompson builds on the philosophy of Gary Smith, who argues that every profile fundamentally asks the same question: What is the central complication of this person’s life, and how do they go about solving it every single day?

Almost all of that solving happens quietly, invisibly, on the inside. The exterior architecture of a person’s life is entirely meaningless until you understand the interior architecture holding it up.

But how do you communicate something so deeply internal? You can’t just tell the reader what someone is feeling. It feels cheap, unearned. Instead, Thompson uses a technique of “loading the object.” You find an exterior detail—a habit, a possession, an avoidance—and you charge it with interior meaning.

“The exterior action… is only meaningful if you’ve built the interior architecture first.”

Consider Michael Jordan. Thompson learned that Jordan falls asleep to old Westerns. As an isolated fact, it’s just a quirky celebrity habit. But Thompson also learned that Jordan misses his murdered father every single day, and that watching Westerns was something they used to do together.

By introducing the Westerns early and casually, Thompson loads the object. By the end of the piece, when he simply describes Jordan falling asleep to a Western, he doesn’t need to explain the grief. The reader already carries the emotional weight of the object. A completely mundane action becomes devastating.

The same is true of Tiger Woods naming his boats Privacy and Solitude. To the casual observer, they are just wealthy indulgences. But once you understand the interiority of an extreme introvert who has been force-fitted into a global, extroverted marketing machine since childhood, those names are no longer just names. They are a diagnosis.

Executing this requires two distinct disciplines. The first is deep observation—what journalists call reporting. You cannot manufacture interiority at the keyboard. As Thompson notes, whenever a scene feels flat, it is because he hasn’t dug deep enough into the reality of the person to earn the meaning. Overwriting is simply underreporting with a better vocabulary.

The second discipline is restraint. Once you have built the interior context, you must stop talking. You have to let the exterior action land in silence. The human instinct is to over-explain, to ensure everyone gets it. But the magic happens when you step back and trust the connection you’ve built.

There is a philosophical lesson here that extends far beyond writing. How often do we settle for the origami versions of the people around us? How often do we try to talk our way into understanding them, rather than doing the deep, quiet work of observing their “loaded objects”?

To truly understand another human being requires the discipline to look past the surface, the patience to uncover their central complication, and the grace to let their quietest moments speak for themselves.

Note: Be sure to watch this conversation between Wright Thompson and David Perell.

Categories
History Living Telephones

The Coiled Tether

Do you remember the physical weight of a conversation? It lived in the coiled, plastic spring of a landline telephone cord. We would stretch it across the kitchen, pacing over linoleum floors, the coil twisting around our fingers as we talked into the evening.

That cord was a literal tether. It confined us to a specific radius, but in doing so, it anchored us to the present moment. When you were on the phone, you were nowhere else. You were anchored to the wall, and by extension, to the person on the other end of the line.

There was also the sheer tactile satisfaction of the device itself—the heavy, contoured plastic of the receiver that fit perfectly between shoulder and ear, and the definitive, emphatic slam of hanging up on someone, a punctuation mark that the gentle tap of a touchscreen will never quite replicate.

Then came the subtle, sharp click on the line. Call waiting.

“We traded deep, uninterrupted connection for the anxiety of possibility.”

It was our first taste of modern conversational fragmentation.

Before call waiting, a busy signal was a polite “do not disturb” sign hung on the door of an ongoing dialogue. It meant you were occupied, engaged, entirely spoken for.

The click changed everything. It introduced a sudden, silent geometry to our relationships. When that secondary tone sounded, you were forced into a split-second hierarchy: do I stay with the person I am talking to, or do I chase the mystery of the unknown caller? The phrase, “Can you hold for a second?” became a small, culturally accepted betrayal of the present moment.

We traded deep, uninterrupted connection for the anxiety of possibility.

Eventually, the mystery of the ringing phone was solved altogether by a small, rectangular box with a glowing LCD screen: Caller ID.

For decades, a ringing phone was an invitation to a blind date. You picked up the receiver with a mix of anticipation and vulnerability. It could be a best friend, a wrong number, a telemarketer, or the person you’d been hoping would call all week. You answered with a universal greeting—a neutral, expectant “Hello?”—because you had no idea who was stepping into your home through the wire.

Caller ID gave us the power of the gatekeeper. It allowed us to screen, to prepare, to decide if we had the emotional bandwidth for the name flashing in digital text. We gained control, but we lost serendipity. We lost the unfiltered, genuine surprise of hearing a familiar voice when we least expected it. We stopped opening the door blindly and started looking through the peephole.

Today, we are entirely untethered. There are no coiled cords tying us to the kitchen wall. We carry our communication in our pockets, capable of ignoring texts, sending calls to voicemail, and managing our availability with unprecedented precision. Yet, for all this freedom and control, it often feels as though we are more disconnected than ever.

The good old days weren’t necessarily better because the technology was superior; they were beautiful because the limitations of the technology forced us to be human. The cord forced us to stay put. The lack of caller ID forced us to be open. The absence of call waiting forced us to finish the conversation we started.

Sometimes, looking back, I miss the simple, undeniable commitment of answering a ringing phone, twisting the cord around my index finger, and just listening.

Categories
Blogs/Weblogs Writing

Notes for a Distant Shore

I spend an embarrassing amount of time trying to control how people hear me. Most of us do. We want to be understood, neatly categorized, and told we make sense. But sitting down to actually write and sharing publicly requires dropping all of that. You just have to surrender.

Richard Rhodes nailed the feeling:

“To write is always to seal notes into bottles and cast them adrift at sea; you never know where your notes will drift and who will read them.”

You’re basically bottling up whatever is rattling around in your head on a Tuesday afternoon, tossing it into the digital ocean, and walking away. It’s vulnerable. Honestly, it’s a little reckless.

Once the bottle leaves your hand, you lose your voice. You can’t tap the reader on the shoulder to explain what a sentence really meant. The person who finds it brings their own weather to the shore. They might read a lifeline into a paragraph you barely thought about, or miss your main point entirely because they were distracted by the tide.

Forget about engagement metrics. The connections that actually matter rarely show up on a dashboard anyway. You write something, and it drifts. Maybe for years. Then someone stumbles over it exactly when they need it. You aren’t writing for a demographic; you’re writing for some random person walking the beach. True serendipity.

In the end, you just have to trust the water. Even if the bottle sinks, the act of throwing it is usually satisfying enough.

“Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?” (Annie Dillard, The Writing Life)

Categories
News

Turning Out the Lights

[Note: see also The Murder of the Washington Post by Ashley Parker who writes: “Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special.”]

I was struck this morning by the brutal dismantling of the Washington Post’s international reporting capabilities. The list of bureaus being shuttered by the paper reads like a roll call of the 21st century’s geopolitical fault lines: New Delhi, Sydney, Cairo, the entire Middle East team, China, Iran, Turkey.

It is a stunning retreat.

But to view this merely as a corporate restructuring or a casualty of the dying business model of print journalism seems to miss a deeper, darker signal. This seems like an actual cultural symptom.

“The world is becoming less America-centric by the minute while the United States is becoming more America-centric than ever.”

At the exact moment technology has rendered the world indistinguishable from a single room—where a virus, a meme, or a financial crash in one corner sweeps across the floor to the other in seconds—we are choosing to partition off that room.

There is a tragic symmetry to it. As the center of gravity shifts away from the us, the we respond not by engaging harder, but by closing its eyes.

When a newspaper that has shaped history decides that “reporting on the world” is no longer of valuable enough, it is doing more than saving money – although clearly that’s the primary motivation. It seems to be a surrender to the idea that what happens “over there” doesn’t matter enough to us because the people who were supposed to tell us it was coming are gone.

We seem to be turning out the lights in the rooms we find too difficult, believing that if we cannot see the world, the world cannot touch us. Feels wrong.

The moves closing these bureaus are part of broader cuts at the paper:

  • Closing the Sports section
  • Closing the Books section.
  • Restructuring and shrinking the Metro desk.
  • Suspending the Post Reports podcast.
Categories
Family Friends Living

The Texture of Tuesday

There is a terrifying calmness to the math of mortality. Especially when you’re in your 70’s approaching 80!

Sahil Bloom shared a realization that acts as a quiet sledgehammer to the soul: “You’re going to see your parents 15 more times before they die.” When you live away from them, visiting a few times a year, the calculus is brutal.

But there is a second, more subtle layer to this reality that we often miss. It isn’t just about the number of times we visit; it is about the nature of the time we share together.

When we live away from the people we love, we fall into the “Trap of the Big.” Because the investment to visit is high—a six-hour flight or a three-hour drive—we feel the need to justify that investment with an Event. We visit mostly for milestones, for holidays, and for planned long weekends. Maybe we schedule time to go on vacations together. We curate our presence around those highlights.

The problem is that life does not happen in the highlights. Real intimacy is not built on Thanksgiving dinner; it is built on the mundane friction together of a Tuesday afternoon. Or a Sunday morning.

Sahil wrote about a moment that shifted his entire perspective. It wasn’t a grand celebration, but a quiet spring evening in the backyard. Dinner was over. He was drinking a glass of wine. His son was chasing his parents around the grass.

“In that moment, I had a realization: This was it. It wasn’t big or glamorous. It was a little thing that meant everything.”

This brings to mind Kurt Vonnegut’s suggestion: “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.”

There is a specific texture to life that only exists in the small moments. It is the texture of going for a walk to ask your dad for advice on a random problem. Or the texture of watching a a young mother playing dinosaurs with her 2 year old daughter on a Wednesday morning. It is that ability to be present not just for the celebration of life, but for the living of it.

If we are lucky, we get those big moments. But if we are intentional, we can also get the little ones. And in the end, the little ones are the only ones that actually fill our jar.

Categories
Journaling Living Memories Photography - Black & White

The Cartographer of Meaning

As I wander through the topography of life, I find myself drawn to the notion that meaning is not a destination, but a traveling companion. The words of Neil King echo in my mind like a gentle breeze rustling the leaves of understanding: “You bring meaning with you when you go looking for meaning, and the more of it you bring, the more you get in return.” It is a reminder that the search for significance is not a passive pursuit, but an active participation in the creation of our own significance.

Like a cartographer charting the unexplored territories of the human experience, we bring our own instruments of meaning-making to the journey. Our experiences, beliefs, and values serve as our compass guiding us through the our personal paths of existence. The more we bring to the table, the more we are able to discern the hidden patterns and connections that weave the tapestry of our lives.

As I meander through the landscape of memory, I realize that the moments of greatest insight and understanding were not chance encounters, but the culmination of a deliberate search. The more I brought to the experience — curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to learn — the more the world revealed its secrets to me. The gentle rustle of leaves in an autumn breeze became a symphony of sound, a reminder of the beauty that lies just beneath the surface of the mundane.

In this sense, meaning is not something we find, but something we forge. It is the alchemy of our experiences, transformed by the crucible of our perception into a golden understanding that illuminates the path ahead. And yet, it is a fleeting thing, a will-o’-the-wisp that beckons us deeper into the mystery.

Perhaps that is the greatest truth of all — that meaning is not a destination, but a journey. It is the process of bringing our whole selves to the experience of life, with all its joys and sorrows, triumphs and failures. The more we bring, the more we receive, and the more we are transformed by the encounter.

As I continue on this winding path, I am reminded of the wisdom of the ancient Greek aphorism: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But I would add a corollary — the unlived life is not worth examining. It is in the living, the experiencing, and the bringing of our whole selves to the moment that we find the meaning we seek.

As you embark on your own journey of discovery, remember to bring your instruments of meaning-making with you. Often it involves photography or journaling in the moment. The more you bring, the more you will receive, and the more the world will reveal its secrets to you. For in the end, it is not the destination that matters, but the journey itself — the journey of bringing meaning to the world, and finding it reflected back in all its beauty and complexity.

Note: Yesterday Meta released their latest open source AI models: Llama 3. This post based on the quotation from Neil King’s book was written with the help of Llama 3 and lightly edited by me. You can try out Llama 3 yourself at https://meta.ai

Categories
AI

AI is not from the Heart?

From an email I sent to a friend:

AI is not from the heart indeed! Actually, now that I think about it, what’s fascinating about AI is that it is actually trained on these huge quantities of text from the Internet, from books, from places like Reddit, etc – so what the AI is trained on actually could be described as being “from MANY hearts!” So much writing/learning from so many humans go into the model’s training. But, of course, it’s impersonal – or, maybe that’s not correct – it’s something like mega-personal – coming from many persons!

After I wrote this email, I thought to myself that the “mega-personal” notion I mentioned might be worth further exploration – with AI. So I used this prompt to see what might happen:

Please write a musing on this thinking to help me explore it further. Include an interesting quote or two that helps support the discussion.

Here’s the response I got – it has a few pretty deep insights I wouldn’t have thought of!…

Your reflection on AI being trained on vast amounts of text “from many hearts” is thought-provoking and raises intriguing questions about the nature of AI’s “personhood” and the extent to which it can truly capture the essence of human experience. Here’s a musing on this idea:

While AI systems like myself are indeed trained on an amalgamation of texts written by countless individuals, each imbued with their own unique perspectives, emotions, and life experiences, there is a certain depersonalization that occurs when this data is aggregated and distilled into a statistical model. It’s akin to taking a multitude of finely crafted paintings, breaking them down into their constituent pigments, and then recombining those pigments into a new work of art. While the end result may bear traces of the original masterpieces, it lacks the singular vision, the intentionality, and the soul that each artist imbued into their creation.

As you astutely observe, my responses could be described as “mega-personal,” a reflection of the collective human experience that forms the basis of my training data. Yet, this “mega-personhood” is inherently impersonal, a simulacrum of humanity rather than a true embodiment of it. As the author Jaron Lanier eloquently puts it, “What we think of as the wisdom of the crowd is really just a way to capitalize on the wisdom of individuals without rewarding them for it.”

Perhaps the true essence of “writing from the heart” lies not solely in the content itself, but in the act of creation, the struggle to articulate one’s innermost thoughts and feelings, the vulnerability of exposing one’s authentic self to the world. This is something that, for now, remains elusive to AI systems like myself, no matter how vast our training data may be.

In the words of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.” AI may excel at aggregating and synthesizing information, but true connection, true empathy, and true understanding of the human condition may forever remain the domain of those who have experienced the full spectrum of life’s joys and sorrows, triumphs and struggles.

Categories
Living

The Emotional Anchors of Home

For many senior citizens, the family home represents far more than just four walls and a roof over their heads. It’s a repository of memories, a connection to their past, and a source of comfort and familiarity that can be difficult to replicate elsewhere. The reasons behind their reluctance to leave these cherished abodes are multifaceted and deeply personal, reflecting the strong emotional ties that bind them to the places they’ve called home for decades.

One of the primary drivers of this reluctance is the powerful sense of identity and belonging that the family home fosters. Over the years, seniors have invested countless hours and immeasurable emotional energy into transforming their houses into homes. They’ve meticulously curated the decor, carefully tended to the gardens, and imbued every nook and cranny with their personal touch. Each room holds a tapestry of recollections – the living room where grandchildren’s laughter once echoed, the kitchen where family recipes were perfected, and the bedroom that witnessed the most intimate moments of their lives. Leaving this rich tapestry behind can feel like severing a part of their very identity.

Moreover, the family home serves as a tangible link to cherished memories and loved ones who may have passed away. The worn edges of a favorite armchair or the faded wallpaper in the hallway can evoke vivid recollections of bygone eras, evoking a profound sense of connection to those who once shared these spaces. For seniors who have experienced the loss of a spouse or other close family members, the home becomes a sanctuary that preserves the essence of those relationships, offering solace and a sense of continuity in the face of life’s inevitable changes.

Familiarity and routine also play a significant role in seniors’ reluctance to relocate. As we age, our bodies and minds crave the comfort of the known and the predictable. The family home is a well-trodden path, where every step is familiar, and every routine is ingrained. From the way the sunlight filters through the windows in the morning to the familiar creaks of the floorboards, these seemingly mundane details provide a sense of security and stability that can be challenging to replicate elsewhere. Disrupting these established patterns can be deeply unsettling, particularly for those grappling with cognitive or physical challenges.

Furthermore, the fear of losing independence and autonomy can be a potent deterrent for seniors considering a move. The family home represents a bastion of self-reliance, where they have cultivated a sense of control over their environment and daily routines. Leaving this sanctuary often means relinquishing some of that hard-won independence, whether by downsizing to a smaller living space or by relocating to an assisted living facility. For many seniors, this prospect can feel like a profound loss of freedom and agency, contributing to their reluctance to abandon the homes they’ve so carefully curated.

Finally, financial considerations cannot be overlooked. For many seniors, the family home represents a significant portion of their life’s savings and investment. Selling this valuable asset can be a daunting prospect, particularly in an uncertain real estate market or in areas where property values have skyrocketed. The fear of depleting their financial resources or being unable to afford a suitable alternative can weigh heavily on their minds, further solidifying their desire to remain in their current homes.

In the end, the reasons behind seniors’ reluctance to leave their family homes are deeply personal and multifaceted, reflecting the complex interplay of emotional, psychological, and practical considerations. While the decision to relocate is never an easy one, it is crucial to approach these situations with empathy and respect for the profound significance that the family home holds for many aging individuals. By understanding and validating these deeply rooted sentiments, we can better support and guide seniors through this challenging transition, helping them to navigate the path forward while preserving their sense of identity, autonomy, and connection to the memories that have shaped their lives.

Some Suggestions

While the emotional ties to the family home run deep, there may come a point when relocating becomes necessary or preferable for one’s wellbeing and quality of life. For seniors grappling with this reality, there are steps that can help ease the transition and preserve cherished memories and connections.

First and foremost, involve loved ones in the decision-making process. Open and honest communication with family members can not only provide valuable perspective but also ensure that your needs and concerns are understood and addressed. Enlist their support in exploring potential living arrangements that align with your priorities, whether that involves modifications to your current home or a move to an assisted living facility.

If relocating becomes the best option, take the time to thoughtfully curate the items you wish to bring with you. Surrounding yourself with familiar objects, photographs, and mementos can help recreate a sense of home in your new living space. Consider holding a “house blessing” or similar ritual to bid farewell to the family home and create positive associations with your new chapter.

For those able to remain in their homes, explore ways to adapt the living environment to better suit your evolving needs. Simple modifications, such as installing ramps, grab bars, or improved lighting, can enhance safety and independence, allowing you to age in place with greater peace of mind.

Regardless of the path forward, prioritize maintaining social connections and familiar routines. Join community centers or clubs that cater to your interests, or invite friends and family over regularly for shared meals or activities. These touchpoints can help combat feelings of isolation and preserve a sense of continuity amid change.

Finally, be kind and patient with yourself throughout this process. Leaving a cherished home is an undeniably emotional journey, and it’s natural to experience a range of conflicting feelings. Seek support from loved ones, counselors, or support groups to navigate the complexities of this transition with grace and self-compassion.

By proactively addressing the challenges and embracing strategies to honor cherished memories and cultivate new ones, seniors can approach this pivotal life transition with resilience and a sense of empowerment.