Category: post

I know you’d like to believe that as soon as the government allows things to “open back up” that this equates with “everything will go back to normal”. That somehow, our economy will suddenly boom again. That you and your co-workers will be back in the office sharing gossip around the coffee maker. That, somehow, the restaurants will fill up with happy diners, the stadiums will be packed with happy fans, patrons of galleries and theaters will be able to support great art, and beaches will be full of summertime frolic and mischief. You won’t have to stand in a line, six feet from your neighbor, to enter the big-box store (and a mask would no longer be required to do so).

You’d like to believe that all of this will magically change. I understand it gives you hope, to believe that. Hope is important in times like these. But, hope is often at odds with reality.

The truth is, if we were to “open things up” tomorrow, the restaurant would not fill with diners. Because most of the country and those restaurants know that doing so without extensive precautions in place to mitigate the risk to their customers and staff of contracting this virus will mean, in the best case scenario, reducing their capacity by 50%. The additional precautions that staff would have to take in both food service and preparation would be significant and costly. Restaurants, most of whom already operate and the thinnest of profit margins, would not be able to afford it. It’ll likely be cheaper to remain as things are, with a skeleton staff and curbside pick-up only.

How does a sports team re-open a stadium if the only way to keep the fans safe is to enforce strict seating rules and only sell every fourth seat? How can they suggest social distancing at the concessions? Will they have to take the temperature of everyone at the gates? Frankly, it’d be cheaper to play in an empty stadium.

If we open things, will people come?

Likely not.

The truth is that anyone who has been paying even a modicum of attention understands that, even if things were to open up and go completely back to exactly the way they were, going to a restaurant, stadium, conference, grocery store will be balanced with the risk of catching a virus that, if it does not simply make you really really sick, will kill you and or people you love. Is a nice dinner worth that? How about a baseball game?

I know that with a wife with a history of susceptibility to respiratory illness and a daughter with congenital heart issues and a father with severe asthma., even if things were to go back to the way things were tomorrow we would not change what my family has been doing since about mid-February. We would not be going to restaurants or bars to dine-in, we would not be going to concerts or shows. We would not be taking in a baseball game or traveling. We would be socially isolating and limiting our exposure as we’ve been doing. Because that’s what every respected expert suggests is the best way to keep ourselves, and society, safe.

I know most people I know would be doing the same.

I bet most of you reading this would be too.

Until there is a universally available vaccine that is widely distributed and most that we know have taken it and we have been assured by experts that it is safe to do so, then things will not go back to the way they were. Most of the experts I’m seeing peg that in a best case scenario as 36 months.

I know this sucks. I know this means many restaurants will be forced to close. Many small businesses will go under. Much of what we love to do will have to be declined for the foreseeable future. But, this is what it is. These are the sorts of choices we will now have to make. We can’t hope them away. We can’t legislate things back to what they were. We can only make do and make the best of the situation we’re in.

A friend recently reached out to me for my advice. He’s actually a lifelong friend of Bethany’s (and former boyfriend of hers to boot).

His mother is a Holocaust survivor. She’s dying (cancer) and is in hospice.

She wrote a book about her experiences after the Holocaust and paid someone a lot of money ($8000.00) to edit, format, and print it. That work has yet to materialize. She’s received an “edited” version that was hardly even a basic copy edit. My friend was beginning to smell a scam. Maybe they’ll deliver eventually but the work thus far looks, well, not worth eight grand. And, it’ll likely not come to pass before she is alive to see it through.

She’s dying and it was her dream to see this book in print. Something she can hold in her hand and say, “it’s done”. My friend wanted to do this for her. He reached out to me asking if I had any ideas on how to take even the imperfect manuscript and turn it into something that looks like a professionally printed book so he can take it to his mom and tell her (lie to her, basically) that it got done and she can then be at peace.

We discussed what needed to get done and I came up with a plan. I reached out to my friend Shawn Mihalik who’s done book formatting and editing for me before (and who I highly recommend). I explained the situation and asked if he would format it for print as a favor to me. I explained that this book, in this version at least, would be a one-off print. It would not be for sale. That this was simply a way for my friend to see his mother’s wish through before she’s gone. He agreed. Because that’s just the sort of good human and friend Shawn is.

I designed the cover and performed all the mechanics of getting it printed.

So, what you see above is unique. A vanity project if there ever was an example of the term. But a project I am most proud to have played a part in.

Most of us — whether individuals, businesses, or institutions — are trying to figure it out as we go along. The only plan we have is the one that’s seems right for today. Maybe we’ll try something else tomorrow based on new information or directives. Maybe that new thing will make less sense than the first way. We are using our best judgment in a field of mystifying choices and changes.

Don’t always assume bad intent. Especially now. So many outside stresses and factors. So many unknowns. While there are some that may be trying to stick it to you or play favorites, most are just trying to navigate uncharted waters and not always choosing the right direction. Maybe there are no good choices, only a series of bad ones and one safe one that still sucks. In an environment where safety feels right, which one would you make?

Also, don’t beat yourself up. Maybe the work-at-home thing is not working for you. Maybe you feel guilty for eating in instead of ordering for take-away from the restaurants you want to support through this crisis. Maybe, between the Zoom and the Twitter and the News you just aren’t able to get a good night’s sleep. Anyone expecting you to be OK right now is being unreasonable. Their expectations are the problem, not you. Just do the best you are able to do and be OK with that.

Everyone is doing the best they can. It may not be the best that can be done. But, it’s the best we may be able to do right now. Cut others, and yourselves, a little slack.

We’ve not had a situation like this before. We’re all making do.

A maple tree is not an ash tree. Sure, they are both trees. They may be similar but that does not make them the same.

A motorcycle is not a car. They are both modes of transportation but they are not the same.

Cars are not guns and guns are not cars. While people often will compare how many one harms versus the other, one is designed for transportation and the other for inflicting harm. While cars can harm people by accident or with specific intent, that is a side effect, not its purpose, which is transportation from one point to the next. A gun is designed and built with one specific purpose in mind, to cause damage — to an object, an animal, or even a human being.

I am not you. You are not me. Though we are both human beings, we are unique. We think differently. What works for me may not work for you. Comparing us in anything but broad hazy strokes is foolish.

The United States is not Sweden. What works there is not what works here. In fact, we now know it might not be working very well there.

Covid-19 is not the flu. It is not H1N1. It is not automobile accidents or cancer.

We want this to be like that. Because if there’s an answer to that it might be an answer to this. But things are what they are.

In the case of a virus that has brought the world to a halt, we long so much for a solution that we seek similarities. I get it. How we learn is from the lessons gained from that which we’ve encountered before. But, here’s the problem…

This is “novel”. We’ve not encountered this before. Just because we did this for that it does not mean we can do that for this.

We have to gain fresh knowledge about this. We have to learn and adapt as we go. Comparing this to anything else risks leading us down the wrong path. Now is the time to forge new paths. This is new. This is not that.

In the midst of this time of great uncertainty, I’ve stumbled upon an observation: Those who are dealing the least well with the uncertainty are those who refuse to accept it.

Those that want to know how long the schools will be closed. Those that want a hard plan for when and how to re-open businesses. Those that want to know, exactly, when things will get back to normal.

These are the people that are suffering the most during these times. These are the folks I see being frustrated and angry. These are the folks flailing about trying to figure out what to do. Because they are seeking and hoping for answers which are, at this point or any point in the foreseeable future, impossible to accurately give.

Those that have worked to become comfortable with uncertainty — the peace that can come from not knowing — are the ones that I see doing the best with the current circumstances. They are perfectly OK with accepting and working with each day as it comes. As new information about how to proceed arises, they proceed. If not, they make the best of where they are. If we accept uncertainty instead, we can take that energy and focus on what we can do. We can appreciate what opportunities we do have. We can make do.

Therefore, it has occurred to me that the problem is not the uncertainty. The problem is in working against the uncertainty. Of wishing and hoping and demanding that which is impossible to gain. By setting a date you’d like to re-open only to have your Governor move the date of the stay at home order back. Wanting school to be back in session by the end of April only to receive an announcement that they expect to be closed for the rest of the year. In fact, uncertainty only causes worry and anxiety when we wish/work/want against it.

When we accept things the way they are, when we embrace not knowing, only then can we make do with the way things are. Only then can we do the best we can with the situation we’re in. If you are stuck at home on a beautiful day, wishing you could be somewhere else will only make things worse. Instead of focusing on what you can’t do, focus on what you can.

This is not the time for dates and plans beyond the here and now. This is the time for taking the here and now and making something of it. If you need something to look forward to, look forward to the possibility that you might, maybe, have the same opportunity tomorrow. Maybe not. You don’t know. We never do. Isn’t that amazing? I think so.

I’m one of those people who loves to help others. It fills me with a sense of satisfaction and usefulness. Therefore, I enjoy when people reach out and ask for my help with a problem I can solve. It feels really good to meet a real need.

Paradoxically, I’m terrible at asking for help when I need it. I feel guilty and ashamed. I feel like I’m asking for something I don’t deserve. But, when I do humbly accept and receive help I really needed, it feels so good.

I was last night years old when it occurred to me that in asking for help I’m likely opening the opportunity for those, like myself, that really are filled up by helping. It is a gift for them as much as it is a blessing for me. That by being vulnerable I’m allowing others to use their strengths. Also, I’m making it easier for them to ask of me in the future. Not because we consider a favor owed but because we have an understanding of the symbiosis between the helper and the helped. We’ve humbled ourselves and have been seen vulnerable and thus communicate to the other that it is safe to do so with us.

One of the themes I notice coming to fore in this pandemic crisis is that of uncertainty. The fact that things are changing so fast… One day there are a certain number of cases and the next there are so many more. One day the restaurants are open and the next day they are shut down. One day the stock market is up, the next it is down. Gathering in groups of ten is OK, until it becomes two, until it becomes mandatory to stay at home.

We don’t know how long this will last. We don’t know what “over” will really look like. Will our favorite restaurant be able to re-open? Will the kids be able to go back to school? Can we reschedule that trip we were planning to take? All unknowns.

Living with such unpredictability is difficult, for sure. But, I would argue that we live with such uncertainty every moment of every normal day and always have. We don’t know for sure if the plans we’ve made for tomorrow will come to pass or fall through. We don’t know if that restaurant we ate at today will go out of business tomorrow. We don’t know, for certain, that we will be alive in the next moment. Yet, we are able to replace such uncertainties with plans, hopes, dreams, desires. We replace uncertainty with these things. Believing that the plan we made will come to pass. Desiring that delicious meal we ate yesterday and being pretty certain we can have the same thing for lunch tomorrow. We hope we wake up tomorrow, after all, we are healthy and…

But, in truth, all of these are uncertain. The only difference is our expectations.

Before, we believed we knew what to expect. We could weigh those expectations against past occurrences and plan accordingly… I woke up today, why not tomorrow? I just ate there yesterday, it’ll be there today?

Now, we have no idea. Now, we don’t know what to expect, what to believe in, or how to plan for what comes next. We know that any of these things will be built on what has all to quickly become our new normal — plans, hopes, dreams, expectations are likely to be dashed against an ever changing reality.This leads to anxiety and worry.

The only comfort I believe one can take in times like these is the solace and the comfort in knowing and seeing the truth of our existence — that there is and only ever has been the right-here and the right-now. That uncertainly is an ever present part of our existence. That, in many ways, the only certainty is uncertainty. The only way to truly get comfortable with that is to sit with it, to accept it, and adjust our expectations accordingly.

For a long time now, I’ve linked to Amazon when linking to books, especially on my /reading page. The reasons:

1. It was an easy default and I always knew that if something existed at all there would be a greater than 99% chance one could find it there.
2. As an author, I know from direct experience that 80% or more of an author’s sales (especially small/indie ones like me) are not only through Amazon but the vast majority of those on Kindle. In my personal experience as an author, they’ve been excellent at not only selling lots of books that I otherwise would not have sold but also putting my books in front of potential readers.
3. Affiliate program. I get a small portion of the proceeds of everything you buy when you click on a link to Amazon through this site. That provides a very small but, until now, meaningful portion of my income.

So, going forward I’ll be linking to Amazon a lot less and never for books if I can avoid it. Instead, I’ve decided to take the sage advice given to me by Dan J and have also asked a couple of my favorite local booksellers theirs. I’ll be linking to IndieBound for all books starting this year. I’ll go back and update past links on my /reading page when/if time allows.

First of all, I love independent bookstores. I’ve been trying to be more intentional with supporting them with my dollars for a while now. I’m fortunate to have several great ones only a few minutes drive away from me. I want to support these stores in whatever way I can. All of my local stores are connected to IndieBound through membership in the American Booksellers Association. When you buy a book on IndieBound it helps support all of it’s members and shows you the local bookstores in your area that carry that book so that you might consider going to pick up a copy directly.

Secondly, Dan J makes many very valid points about the inherent problems with always/only linking to Amazon. A key one being:

The problem with linking to Amazon as a “safe default” is the same as the problem with just publishing your book on Amazon and calling it a day: it entrenches Amazon as The One True Place Where Books Are, and, while convenient, that’s not good… it’s not good for society to have one big private corporation responsible for distributing such a huge proportion of the collective written work of the human race.

I agree with this and no longer wish to contribute to it. I wish to honor my values as a book lover, reader, and longtime supporter of independent booksellers and the belief that we should free ourselves of silos. I want to be a good citizen of my local community. Linking to Amazon does not align with those values.

My email inbox is largely a delightful place filled with people I actually know, friendly strangers offering kind words, enlightening newsletters, important notices, and things worth my time and attention. It’s that way because I’ve spent years making it that way. My precision use of complex filtering rules, marking things as SPAM, and unsubscribing (often from that same SPAM) means only a small manageable amount of things I don’t want or need ever gets seen. I have a separate address (a Gmail one) that I use for signing up for things online, this ensures that advertisements, promotions, those that seek to sell my address, is best handled by the people who are in that very same marketing/advertising business. This all helps to keep my personal email box meaningful.

I love the history of it. I love that it is the earliest of two-way communication protocols on the internet. I love the way that it, mostly, works like actual mail — with senders and receivers and mail boxes and postmasters. I love that it can be used to convey a brief message or a long diatribe. That one can reply above, below, or within the previous message depending on what best fits the need. It’s flexible and ubiquitous.

I’ve never not loved email. Even when I worked in large collegiate and corporate environments where I received a far larger volume of email than I do now as a self-employed person. I’ve always found that if one does not like email, especially due to their work-related email, it’s not a problem with email. It’s a problem with the culture and the expectations of communication therein. In these circumstances, I’ve found it far more effective to teach others —tell them how you use email, set proper expectations for them, and come to some agreements with those you most interact with. Try to shape the culture as a whole or in your immediate, controllable, vicinity.

I’ve also found it very helpful to take the time to really know and use my email client of choice. For me, that is Mail.app — the built in email client on the Mac. I’ve been using it as my main email client since the very first beta versions of Mac OS X. I’ve taken the time over those years to learn every keyboard command for the tasks I use most often such that I can read, reply, process, and file away every message without removing my hands from the keyboard. Knowing your tools makes using them that much more pleasurable. Hosting my own email and using IMAP ensures that my email works the same regardless of the device. I always know what to expect and rarely have an issue with it being down.

Therefore, I’m always a bit perplexed by people who hate email or are compelled to “fix” email. I’m even a bit perplexed why folks hand over control of their email to a big corporate host (i.e. Google). Not saying it is wrong — I just don’t understand it. It doesn’t fit with my experience.

I say all this to suggest that, perhaps, email is not “broken” but the way we are using it is. Perhaps there is a solution that could make things better for you that doesn’t involve a new app or service. Perhaps, if you hate it, in changing the way you approach it you’ll find a way to love it again.

Much like Kottke does with his Media Diet posts or Khoi Vinh’s monthly movie reviews, I plan to regularly post about recent things I’ve watched that are worth a short mention. Here we go…

Movies

The Last Black Man in San Francisco — A haunting and deeply moving film about identity and belonging in a nebulously post collapse San Francisco. Have not stopped thinking about it since I saw it.

The Farewell — A very lovely and moving story about a Chinese family who’s matriarch is dying but they don’t want to tell her so they have a wedding instead as a way of getting the family together before she passes. Awkwafina has such a presence. A wonderfully versatile actress who I can’t help but think is just at the beginning of a long and fascinating career.

Booksmart — Every generation needs it’s own Fast Times at Ridgemont High and this is the one for now. Luckily, it’s funny and smart and has a big heart. Let’s hope it ages better than it’s predecessors.

Little Women (2019) — I’ll admit that I mainly went to this because my wife and daughter wanted to see it. I’ve seen the 1994 version with Wynona Ryder and, frankly, she is the only memorable thing about it. I’m glad I saw this one because I loved it — well acted and perfectly cast. I’ve never read the book and have never had the desire to. Now, it is on my short list to read this year.

TV

Party of Five (TV Series 2020) — I was a fan of the original series as a young adult (huge crush on Neve Campbell) and knew nothing about this Hulu reboot going into it. My wife was looking to watch something new and we too a chance to see just how bad a Party of Five reboot could be… It’s fantastic. Like, really good. It’s political and believable and takes itself and it’s repositioning of the basic story (five kids ranging from baby to young adult are orphaned and must fend for themselves) seriously.

Music

Lydia Liza — I’ve been following Lydia’s work since she was with local band Bomba De Luz and she was still in High School. She’s all grown up now and about to release her debut record, “Of Unsound Mind”. Her writing is smart, her voice haunting, her sound touching on jazz, soul, rock, and folk. An artist you may not of heard of that’s worth hearing.