Category: post

When was the last time you had soda out of a wine glass? My guess is, for most of those reading, the answer is either a while or never.
Why is that? After all, the wine glass is just a glass like any other glass, right? In the simplest terms, it’s a vessel for containing liquid. Just like every other vessel for containing liquid. Why, then, are we not just as likely to reach for a wine glass as we are any other glass when we want to pour a glass of soda?
I believe we don’t because we have given this kind of glass a size, and shape, and name, that pre-determines the likelihood of and is ideally suited for what liquid that glass will be filled with. In this case wine.
Wine glasses are designed the way they are for a reason. They have a stem for which to hold them, so that the heat of one’s hand does not effect the temperature of the wine. The base is wider than the lip in order to provide a wide surface for the wine to breathe while letting the aroma pool in the glass. Yet, the glass opening is not so wide that it prevents your nose from entering while sipping so that you can taste with both senses. All of these things matter in the case of wine. Not so much in the case of soda. Wine glasses are designed for wine, not for soda.
That said, next time you have a soda, grab a wine glass and poor some in as you would wine. Not too much, about 2-4 ounces. Now, hold it and sip it as you would wine. Does it change the experience of drinking soda a bit? Does it feel a bit more classy? Elegant even? For me it does. Just as much as drinking wine out of a juice glass feels a bit less so.
The vessels we create often determine the things that contain them. Also, changing the vessel can change our perception and our experience and what we place in them. Even the name of the vessel can make such determinations.
The same is true of the way we frame ourselves.
Are you a blogger who writes blog posts? Because, if you are, that is a frame. Not only will those hearing that frame paint a specific picture of what it is you do and who you are but you, likely, will do so as well. The picture will be reflective and appropriate of the frame you built to contain it. The frame places certain conscious and subconscious limits. There are many things that frame can contain and many others that frame can not. And that is OK. There has been and will continue to be a place and platform for bloggers who write blog posts.
But what happens if you change the frame?
What if, instead, you are a writer who writes essays? Well now, that seems like the picture has changed hasn’t it? That frame gives the picture new possibilities and new limits. And, though the content and publication may be the same, that frame opens new ideas and responsibilities for what that picture, that craft, can and should be. Bloggers, writing blog posts, belong on blogs. But writers who write essays… Well those could be anywhere! Your essays could be on a blog, sure. But they could also be in a magazine or a book.
So, now comes the hard part. Make a choice. Name your vessel and fill it. Frame your picture and paint it.

I’m not here. Wherever here is these days. For me, here is as much an idea and a goal as a place. Therefore, here is not quite here for me right now. No place you can see really is. It is largely because of that you have not seen the regular updates in this place I would prefer. I’m not here.
Where am I? As David Foster Wallace used to say, I’m deep into something long. Which was his way of describing where here is for a writer who is writing a book. That is where I am. I’m deep into something long. Furthermore, I’m into something that questions the very heart of how I approach places such as this. Other places as well. Because of these questions, I’m increasingly uncertain as to what belongs where. I am even beginning to wonder if much of this belongs anywhere at all.
When I was a teenager I took a summer long creative writing course. One of the many, many lessons I learned there that stick with me today is this: For a writer, some things come out fully formed. Other things come out a sentence or a word at a time. That you may have a sentence, or even a single word, that you know is great and belongs somewhere but does not quite fit anywhere yet. Stick it aside, the instructor said. It may be days or weeks or years but you will know when it comes to you. That word might be the missing piece of a paragraph. That sentence might be the beginning of a whole book. Or, perhaps, that sentence or word belongs on the sticky note you scribbled it on and stuck aside to remind you that even not having a place is a place in itself.
I feel very much in that place. I feel like so many of those words and sentences I should have stuck aside in a special place just for me I have instead blown into the ether-wind that is Twitter, etc. and now they are in places I can’t find them. I wonder what great paragraphs they might have made or great books they might have spawned. I try to console myself with the idea that someone else’s place is a place as well and perhaps these things might do some good there. Sometimes such consolation works. Far too often not. Which is all the more reason I am not there as much as I used to be. When I am it is at odd hours and quick bursts and unsure intention. I’m just not there anymore. It does not belong to me.
This place is all mine. It even has my name on it. Yet, I’m no longer sure what this place should be for me. This place was a place for me to stick those words and sentences and paragraphs until where they fit was revealed. And now that they live on in that place, as a book, I’m not sure what this place should now contain. I’m not sure what it represents. I’m not sure what this place is and should be.
Frankly, I’m not going to figure it out right now. All I know is that I’m not here. This place is not with where I am and I’m not where this place is. It is mine. I can rip it down and rebuild it should I so choose. Certainly, some of the broader thinking I have been doing around the deep long thing will help with such choices. But I also don’t have to do anything right now. Not choosing is a choice in itself. Perhaps, like those words and sentences and paragraphs that are placeless, perhaps the place for here will be revealed. I have time.
I am deep into that long thing and the deeper I get the less I have to share elsewhere. Only one of my online sites is getting any attention, and that is only because it’s message is similarly aligned with the long thing. Yet even that alignment is still not enough for it not to feel as much a distraction from where here is for me as anywhere else. I rest in the idea that that site at least does not take my head too far out of the game and that maybe a word or sentence I put there might be part of something I just have not seen yet. Perhaps the long thing.
As for this place and most others, if you are wondering where I am, now you know. I’m not here.

You should know by now that I normally do not get into much “news” around here. Especially when it’s not specifically Mac news. There are a ton of great Mac news sites out there and I leave that job up to them. That said, Chairman Gruber linked to a highly fascinating Wall Street Journal Liveblog of today’s Hewlett Packard conference call today. Specifically, he called out this particular statement:

“The tablet effect is real, and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations,” Apotheker says, explaining the movement of consumers from PCs to tablets as one of the problems with the PC division. So H-P is exploring options for its unit that “may include separation through spinoff or other transactions.”

So, as it turns out, HP is getting out of the PC business because of “the tablet effect”. Whereby “tablet” he means “iPad” because, as we all know, there really is no tablet market, there is only an iPad market. So, the only tablet that could have created such an effect is the iPad.

Wait, did you catch that?

The iPad is causing such disruption in the PC business that HP, a company fundamental to the creation of the personal computer itself, is getting out of the PC business.

Wow. Just wow.

And, if you think other PC makers are not also feeling the pain of the tablet eff… oh heck, let’s just call it what it is, the iPad replacing the very idea of the affordable personal computer in the mind of the average consumer, then you are fooling yourself. I mean, Michael Dell may be laughing it up in public but I can promise you he is crapping his pants in the office and crying in the boardroom. I mean, at this point they are not even in the race that HP is giving up.

So, here is where I would like anyone who disagrees with me to feel free to mark this post and then throw it in my face if it turns out I am wrong. Got it bookmarked? Good. Consider this an open letter…

Dear Anyone Else Who Thinks They Have A Chance In The iPad Market,

You don’t. The iPad is the fire that sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Apple zigged and you guys are still trying to figure out what a zag is. It’s sad really, to see companies that were once at the top of the NASDAQ stumble around digging for pocket change in your high-end sofa cushions.

It is time to stop looking and, like HP, face a simple truth – you can’t win playing the iPad game. Because it is not the tablet game. It is the iPad game. And you can’t make those. You can’t even manage to make something as good as those, at least not at that price. Apple has the channel locked up price wise. Tim Cook saw to that. You will never be able to build at the same cost they do and produce anything even close. And let’s just skip the whole integrated end-to-end platform discussion because you guys are just not built that way.

Oh, Google, sit down and shut the eff up because I’m talking to you too. You are the company that names your beta builds after candy, ice cream, and sugared cereals. Apple names their betas after things that will eat your things along with the tasty human wrapper that eats that crap. Do you honestly think anyone can take you seriously?

Where was I?

OK, are we agreed? You are going to stop trying to make iPads right? Good. So, come a little closer, I’m going to give you a secret. You might want to sit down for this one. I’ll try to explain it simply…

Change. The. Game.

Apple did not beat you with the iPad. They beat you with the iPad market. A market they created out of the ashes of burning netbooks, low cost laptops, and PCs that no one really liked or wanted in the first place. There simply was no other option at the time available for them to buy otherwise. Apple created that option.

Just like the iPad created a whole option, and thus, new market (the one you keep calling the “tablet market”), the only way to compete is not to get into that market but to create a whole new one. One that will suck the life out of the iPad market. Something so disruptive, so mind blowing, so magical that, like the iPad, people will form lines around the block for months to get it.

Create. A. New. Option.

Make the iPad as irrelevant as the iPad seems to be doing to the consumer PC.

Huh? What? You want ME to tell you what that is? What do I look like? Fake Steve Jobs?

That’s YOUR job. That’s what you should have been doing… Oh, i don’t know… 10 years ago. Around the same time Steve was dreaming up the iPad.

Microsoft, you still have some great talent left around. Your R+D department is still one of the most respected in the industry. Do something with that. Grab a few Kinects and see what else you can do with that stuff.

Google, you just bought a bunch of patents. Why not dig around in them. Maybe there is something groundbreaking there. Also, use big people beta names for this stuff. Folks might take it more seriously.

To the rest of you, well, do something different. But, for jeepers sakes, do not keep fooling yourself that there is a tablet business or even much of a consumer PC business you have any chance of making real money in. If HP can’t, if Dell can’t, you are toast there.

To recap:

• Stop trying to make iPads. Make markets.

Sincerely,

Patrick

As I have mentioned and intimated many times in ious places, I’m currently hard at work on my next book. The working, and likely final, title is Enough. Anyone who has followed this site long enough should have a basic idea of the what the book will be about from the title alone. That said, for those that are new here, it will be about my ideas surrounding simplicity, minimalism, clutter, consumption, and living a life of balance.

Like my first book, Keeping It Straight, Enough will be a series of essays mainly focusing on concepts, deeper thinking, and discussion surrounding ideas such as…

What is enough?

How does one find it?

What strategies might help in getting there?

Why is it important in the first place?

In a way, it is as much manifesto as it is instruction. There may be some tips and suggestions but they will be bolstered by a heavy dose of reason and purpose.

I have no idea when the book will be “done” let alone published and released. I’m working hard to get there though. Some weeks are better than others. This week has been disastrous but last week was promising. Just know that some of the lack of deeper and more frequent writing here (and for the foreseeable future) is due to my energy and thoughts being directed there.

That said, I wanted to give you a sneak peek at the current draft of the first essay/introduction (I’ve not decided which it is yet). It is not finished but should give you an idea about the sort of direction the rest of the essays in the book will go.

So, here it is…

Enough

My daughter takes classes at a European Style Circus Arts school. It’s a pretty amazing place. They teach and train children, starting at age two, how to perform all manner of classic circus acts. German Wheel, Trap, Triple Trap, Side-by-side, Silks, Spanish Web, etc. Think of Cirque du Soleil but with kids and you have the idea.

Recently, in class, she was learning how to walk the wire. As I watched her, It began to occur to me that this was the perfect metaphor for what I believe the idea of Enough is, and how to discover it.

We all have a center of balance that is unique and different from everyone else. My center of balance is different than yours. My daughter’s, from mine. As she walks the wire, hands out, wobbling to and fro, this is what she is in search of. As she gets older, this process might become easier, faster, with less wobble, but it will never end. No matter how good, she will always need some device to assist her – arms stretched, a long poll, a racket or fan. Even the Flying Wallendas, perhaps the greatest wire act to ever perform and a family team stretching back 10 generations, still wobble and use devices to maintain their balance.

Why is this? Well, because the conditions are constantly changing. Changing in ways that we never really even think of. Here are just a few:

• The wire is usually made of metal. Air temperatures change. Metal expands and contracts slightly in such changes. Thus, the tension of the wire changes ever so slightly as well.
• Wind, as one can imagine, is a factor. Even a slight breeze can make a difference.
• Is there a crowd? Well, applause and other loud noises cause vibrations in the wire.

As you can see, there are many unseen and rarely considered things that can affect one who is walking the wire. Those are just a few of them. These changes require frequent adjustment.And this is outside of the fact that, even if nothing on the wire changed, even the most seasoned wire walkers would still need to make constant slight adjustments to maintain balance, both physical and mental.

So it is with the idea of Enough. What is enough for you will be different than what is enough for me. Also, what is enough for each of us will change with changing conditions. If I’m really hungry, an apple will likely not be enough for me. If I have just eaten a full meal with dessert, an apple will be too much. The goal is to find the sweet spot, the center of balance, that allows one to have enough or what one needs when one needs it. But even this will change and requires constant adjustment and re-evaluation as the conditions change. Just like balancing on the wire.

The goal then, is not to find what is, or will be, enough forever. That is impossible. The goal is to discover the tools and strategies you need to find what is enough for you right now and provide the flexibility to adjust as the conditions change.

Most people that know me have never seen my face. Not most of my friends. Not even my wife. As I write this, I’m not even sure I remember what it looks like.
I have worn a beard since my mid twenties, I think. It’s been so long I’m not sure. I like the way I look with one. Not so much without. It is a part of me. As such, I feel it is as much a part of my face as my nose, or my eyes. Yet, because I wear my beard by choice and it can be easily shorn, it is not quite the same.
My beard also serves many functions. For most of the Minnesota year, it shields against the chill. It helps to hide imperfections. The scar I have on the underside of my chin from the falls I took as a child. Some of the splotches of Seborrhoeic dermatitis I quietly suffer. And, in this way, it is a mask that I use to disguise a face I feel ugly and scared and weathered.
Perhaps it is time to give those I love at least a glimpse of what hides beneath. So that I can say, “You have seen my face. All of it’s character and faults. Thus, you know me.”

Here is something that I only recently recognized about myself. I really enjoy having freshly washed hands. It’s not just about the cleanliness though. It’s the act of washing them. Especially with a really nice soap. I love the way they feel and the way they smell. It is one of the simplest things, on the face of it, but one that gives me a fair amount of joy and pleasure.
There are many other tiny things that give me joy and pleasure too. Writing with a really good pen. Walks with my little girl around my neighborhood. A clean car (both inside and out). Being smartly dressed.
I don’t feel any of us take enough time to identify these simple, often free, acts that give us pleasure and joy. Even those of us that do, often do not take enough time or give ourselves permission to indulge in them. Especially when it would benefit us the most.
Having a bad day? Feeling a little down? If you have some of these tiny pleasures already identified, see if acting on one can help turn things around. It likely wont solve the whole problem. But, at least for a moment, it may help you feel differently.
Even if things are just fine, it can never hurt to inject some happiness into your day. Relish the simple acts that bring joy.

I recently made a massive simplifying change to my RSS System following my experience while on, and after returning, from vacation. I’ve covered my system many other places before, but to summarize, I had things organized into a series of folders that helped me know what the read and what to ignore when things got busy.

Coming back after a long while away I found I had so much to “catch up” on. Even the little number indicating unread items in my a-list, must read, folder seemed daunting. I knew there had to be a better and simpler way. So I put some thought into it.

Things I read regularly fall into two categories, really…

Important – These are things I read and consistently derive a lot of value from. Whether that be personal value because I love the writer or am endlessly curious about the subject or actual value because it helps in my endeavors that produce income (writing for instance).

Unimportant – Anything that does not fit into the above.

Therefore, I have ditched my multiple folder based system for only two. On the busy days, or if I ignore my RSS for an extended period of time like a vacation or digital sabbatical, I know I can mark as read on the Unimportant folder and walk away knowing I likely have not missed, well, anything important.

Astute readers may already see the obvious conceit in this. If it’s not important, why read it at all? Well, that’s a great question. Let me try to explain…

For a while, I’m actually going to track how often and frequently I do mark as read on the unimportant things. I’m also going to see if I actually do derive value from some of the things in there. Everything, in either folder, will be under constant scrutiny as to which folder it belongs. I have already moved a couple of things from one to the other since making this change a couple of nights ago.

Then, after a while, I will know that what is in the Important folder really is and will unsubscribe from everything in the Unimportant folder. Yep. Gone.

Any new subscriptions will be added only under the criteria set for what is important. Which I welcome, of course. The goal here is to increase signal and reduce noise. If there is something I should be reading regularly that I’m not, I really do want to know about it. That said, I’m going to be very picky.

So, there you have it. Yet another crazy experiment by a guy with more questions than answers.

For our five year anniversary, my lovely wife got me quite a few important additions to my writing library:

• The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition
• The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition
• On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft – Stephen King
• On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction – William Zinsser
• The Little English Handbook: Choices and Conventions – Edward P.J. Corbett, Sheryl L. Finkle

I know there is a ton more I could post about Apple’s announcements coming out of WWDC. But I think while all of the details and features of iCloud, iOS 5, and Mac OS X Lion are interesting, there is an idea that these technologies surround and support that is far more so. In fact, it could be perhaps the most fundamental shift in the idea of what a computer is in many years.

The idea is this: Your data is the computer.

This is the new world that Apple is creating. Where your data resides, the device you use to access it, how it is saved, where it is saved, how to manipulate it, how to back it up, how to recover if you make changes to it that you did not intend, all will be things you don’t have to think about.

Your data will be available to you on any device you own. It will be left exactly as you last left it. You can open it in any application that it is able to open it. Should your computer crash, do not fear, your data is safe. And when you get a new machine, simply log into it and all of your data will be there in short order. Buy a new Mac, a new iPhone, and new iPad, simply log in and the data will be there too.

When the device does not matter, when it’s always as you left it, if it opens where you need it, and it is always backed up, we can concentrate on making, creating, doing, being.

Also, I think this is the fundamental difference between how Apple is approaching this idea and Google is doing so. To Google, as to John Gage ten years ago, the network is still the computer. To Apple, your data is. And this difference will define an era.

In fact, Steve Jobs hinted at this idea when he said during the keynote, “Some people think the cloud is just a big disk in the sky… We think it’s way more than that.”

It is not until I start thinking about these things that I realize that we are on the cusp of a shift in computing that is among the largest I may see in this lifetime.

I have a big voice. It’s deep. Resonating. Booming. I get loud, quickly, without realizing that I’m doing so. It’s often difficult to control. Especially when I get excited or passionate about what I’m saying. Many who know me will tell you that I get excited and passionate about a lot of things.
My dear wife, bless her heart, has taken to gently whispering “Inside voice…” when these times occur. Perhaps to some it may come off as a bit maternal, like she is speaking to a child. The truth is, I don’t mind it. In fact, I have slowly adopted it to mean more than just how she intends it – A gentle reminder to lower my voice to an acceptable tone for the situation.
Indeed, I am also using this as a reminder to myself. Not only using my inside voice more but also listening to my inside voice more. I am trying to be more conscious of being silent and really listening both to others in conversation and to my internal dialog when I am alone. To speak carefully and with purpose.
Far too often I don’t listen to my inside voice. I don’t listen to it when it is telling me I’m hungry. I don’t listen when it is telling me I need rest. I am too busy responding to the noise the world is making. My mind too involved with output to process the many inputs and interpret their meaning. My inside voice will tell me when something is an opportunity. It will also warn me when something is not quite right.
So, I have resolved to be more beholden to the voice inside and practice silence so I can hear it.