Heartcrossings

I was reading this essay curious to understand how Richard Feynman distinguished knowing from understanding but was struck by his definition of what is means to have "fantastic imagination" "If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery. It is very nearly impossible, but not quite, to find any theory which agrees with experiments over the entire range in which all theories have been checked, and yet gives different consequences in some other range, even a theory whose different consequences do not turn out to agree with nature. A new idea is extremely difficult to think of. It takes a fantastic imagination…” As someone from with a very rudimentary science background, I was not able to fully appreciate how imagination plays a role in discovery but it got be thinking about art and literature where it is easier for me to see imagination. T

Heart-warming to read about Toni Morrison handing rejection letters to aspiring authors. There is so much grace and kindness in how she said no.  ..she occasionally ended a rejection by offering her name as a kind of passport with which hopeful authors might navigate the borders erected by other cultural gatekeepers. In 1977, she advised one young writer to find an agent and directed him toward the legendary literary agents Georges Borchardt and Peter Matson, adding, “When you write to them you may say that although I could not take your manuscript myself, I was very much in love with it, and I’m willing to put it in writing.” The role of cultural gatekeeper is to decide the bar writers must clear to be sellable in the market they address. Being sellable is not always correlated to the quality of the writing or the novelty of thought. The world can miss out on both because someone decided to gatekeep for reasons of not meeting the bar not matter how ill-advised. It is also the reason,

Loved reading about this woman who became a scuba diver at fifty just because she wanted to. In the paragraphs that form the story, it becomes evident that she had potential that was ignored, undermined or denied. There are always the better informed, more traveled and worldly relatives who can't wait to find fault. It was only at the age of 45 that Uma revived her interest in painting. “When I started to paint, I felt like I was reborn. Then, I saw a documentary on coral reefs which encouraged me to read more about them. I started painting them and holding exhibitions,” she shares. Once while speaking on the impact of pollution on coral reefs, she was mocked by one of her cousins. “He asked me if I had seen coral reefs in real life, or how the ocean even looked underwater, or what the colour of the ocean was. Although it appears to be blue and beautiful outside, it’s full of pollution inside. This sparked my curiosity to dive deep into the water,” she adds. What is so inspiring a

Nice essay on the building a patchwork family and the particularly painful decision to leave a good enough marriage when there are children involved. An overwhelming majority of folks who are in decent marriages, do their best to maintain status quo. While there maybe the secret yen for change, the gnawing doubts about if this can be the partnership for life, people realize finding good enough is a miracle too. To that end there is the concept of a "parenting marriage" and the rising wave of gray divorces. A parenting marriage simply cannot last after the parenting done. The couple is forced to reorganize in some sense - look the other way or part ways, whichever is less painful, less disruptive.  To me, ‘blended’ suggests a homogenised state of merging; or, more precisely, of erasing differences and becoming indivisible; the new family, a seamlessly repaired vessel trying to replicate the original before it was ruptured. This attempt at merging into one is where so many ste

If you have ever been part of a large program involving between ten to over hundred teams, then you have surely sat in a program retro session. The higher the level of dysfunction in the organization, the greater the zeal of leadership to organize these and spent hours and weeks to get people to provide candid feedback in on what went well, what didn't and what can be improved. At first blush this would seem like an honest and prudent thing to do - let's all be self-critical and call out our collective failures to perform and see what we could change going forward.  Reality tends to be a bit different. The highest ranking person in the session will almost always kick off the session by saying this is not about blaming people so don't make anything personal. It's only about process that can be improved. So the group consisting of those who precipitated trouble and those who dealt with its consequences are now left to review their collective feedback  as myriad manifestat

Kudos to this woman for being able to get honest feedback on why she was not hired for the job - not wasting an hour of her life to put on a face  - that is called making an effort when you are a woman and seeking a senior level position. ..As an HR expert herself, Weaver pushed for feedback, which is when she was told via email by the recruiter that the company was "concerned that you didn't put forth enough effort into your appearance given you were interviewing for a Vice President role." Putting effort into your appearance when female has no single or simple answer. How much effort is enough is the question. What if a woman looks at herself in the mirror and has no problem with what looks back at her. Maybe she applied a lot of effort to remain physically and mentally healthy and takes pride that the results show. But for the person in the video call making a decision about hiring her, that would not be enough - this woman did not aim to look flawless and airbrushed.

I started to volunteer at my local kindergarten recently. The idea has been on my mind for a few years but it took a friend to learn about my goal and hold me accountable - she made sure I signed up for real and just did not waste time "thinking about it". It's early days yet but I already look forward to the mornings I go to the school. The kids recognize me now and beam when I walk in the door of their classroom. We do mundane things together like learning to spell three letter words but it's a great way to learn the distinct personalities of the kids.  Even if  I forgot a name, I would remember how each child was unique. I go through the same exercise with the group of kids but they all behave differently. As they grow familiar with me, they want to spend as much time being silly and playing. These kids were identified as needing extra help but in reality none of them do. They are just bored and don't want to follow instructions. But none of them are acting out