As always, my goal for the year was 30 books. I finished with 34.
My Top Five Recommendations from the Year, in no particular order:
5. On Mental Toughness, by Harvard Business Review
4. Why Courage Matters : The Way to a Braver Life, by John McCain
3. When: the Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, by Daniel Pink
2. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
1. Get Out There : Normalize Greatness
Honorable Mentions:
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-N- Stuff : Books : Reading Log
Loved this book. A must read for anyone.
“Shotton had an insatiable appetite for feedback - a quality I have seen in all the top business performers I have worked with. They have a particularly strong need for instant, in the moment feedback. One top sales and marketing director I worked with told me that he would never have stayed at his current position if the CEO hadn’t given him relentless, sometimes brutally honest critiques” (pg 6).
“It takes supreme, almost unimaginable grit and courage to get back into the ring and fight to the bitter end” (pg 8).
“The skills required to conquer adversity and emerge stronger and more committed than ever are the same ones that make extraordinary leaders” (pg 9).
Leadership crucibles can take many forms. Some are violent, life-threatening events. Others are more prosaic episodes of self-doubt. But whatever the crucible’s nature, the people we spoke with were able to create a narrative around it, a story of how they were challenged, met the challenge, and became better leaders” (pg 12).
“Happiness . . . is not a function of your circumstances; it’s a function of your outlook on life” (pg 20).
“The ability to grasp context implies an ability to weigh a welter of factors, ranging from how very different groups of people will interpret a gesture to being able to put a situation in perspective” (pg 24).
“Hardiness is just what it sounds like - the perseverance and toughness that enable people to emerge from devastating circumstances without losing hope” (pg 24).
“People who don’t give up have a habit of interpreting setbacks as temporary, local, and changeable” (pg. 27).
“Make a consistent, ongoing commitment to immersing yourself in new systems and ways of thinking. It cannot be an occasional event, because the point is to expose yourself to a variety of cases and situations that cumulatively encode rich experiences in your brain” (pg 46).
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few” (pg 51).
“The best long-term performers tap into positive energy at all levels of the performance pyramid” (pg. 54).
“At lunch, her leaves the office - something he once would have found unthinkable - and walks outdoors for at least 15 minutes” (pg 65).
“Pause more to think, and to take a time out” (pg 66).
“Stress have many wonderful attributes. It reminds us that we care” (pg 71).
Four lenses through which managers can view adverse events:
Control: When a crisis hits, do you look for what you can improve now rather than trying to identify all the factors - even those beyond your control - that caused it in the first place?
Impact: Can you sidestep the temptation to find the origins of the problem in yourself or others and focus instead on identifying what positive effects your personal actions might have?
Breadth: Do you assume that the underlying cause of the crisis is specific and can be contained, or do you worry that it might cast a long shadow over all aspects of your life
Duration: How long do you believe that the crisis and its repercussions might last?
“Even a dramatic career failure can become a springboard to success if you respond in the right way” (pg 90).
“Resilience is one of the key qualities desired in business leaders today, but many people confuse it with toughness . . . resilience . . . is not about deflecting challenges but about absorbing them and rebounding strong than before” (pg 98).
“Accepting adversity and moving on isn’t easy and can take time. You don't have to like or somehow justify what’s happened. You just have to decide that you can live with it” (pg 99).
Grade: A
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-N- Stuff : Books : Reading Log
“Whatever his mood - whether it was gay or breeze, or dark with rage - he had one pervading characteristic: he was purposeful” (pg. 14).
Shackelton’s unwillingness to succumb to the demands of everyday life and his insatiable excitement with unrealistic ventures left him open to the accusation of being basically immature and irresponsible. And very possibly he was - be conventional standards. But the great leaders of historical record - the Napoleons, the Nelsons, the Alexanders - have rarely fitted any conventional mold, and it is perhaps an injustice to evaluate them in ordinary terms. There can be little doubt that Shackleton, in his way, was an extraordinary leader of men” (pg 15).
“For scientific leadership give me Scott; for Swift and efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton” (pg 16).
“Fortitudine vincimus - By endurace we conquer”
“I do not know how they did it, except that they had to” (pg 348).
This book was such an impact, was so inspiring, it made it into my weekly “Thoughtful Thought” staff email!
"Normalize Greatness." I shared this quote at the beginning of the year, and as we head into our final week of the semester, it has repeatedly come back to mind.
The days leading up to Christmas break are tough. We're tired, kids are antsy, projects and papers are due, and well, we're tired! For some, very tired.
Yet, the end is near! Now is the time to dig in and finish strong. Which can be very difficult to do.
So, if you will allow, I'd like to (hopefully) encourage you with this:
I recently finished the book Endurance, which I shared about a few weeks ago (the story of Ernest Shackleton), and I could not help but be fully inspired. Not only did Shackleton and his men brave and survive the frozen south, loving in relative contentment for over a year on the floating ice, but once they finally discovered land it quickly became apparent that it had nothing to offer and that they must quickly move on. So Shackleton and a few choice others set sail for a larger island some several hundred miles away. They were guided by the stars alone, through some of the worst oceans our world has to offer, for roughly two weeks, never really sleeping and quickly running out of water. But they survived and reached their needle-in-a-haystack- destination. Quickly, however, they discovered they were on the wrong side, and because of boat and weather conditions, they could not sail around. So Shackleton and two others decided to walk across the island. The only problem was nobody ever had, because the "saw-tooth thrust through the tortured upheavel of mountain and glacier that falls in chaos to the northern sea. In short, it was impassable" (pg 327).
Shackleton knew it. The men knew it. But, there was no choice. So they ventured on and conquered the just-about-impossible.
"The crossing of South Georgie has been accomplished only by one other party. That was almost forty years later, in 1955, by a British survey team . . . that party was made up of expert climbers and was well equipped with everything needed for the journey {and well fed!}. Even so, they found it treacherous going" (pg 347).
Yet, Shackleton and his men survived. They were also not surprised when they did. Because they had normalized greatness.
This has been extremely convicting for me lately because it is a tangible reminder of how great our bodies and minds can be. But then, the second I say it, the second I begin to believe it and start to live it out, another very real truth comes to mind. The plight of Boxer.
Boxer, the beloved horse from the brilliant short novel Animal Farm, held firm to his motto, "I will work harder" living it out daily, reciting it often, and becoming a great inspiration to his fellow farm animals. His motto encouraged him to get up earlier, work later, pull harder, and, at times, carry the entire success of the farm upon his broad shoulders.
But then, he fell. He broke. And was quickly sold to the local knackers.
Shackleton's story is a great reminder of what we can endure, what we can accomplish, and what we can overcome, if only we normalize greatness and get after it!
Boxer is a great reminder that we can't always be doing treacherous and crazy things all the time. At times, we need a break, to step away, and to heal.
As we head into our final week, remember Shackleton and continue to normalize greatness. Then, as we head into our Christmas break, remember Boxer and get some rest. A new journey will be waiting for your return:)
It’s been a long time since I read anything religious in nature, but I recently had a craving for this book, one I’d read many many years ago. And I’m glad I did.
I’ve been struggling, recently, with how to lead and love and live in families with people who are difficult, and this book was a great reminder to me and a anchor to reality.
Below are a few of my favorite quotes:
“God’s reckless grace is our greatest hope” (pg. xx).
“Jesus’s purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories” (pg. 13).
“There is no evil that the father’s love cannot pardon and cover, there is no sin that is a match for his grace” (pg. 28).
“The elder brother is not losing the father’s love in spite of his goodness, but because of it” (pg 40).
“The first sign you have an elder-brother spirit is that when your life doesn’t go as you want, you aren’t just sorrowful but deeply angry and bitter” (pg 57).
“It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her” (pg. 63).
“forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting the forgiveness” (pg 94).
Grade: B+
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This week's Positive Sign Thursday word is "Earnest" which means (in my own words, anyway), being a man or woman of sincere conviction, of behaving in a way that aligns with one's moral compass and character. Or, as David Goggins recently said, "The truly successful people in life have learned one thing - and it might be the greatest separator between average and becoming nuclear!!! - and that is learning to do when you don't want to do!"
This word has become an unintended theme in my recent readings, starting with the story of Earnest Shackelton (how great of a name is that!!!) and his journey throughout the South Pole. Before that, was Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor who was diagnosed with cancer and, with only months left to live, gave his Last Lecture. He then turned his final words into a book, which Mrs. Vielleux was kind enough to recommend.
Below are a few of my favorite quotes from the book.
“Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome” (pg. 33).
“When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you” (pg. 37).
“There’s a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It’s not something you can give; its’ something they have to build . . . you give them something they cant do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process” (pg. 37).
Kirk (from the Starship Enterprise) “was the ultimate example of a man who knew what he didn’t know, was perfectly willing to admit it, and didn’t want to leave until he understood. That’s heroic to me” (pg. 45).
“I don’t believe in the no-win scenario” - Kirk (pg. 46).
“The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something” (pg 52).
“It’s such a shame that people perceive you as being so arrogant, because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life” (pg 68).
“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse” (pg 88).
“It’s a thrill to fulfill your own childhood dreams, but as you get older, you may find that enabling the dreams of others is even more fun” (pg. 115).
“Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier” (pg 139).
“When you’re frustrated with people, when they’ve made you angry, it just may be because you haven’t given them enough time . . . in the end, people will show you their good side. Almost everybody has a good side. Just keep waiting. It will come out” (pg 143)
“Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right” (pg. 147).
Rocky didn’t care if he won the fight, “He just didn’t want to get knocked out” . . . “It’s not how hard you hit. It’s how hard you get hit . . . and keep moving forward” (pg 147).
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer” (pg 149).
I came across this book because of the below interview.
I read it and was, for the most part, entertained. Just not sure if I would ever recommend it, largely because what the interview focuses on is really only a minor - even very minor - detail in the story. There are some strong parallels, but really, the story is about another man entirely.
I did appreciate the ending, though.
I think I’ll watch the movie next, out of curiosity.
I was told by many to read this book. That it would be a great read, a difficult read, and one worth my time.
It was okay, I thought. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth reading. If nothing else, these quotes - like nuggets found in the cold Northern rivers, were worth the effort to find.
“Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment” (pg 30).
“When I saw those toenails I nearly fainted. I thought, Oh jeez, she’s a real person. I started imagining her sitting in her bathroom paining those toenails, and it hit me for the first time that those cells we’d been working with all this time and sending all over the world, they came from a live woman. I’d never thought of it that way” (pg. 91).
“Black scientists and technicians, many of them women, used cells from a black woman to help save the lives of millions of Americans, most of them white” (pg 97).
“The worst thing you can do to a sick person is close the door and forget about him” (pg 276).
Grade: C+
For more on . . .
Yeah, I don’t know. It wasn’t great.
If you have something else, I’d probably read that instead.
“An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place and circumstances. The thread may stretch or tangle. But it will never break.” - Ancient Chinese Proverb
This quote is written at the beginning of the book. And, for me, sums it up completely. It’s a giant cliche, and I’m kinda tired of it.
Sure, the story is fine and full of people saving other people. But I’m just kinda tired of the rich white person saving the poor black kid. And even though she writes fairly often, “he saved me”, I just don’t care. This storyline - this very visible thread - has run its course. I mean, are there no rich black people helping little white kids?!?
The story was fine, and I’m happy for them both. But the stereotypes are affirmed, the script old, and really, it just isn’t worth reading. Because you already have, hundreds and hundreds of times.
Grade: D
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“Research shows that whatever the default choices are, many people stick with them, even when the stakes are much higher than choosing the noise your phone makes when it rigns” (pg 8)
What is the default of our school?
When considering perspectives:
When considering the influence of Social Media:
pg 54
pg 57
“People are paying less attention to you than you believe. If you have a stain on your shirt, don’t worry, they probably won’t notice. But in part because people do think that everyone has their eyes fixed on them, they conform to what they think people expect” (pg 62).
“Many people will take whatever option requires the least effort, or the path of least resistance” (pg 85).
“If I do nothing, nothing changes” (pg 85).
“The best way to help Humans improve their performance is to provide feedback. Well-designed systems tell people whey they re doing well and when they are making mistakes” (pg 92).
Grade: A (for the first hundred pages. After that . . . meh.)
For more on . . .
Just a beautiful book. Not much of anything happens, except what we almost wish we could do: be slow and thoughtful, intentional, and free.
If I had time and energy, I’d consider the imagery of the train, the boat she constantly steals, and the house they abandon. But because I have neither time nor energy right now, I’m content with simply saying it was a beautiful book and the kind that, as a writer, I wish I could write.
Just look at this, for example:
Beautiful.
Grade: B+ (mostly because I read it when I was tired.)
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I finished it, so there’s at least that going for it.
But truly, I just found the book shallow and uninspiring. For at least two reasons worth spending time one.
Love. Whether its the love for the elephant or for between the two major characters (can’t even remember their names), I found myself asking, “Why? Why are you in love?” There was no depth, no reason, and no purpose. It felt very shallow and almost uncomfortable.
The old man. Again, I don’t remember the main characters name and I don’t care to remind myself because he too ruined the joy of the story. He’s a cranky asshole whom no one - even his own kids - want to be around. Why should I care about him or his life?
It just all seemed more than a bit shallow and a whole lot of a waste of time.
But, like I said, I finished it. So there must be something right about it.
Maybe the movie was better, but I doubt it.
Some of my favorite quotes/ideas:
“Does it stick its neck out a little bit? Does it take a stand? Is it willing to unsettle some of the guests (or maybe the host)? Does it refuse to be everything to everyone?” because “Gatherings that please everyone occur, but they rarely thrill. Gatherings that are willing to be alienating - which is different from being alienating - have a better chance to dazzle” (pg. 17).
But what re the ingredients for such a sharp, bold, “meaningful gathering”?
Specificity
Uniqueness
”Why is this gathering different from all my other gatherings? What is this that other gatherings are not?
Disputable purpose
Zoom out: get a bigger picture of why what your doing matters (pg. 21)
Drill, baby, drill: Keep asking why you’re doing what you’re doing until you hit a belief or value (pg 22).
Reverse Engineer an outcome: “Thing of what you want to be different because you gathered, and work backward from there” (pg 23).
When there really is no purpose: Cancel. Give people their time back.
A modest host is “related to a desire not to seem to seem like you care too much - a desire to project the appearance of being chill, cool, and relaxed about your gathering” when, in reality, having a focus can do your guests a favor by having a focus (pg 29).
”The purpose of your gathering is more than an inspiring concept. It is a tool, a filter that helps you determine all the details, grand and trivial. To gather is to make choice after choice: place, time, food, forks, agenda, topics, speakers. VIrtually every choice will be easier to make when you know why you’re gathering, and especially when that why is particular, interesting, and even provocative.
Make purpose your bouncer. Let it decide what goes into your gathering and what stays out” (pg 31).
“The crux of excluding thoughtfully and intentionally is mustering the courage to keep away your Bobs. It is to shift your perception so that you understand that people who aren’t fulfilling the purpose of your gathering are detracting from it, even if they do nothing to detract from it. This is because once they are actually in your presence, you (and other considerate guests) will want to welcome and include them, which takes time and attention away from what (and who) you’re actually there for. Particularly in smaller gatherings, every single person affects the dynamics of a group. Excluding well and purposefully is reframing who and what you are being generous to- your guests and your purpose (pg. 43).
“What if you held your next college reunion in a cemetary, reminding your classmates, directly if morbidly, that time is of the essence for fulfilling the ideals they professed in their youth” (pg. 58).
“Sometimes generous authority demands a willingness to be disliked in order to make your guests have the best experience of your gathering” (pg 81). This can best be done with three goals in mind:
Protect your guests - “We usually feel bad saying no to somone. But it can become easier when we understand who and what we are protecting when we say no” (pg 83).
Equalize your guests
Connect your guests
“Sometimes you need to spice things up . . . How do I mix things up at my next gathering?” (pg. 111)
“Many gatherings would be improved if people were simply asked for their stories” (pg. 210) because a story “is about a decision that you made. It’s not about what happens to you. And if you hit that and you get your vulnerability and you understand the stakes, and a few other things, people will intuitively find great stories to tell, and as soon as they do, we know them. We know them as human beings. This is no longer my boss’s colleague. This is a real person who had heartbreak. Oh, I know that” (pg. 212).
The Dark Theme
“If guests often bring their stump rather than sprout speeches to events, if they often talk of their theories rather than their experiences, then organizers can succumb to their own kind of phoniness. They insist on keeping gatherings positive, especially when choosing themes. The meaningful gatherer doesn’t fear negativity, though, and in fact creates space for the dark and the dangerous’ (pg. 212) . . .
“the best themes were not always the sweet ones, like happiness or romance, but rather the ones that had darker sides to them: fear, Them, borders, strangers. The ones that allowed for many interpretations. The ones that let people show sides of themselves that were weak, that were confused and unprocessed, that were morally complicated.
Sadly, themes like these are exiled from so many of our gatherings. Far too many of them, especially more professionally oriented ones, are run on a cult of positivity. Everything has to be about what’s going well, about collaboration, about hope and the future. There is no space for what our guests were telling us they wanted at the dinners: a chance to pause and consider what is not uplifting but thought- and heart-provoking” (pg 213)
“If you want to try this type of gathering, centered on people’s real selves rather than their best selves, you need to warn them” (pg. 220).
“Early in the gathering, you, the host, need to go there yourself. You need to show them how” (pg 222).
Controversy “of the right kind, and in the hands of a good host, can add both energy and life to your gatherings as well as be clarifying. It can help you use gatherings to answer big questions: what you want to do, what you stand for, who you are. Good controversy can make a gathering matter” (pg. 225).
“Good controversy is the kind of contention that helps people look more closely at what they care about, when there is danger but also real benefit in doing so. To embrace good controversy is to embrace the idea that harmony is not necessarily the highest, and certainly not the only , value in gathering. Good controversy helps us re-examine what we hold dear: our values, priorities, nonnegotiables. Good controversy is generative rather than preservationist. It leads to something better than the status quo. It helps communities move forward in their thinking. It helps us grow. Good controversy can be messy in the midst of the brawling. But when it works, it is clarifying and cleansing - and a forceful antidote to bullshit” (pg. 233).
“What do you think is the most needed conversation for this group to have now?” (pg. 239).
Grade: A-
There is a lot of good stuff in here. A lot. There’s also some dragging on moments. But overall, as a father, friend who likes to host, and administrator, its a great and extremely purposeful read.
For more on . . .
“A swamp knows all about death,” the book states in its opening page, “and doesn’t necessarily define it as tragedy, certainly not a sin”, instantly blurring the lines between good and evil, right and wrong, murder and death - between justice and revenge.
I should have known from the very beginning that Kya murdered Chase Andrews, but I didn’t. Because I was too busy hoping and believing it was someone else. Chase’s wife, Tate, some jealous sole from the town, like the police officers pondered at one point. I hoped Chase fell on his own and that the swamp covered his tracks, like it did for the many critters that wandered the wild marsh. At one point I remember thinking, “I really don’t care who it is or how he died, just so long as Kya is innocent!” I wanted her to rise above her shitty and devastating experiences, to prove to the townspeople and their better-than-though smugness that they were wrong. Dead wrong. I wanted her to be better than everyone because I believed she was. Because I believed she was innocent.
Then, the prying mantis ate her mate and I knew Delia Owens would not deliver what I wanted. And when Amanda Hamilton turned out to be Kya, I closed my eyes and shook my head ever so slightly because I knew, instantly, that Tate would find the necklace, that Kya was indeed a murderer, and that her life, her story would somehow be seen as right and good and beautiful. Even though she killed a man. Even though she never told her true and loyal love what she’d done. Even though she never sought forgiveness or attempted reconciliation.
And for that, for ending Kya’s story different than what I had hoped for, I am grateful. Because then I would have nothing to think about, to talk about, or to write about.
Chase Andrews had to die. He had to. Because fiction writing isn’t parallel to reality. It is slightly askew to it, starting off simple and relatable and little more than almost boring. But then, almost without notice, it begins to elevate and reach for a greater and higher truth than what we often experience here on Earth. It manifests what we know, what we think we know, and what we believe to be true and asks, is this really what you meant? Are you still on board? Is this really good and right and true? Which is why Chase Andrews had to die, because he isn’t just the antagonist, he’s Evil, the Villain, and the Thief in the Night. And we have always pondered how we as a society, as human beings, should handle such people. And Delia Owens provides us with a possible answer, much like Harper Lee did with Bob Ewell, but with one seemingly insignificant difference. A difference that, over time, makes all the difference in the world.
In To Kill A Mockingbird Bob Ewell not only beat his daughter, accused an innocent man of raping his daughter, and attacked two young defenseless children in the dead of night, he preyed on the weak. Something Atticus Finch thought was abhorrent at best. “As you grow older,” Atticus says to Gem, shortly after the case of Tom Robinson concluded, “you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash . . . There’s nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who’ll take advantage of a Negro’s ignorance.”
“That man is trash”, Attics says, and like all trash that gathers around the house and yard, it should be tossed out and gotten rid of rather then left unattended where it can rot and stink and attract other trash-eating varmints. And that is exactly what Harper Lee and Delia Owens did. They threw out the trash. But I can only smell it still on Delia Owens and Kya, because unlike Boo Radley, they meant to kill their evil. Boo Radley meant to defend the kids. Kya planned it, prepared it, and executed it with a calculated coldness often reserved for monsters. Boo Radley protected the poor, the innocent, and the disadvantaged. Kya protected herself.
I know that sounds cold and heartless and completely detached from the plight of a young girl who has been abused her whole life, survived a rape, and who now feels hunted and tortured by a man who is heralded and protected by the greater and stronger society that shuns her, but hear me out because I’m not mad or frustrated at Kya - how could I be? I am mad and frustrated at Delia Owens. And for good reason. She created a monster, and called it beautiful.
“Tate got special permission,” Owens writes, “for her to be buried on her land under an oak overlooking the sea, and the whole town came out for the funeral. Kya would not have believed the long lines of slow-moving mourners . . . Some curiosity-seeks attended” Owens continues, “but most people came out of respect for how she had survived years alone in the wild the little girl, dressed in an oversized, shabby coat, boating to the wharf, walking barefoot to the grocery to buy grits” (pg 364).
“Respect for how she had survived years alone in the wild.” By the end of the novel, we all - you, me, the townspeople - have grown to respect Kya for a myriad of reasons, but perhaps none more than her fighting spirit. We know what it means to experience hardship, to feel that the world is against us (if even for a short time), and to stand before a crushing disappointment of shattered dreams. Which is why we connect so quickly and so deeply with Kya. Because she is the heightened embodiment of our daily struggles. It’s also why her actions, to murder, to lie, and to deceive, are so fantastically dangerous. Because she is the heightened embodiment of our daily struggles, and our sometimes, our daily fantasies.
If Kya were to have killed Chase Andrews much like Boo Radley killed Bob Ewell, there would be a mutual understanding and even a sigh of relief. Because the garbage would have been taken out and Kya left clean and unblemished. If one of the townspeople, say one of the fishermen who witnessed the rape, had taken care of problem, there would even be a celebration because it would have been a tangible act that the people really did respect her, that they knew what was happening, and that they wouldn’t stand for it. Especially if it were Tate’s dad who did the dead. Oh man, think how poetic THAT would have been. How beautiful the lines, “A swamp knows all about death, and doesn’t necessarily define it as tragedy, certainly not a sin” would have been; how many tears of joy and sadness and hope we would have shed.
But instead, we are asked to mourn the death and celebrate the life of a cold blooded killer, a woman who not only painstaking planned the killing of another human being, but pf someone who delighted in that killing. Consider her poem, “The Firefly”
Luring him was as easy
As flashing valentines
But like a lady firefly
They hid a secret call to die.
A final touch,
Unfinished;
The last step, a trap.
Down, down he falls,
His eyes still holding mine
Until they see another world.
I saw them change.
First a question,
Then an answer,
Finally an end.
And love itself passing
To whatever it was before it began.
Delia Owens writes these words with a joy and satisfaction akin to that of a child who is celebrating the task of completing a 5000 piece puzzle. Only instead of celebrating the art of creation, she’s celebrating the act of destruction.
Even animals don’t do that.
A firefly deceives and preying mantis coerces in order to eat another of their kind, but neither do so with malice or joy in their heart. They merely do it for survival. Which I get the connection to Kya, that she was also killing out of survival, but then she celebrated her kill by keeping a token of her hunt - like a prized deer mounted upon her wall. Boo Radley committed his crime by accident, out of protection for another, and then admitted his crime. Even to the point of coming out of hiding to do so! In contrast, Kya tucked herself in and hid from the rest of the world. Even from her beloved Tate. Which, to me, is her worst offense of all. Because it shows her true heart and truer self.
“eople are willing to override a relatively long period of one kind of behavior with a relatively short period of another kind just because it occurs at the end of one’s life,” Daniel Pink writes in When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. “This is called, ‘end of life bias,’” he continues, suggesting “that we believe people’s true selves are revealed at the end” (pg. 155). This has major implications for two reasons.
One, up until the end, Kya was an unrepentant murderer, a deceiver, and in many ways unfaithful to the one good and true love of her life. Wouldn’t you be pissed to find that your spouse of your life never told you the deepest secret of their life?
And two, because of the story arc with which Delia Owens chooses to tell her story, it is at the end that we find out her terrible deed and therefore has no time to redeem herself. Her being a murderer who holds onto her victims necklace is the last image and understanding of her, leaving us to believe that that is her true self. Not, as Owens would have us believe, “the little girl, dressed in an oversized, shabby coat, boating to the wharf, walking barefoot to the grocery to buy grits.”
Our lasting image of Boo Radley is that of a scared, antisocial young man who has stepped from the shadows to save to kids, thus washing away any and all sins or crimes or social missteps he might have committed. Kya on the other hands sinks back into the shadows of the unknown, of a woman who committed a terrible crime, and who never once thought it right to seek absolution. If even just from her husband.
But that’s easy for me to say. I’ve never been someone’s prey. Which is why I loved this ending. Because it forces me to consider what life would be life from another’s perspective. What it would be like to feel cornered and threatened and hunted by someone who is not only physically bigger and stronger than myself, but who is also protected by the greater and larger society.
I guess I just wanted Kya to be different than the animals she loved. I wanted her to be human, but more so than any one of us. I wanted her to be Chase Andrews’ antithesis and our answer to pain and sorrow and hurt and fear. Instead, she became not unlike any one of us and more like Chase than I think Delia Owens intended.
Chase Andrews had to die. He had to. Because fiction writing isn’t parallel to reality. It is slightly askew to it, starting off simple and relatable and little more than almost boring. But Kya didn’t have to kill him. Someone else should have. Anyone else. Because “A swamp knows all about death and doesn’t necessarily define it as tragedy, certainly not a sin.” But we do.
And Kya murdering Chase Andrews was a tragedy. For her, for Delia Owens, and most importantly for us. We deserve better.
Grade: A
Do I really have to explain why? Again?
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“I want to set out how the standards culture is harming students and schools and to present a different way of thinking about education . . . you do have the power to make the system change”
“If you run an education system based on standardization and conformity that suppresses individuality, imagination, and creativity, don’t be surprised if that’s what it does . . . the old systems of education were not designed with this world in mind”
“Education is one of the main ways that communities pass on their values and traditions from one generation to the next” (pg 8).
“One of the declared priorities is to prepare young people for work. And yet, youth unemployment around the world is at record levels” (pg 14).
Conformity, “the institutional tendency in education to judge students by a single standards of ability and to treat those who don’t meet it as ‘less able’ or ‘disabled’ - as deviations from the norm. In this sense, the alternative to conformity is not condoning disruption; it is celebrating diversity” (pg 36).
Compliance is about “whether and how students are encouraged to ask questions . . . struct compliance is essential in manufacturing products, but people are different (pg 36, 37).
Cultural: Education should enable students to understand and appreciate their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others
“When people live in regular contact, they deeply influence each other’s ways of thinking and behaving . . . Cultural diversity is one of the glories of human existence. The lives of all communities can be hugely enriched by celebrating their own cultures and the practices and traditions of other cultures” (pg 49).
Personal:
“What people contribute to the world around them has everything to do with how they engage with the world within them” (pg 53).
Enabling students to pursue their own interests and strengths:
“We all have a wide range of natural aptitudes, and we all have them differently. Personalization means teachers taking account of these differences in how they teach different students. It also means allowing for flexibility within the curriculum so that in addition to what all students need to learn in common, there are opportunities for them to pursue their individual interests and strengths as well” (pg 88).
“Being in your element is not only about finding your talents. Some people are good at things they don’t really care for. To be in your element, you have to love it” (pg 89).
Engage
”Great teachers understand that it’s not enough to know their disciplines. Their job is not to teach subjects; it is to teach students. They need to engage, inspire, and enthuse students by creating conditions in which those students will want to learn. When they do that, their students will most certainly exceed their own expectations and everyone else’s too. Great teachers achieve results by bringing the best out in their students” (pg 104).
“Rafe Esquith has no teacher’s desk in his classroom. If the desk were there, he might sit behind it, and he thinks that his role is to be moving among his students all the time” (pg 107).
Expect
”Teachers’ expectations have radical implications for the achievements of their students. If teachers convey to students that they expect them to do well, it’s much more likely that they will. If they expect them to do badly, that’s more likely too” (pg 108).
Creative Teaching
”Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value” (pg 118).
Learning to Teach
”Great teachers are the heart of a great school. In their various roles, they can fulfill three essential purposes for students:
Inspiration: They inspire their students with their own passion for their disciplines and to achieve at their highest levels within them.
Confidence: They help their students to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to become confident, independent learners who can continue to develop their understanding and expertise.
Creativity: They enable their students to experiment, inquire, ask questions, and develop the skills and disposition of original thinking (pg 127).
Curiosity - the ability to ask questions and explore how the world works
“Human achievement in every field is driven by the desire to explore, to test and prod, to see what happens, to question how things work, and to wonder why and ask, what if?" (pg 135).
Collaboration - the ability to work constructively with others
Compassion - the ability to empathize with others and to act accordingly
“Practicing compassion is the truest expression of our common humanity and a deep source of happiness in ourselves and others. In schools, as elsewhere, compassion has to be practiced, not preached” (pg 139).
Composure - the ability to connect with the inner life of feeling and develop a sense of personal harmony and balance
”We live in two worlds: the world within us and the world around us. The standards-driven curriculum is full of the outer world. It does little to help young people fathom the world within them. Yet how we act in the world around us is deeply affected by how we see and feel about ourselves” (pg 140).
Grade: B
Some great stuff here for sure. But also, perhaps a bit long. Reduce it by, say, 70 pages, and it would be solid. Still, its worth the read for sure.
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“A man who is a mere author is nothing. If there is anything good in anything I have written, it is the potentiality of adventure in me” - Thomas MacDonagh
“Telling a story at all changes your relationship to the events you are describing” (pg 47).
“Let’s grant for a moment that we are all revisionists now. That we all retell stories in light of our motives. The next question would be: What are your motives? What does this retold story do to the people hearing it, or to the person telling it? If we want noble things in life, we will pull those noble things out of our history and experience. If we are cynics, we will see plenty of justification for our cynicism . . . A false motive might produce a false history” (pg. 48).
“He was able to warn his compatriots against letting slogans do their thinking for them, and criticized those who were ‘really impelled by a sense of . . . fatalism, or by an instinct of satisfying their own emotions, or escaping from a difficult and complex and trying situation” (pg 54).
“We cannot help but bring our desires and our ambitions to our understandings, and so I think the only solution is to make sure we desire what is right and good” (pg. 55).
Grade: C
It was a bit heavy on the historical components that seemed forced. But that could just be me. When he talked about his actual life and experiences and hopes and struggles, I found it golden. Otherwise . . . meh.
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“We simply don’t take issues of when as seriously as we take questions of what” (pg. 92).
“mental keeness, as shown by rationally evaluating evidence, was greater early in the day. And mental squishiness, as evidenced by resorting to stereotypes, increased as the day wore on” (pg 21).
The most unproductive moment of the day is 2:55 (pg 55).
“hourly five-minute walking breaks boosted energy levels, sharpened focus, and “improved mood throughout the day and reduced feelings of fatigue in the late afternoon. These ‘microbursts of activity,’ as researchers call them, were also more effective than a single thirty-minute walking break - so much so that the researchers suggest that organizations ‘introduce physical active breaks during the workday routine.’ Regular short walking breaks in the workplace also increase motivation and concentration and enhance creativity” (pg 61) . . . So if you’re looking for the Platonic ideal of a restorative break, the perfect combination of scarf, hat, and gloves to insulate yourself from the cold breath of the afternoon, consider a short walk outside with a friend during which you discuss something other than work” (pg 63).
The most powerful lunch breaks have two key ingredients - autonomy and detachment. Autonomy - exercising some control over what you do, how you do it, when you do it, and whom you do it with - is critical for high performance, especially on complex tasks. But it’s equally crucial when we take breaks from complex tasks. ‘The extent to which employees can determine how they utilize their lunch breaks may be just as important as what employees do during their lunch’” (pg 65).
Adolescents who get less sleep than they need are at higher risk for depression, suicide, substance abuse, and car crashes . . . ‘Evidence also links short sleep duration with obesity and a weakened immune system’” (pg. 90).
“Temporal landmarks interrupt attention to day-to-day minutiae, causing people to take a big picture view of their lives and thus focus on achieving their goals . . . The implications of the fresh start effect, like the forces that propel it, are also personal and social. Individuals who get off to a stumbling start - at a new job, on an important project, or in trying to improve their health - can alter their course by using a temporal landmark to start again. People can strategically create turning points in their personal histories” (pg 96).
This made me think of FedEx days that Mr. Pink talks about in Drive. “Groups didn’t march toward their goals at a steady, even pace. Instead, they spent considerable time accomplishing almost nothing - until they experienced a surge of activity that always came at the temporal midpoint of a project” (pg 126).
“People are willing to override a relatively long period of one kind of behavior with a relatively short period of another just because it occurred at the end of one’s life. This ‘end of life bias’ suggests that we believe people’s true selves are revealed at the end” (pg 155).
“Every Pixar movie has its protagonist achieving the goal he wants only to realize it is not what the protagonist needs. Typically, this leads the protagonist to let go of what he wants (a house, the Piston Cup, Andy) to get what he needs (a true yet unlikely companion; real friends; a lifetime together with friends)” (pg 163).
“The best endings don’t leave us happy. Instead, they produce something richer - a rush of unexpected insight, a fleeting moment of transcendence, the possibility that by discarding what we wanted we’ve gotten what we need” (pg 164).
“Groups must synchronize on three levels - to the boss, to the tribe, and to the heart” (pg 181) . . . after individuals synch to the boss, the external standard that sets the pace of their work, they must sync to the tribe - to one another. That requires a deep sense of belonging” (pg 189) . . . which “boosts job satisfaction and perfomance” (pg 191).
Nostalgia is a “bittersweet but predominantly positive and fundamentally social emotion. Thinking in the past tense offers a window into the intrinsic self, a portal to who we really are. It makes the present meaningful” (pg 214).
Grade: A+
On the Better Leaders Better Schools podcast, Daniel Pink claims that out of all his works, this book is the most influential on his day-to-day life. I would have to agree.
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Into the Wild by John Krakauer always bothered me. Largely because of how selfish he was and how, somehow, is tragic death has inspired many to model after his journey.
This story, I think, is a much more healthy alternative to Chris McCandless. Plus, he lives to tell about and live out all the truths and experiences he gathered.
Grade: A
A simple great read that will inspire yet balance the adventurous spirit with the joy of living in community with those we love.
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If you liked Life of Pi, you’ll dig this one too.
I didn’t much care for Pi, and I didn’t care much for this one either.
However, I did like these:
”We don’t much like guilt, do we? We prefer to hide it, to forget it, to twist it and present it in a better light, to pass it on to others” (pg. 162).
“While Odo has mastered the simple human trick of making porridge, Peter has learned the difficult animals skill of doing nothing. He’s learned to unshackle himself from the race of time and contemplate time itself . . . It’s a lesson hard learned, just to sit there and be” (pg 300).
I thought the story intriguing enough. Just not my style.
Grade: C
“How we deploy our attention determines what we see” (pg 4).
A great discussion piece for students and or staff:
What information consumes is “the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” (pg 9).
“There are two main varieties of distractions: sensory and emotional. The sensory distractors are easy: as you read these words you’re tuning out the blank margins surrounding this text.” The emotional distractions are those that keep intruding into our thoughts, creating turmoil in our daily lives - (think recent breakups or arguments with a close relationship), (pg 14).
“All of us are smarter than any one of us” (pg 21).
“Good work” : “a potent mix of what people are excellent at, what engages them, and their ethics - what they believe matters” (pg 22).
“Life immersed in digital distractions creates a near-constant cognitive overload. And that overload wears out self-control” (pg. 31).
“Every variety of attention has its uses. The very fact that about half of our thoughts are daydreams suggest there may well be some advantages to a mind that can entertain the fanciful” (pg 39).
“A mind adrift lets our creative juices flow. While our minds wander we become better at anything that depends on a flash of insight, from coming up with imaginative wordplay to inventions and original thinking” (pg 40) . . . other positive functions of mind wandering are generating scenarios for the future, self-refection, navigating a complex social world, incubation of creative ideas, flexibility in focus, pondering what we’re learning, organizing our memories, just mulling life - and giving our circuitry for more intensive focusing a refreshing break” (pg 41).
“In a complex world where almost everyone has access to the same information, new value arises from the original synthesis, from putting ideas together in novel ways, and from smart questions that open up untapped potential. Creative insights entail joining elements in a useful, fresh way” (pg 43).
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant,” Albert Einstein once said. “We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift” (pg. 45).
“Creative insights flowed best when people had clear goals but also freedom in how they reached them. And, most crucial, they had protected time - enough to really think freely. A creative cocoon.” (pg 46).
“I am what I think you think I am” (pg. 70).
“We don’t know who we are until we hear ourselves speak the story of our lives to someone we trust” (pg. 70).
“The journal Surgery reports a study where surgeons’ tone of voice was evaluated, based on ten-second snippets recorded during sessions with their patients. Half the surgeons whose voices were rated had been sued for malpractice; half had not. The voices of those who had been sued were far more often rated as domineering and uncaring . . . research has found that when people receive negative performance feedback in a warm, supportive tone of voice, they leave feeling positive - despite the negative feedback. When they get positive performance reviews in a cold and distant tone of voice, they end up feeling bad despite the good news” (pg 71) . . .
“Attention regulates emotion” (pg 76).
“Attention . . . has a limited capacity: working memory creates a bottleneck that lets us hold just so much in mind at any given moment. As our worries intrude on the limited capacity of our attention, these irrevelent thoughts shrink the bandwidth left for, say, math” (pg 85).
“Cognitive empathy . . . lets us take other people’s perspective, comprehend their mental state, and at the same time manage our own emotions while we take stock of theirs. In contrast, with emotional empathy we join the other person in feeling along with him or her; our bodies resonate in whatever key of joy or sorrow that person may be going through . . . empathic concern lead us to care about them, mobilizing us to help if need be” (pg 98).
“When people listen to someone telling , the brain of the listeners become intimately coupled with that of the storyteller” (pg 103).
“Empathy depends on a muscle of attention: to tune in to others’ feelings requires we pick up the facial, vocal, and other signals of their emotion” (pg 104).
“If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me” VS “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? . . . compassion build on empathy, which in turn requires a focus on others” (pg 106).
“Wayfinding embodies systems awareness . . . detecting and mapping the patterns and order that lie hidden within the chaos of the natural world . . . how to read the signs of seasonal change” (pg 137).
“One of the worse results of system blindness occurs when leaders implement a strategy to solve a problem - but ignore the pertinent system dynamics” (pg 142).
“the ‘illusion of explanatory depth,’ is where we feel confidence in our understanding of a complex system, but in reality have just superficial knowledge” (pg. 143)
“Smart practice always includes a feedback loop that lets you recognize errors and correct them - which is why dancers use mirrors. Ideally that feedback comes from someone with and expert - and so every world-class sport champion has a coach. If you practice without such feedback, you don’t get to the top ranks” (pg 164).
“when you’re feeling good our awareness expands from our usual self-centered focus on ‘me’ to a more inclusive and warm focus on ‘we’ (pg. 170) . . . “cynicism, breeds pessimism: not just a focus on the cloud, but the conviction that there are even darker ones lurking behind. It all depends on where we focus: the mean fan, or the fifty thousand cheering ones” (pg. 171).
Grade: A
Any difficulty I had with this books was completely my own. I read it after during a time where my mind needed rest, not deep and impactful thinking. I would comfortably recommend this to any and everyone interested in being a better person.