on ‘Picking up Dirt’

Out for an evening run, I noticed an elderly looking woman standing in the driveway to an office building, hunched over, picking things up from the ground. It appeared as though she had dropped some change and was trying to collect it.

I trotted over, intent to help her recover whatever she had lost and get her out of the road. She was wearing fine clothes, and appeared to be in good health.

“What did you lose?” I asked.

“I’m picking up dirt.”

“Oh.”

She looked up at me with an expression of honesty and kindness that somehow rebuked the crazy motive she had just announced for standing in the middle of the street.

“Well, that’s just dust from the asphalt, crumbles of rocks and stuff, I don’t think you’re going to get all that up. Why don’t you step over to the sidewalk?”

“NO, I’m picking up the STICKS. Those are from TREES, not the ROAD.”

“Hey, I’m just afraid you’re going to get hit by a car. This is a busy road, and it’s getting dark.”

She gestured around at all the empty office buildings – “Everyone is leaving! I am not going to get hit by a car. I’m picking this up because no one else does.”

She shot me a glare: “Are you an American?” she asked.

“yes.”

“Do you love Jesus?”

Feeling trapped, I began to answer, slowly realizing that my attempt to engage in neighborly assistance had somehow twisted into an exploration of the deepest fibers of my moral character. She tossed a few other strange questions at me, inquiring whether I had dinner, and what I ate, all the while grinning in a strange way.

Realizing that there was nothing I could do, short of trying to physically move her out of her current position, I jogged away, wishing her luck.

I made it back to my apartment, and attempted to turn the odd episode into a funny blog post. Ha ha, I met a crazy lady picking up dirt in the road!

I realized the situation wasn’t very funny, and that I was concerned about this person getting hit by a car, despite her condemnation at my refusal to declare love to Jesus in the middle of the road during a Tuesday evening jog.

I drove back to where she had been and noticed her bags still in the road, but her missing, so I phoned the police, on the basis that it was now dark and she was genuinely at risk of getting lost, or injured. They were familiar with her. I went on with my business.

I suppose I did the right thing, but now at work the next day, I’m still a little unsettled by it.

The woman appeared to be in her mid 70′s, which is a plentiful amount of years more than I have under my belt. When I asked her what she was doing and she said “picking up dirt,” I knew it was absurd, but she actually seemed to really believe that what she was doing had some great purpose.

If I flipped the context, and imagined someone very much younger than me.. say, 5 years old.. coming into my office today, and asking me what I’m doing. I would say “I’m trying to build a Chrome extension to run the Google BITE tool.” 

In the context of a 5 year old’s reality, I would be as absurd saying that as the old woman had been saying to me that she was picking up dirt.

So whatever it was she was really doing, I hope I didn’t interrupt it too awfully by trying to save her from becoming a pedestrian accident statistic.

on “The Bug”

For several years, my job has been testing web sites. There’s several ways to describe what I do, the commonest being that I “look for bugs.” I perform a role known formally as ‘Quality Assurance’ on web development projects, and I’ve worked on a variety of sites, like HGTV, the Washington Post, TroopSwap, and Better Medicine.

I’m not a programmer by training, but much of the QA process requires logical thinking and familiarity with engineering practices. As someone who majored in English and spent more time reading Shakespeare than learning UNIX commands, my career has been an experiment of patience. Testers are usually outnumbered by coders, so it can be a lonely (and thankless) task.

I recently found a novel that lucidly captures the mentality of testers, developers, and anyone who has had to deal with the often infuriating process of creating software.

“The Bug” by Ellen Ullman tells the story of a single software defect that dramatically affects the lives of all who encounter it. A tester and a coder frame the narrative, the tester happy to find a flaw within a system she feels intellectually superior to, and the coder driven to madness by trying to fix it.

I connected to the story on a remarkable level, given the ‘tester’ character’s background in literature and linguistics. For those who have thought deeply about the power and nuance of the English language, the efficiently dull and plodding ‘languages’ of software can be infuriating.

What the novel does brilliantly is reveal what I feel is easily overlooked in software development – the unavoidable connection between the ‘coder’ and the ‘code’. Developers have pride in how universal and general code is intended to be,  but all intellectual creations carry the signature of their maker, however faint they intend it to be.

Days and weeks spent in conversation with a machine that at its core only understands two statements – true or false – can shift the perspective of the people behind  the screen. Tunnel vision can be a fatal result. Long stretches of time thinking in binaries can strip people of the humanity required to see the ‘big picture’ of what they’re trying to achieve.

“The Bug” captures the dichotomy of thinking like machines in order to assist people – in much richer and more studied language than you’ll find in any programming manual.

Ullman’s gift for uncovering the fallible humanity that hides in the cracks of software is evident in passages like this one:

 ”But now I knew that between one pixel and the next—no matter how densely together you packed them—the world still existed, down to the finest grain of the stuff of the universe. And no matter how frequently that mouse located itself, sample after sample, snapshot after snapshot—here, now here, now here—something was always happening between the here’s. The mouse was still moving—was somewhere, but where? It couldn’t say. Time, invisible, was slipping through its digital now’s.”

on National Geographic Live!

The National Geographic Society has launched a program called ‘NG Live!’ in which brilliant photographers from the magazine’s pages present their work at the Grosvenor Auditorium, in Washington D.C. to a curious and appreciative audience.

Gardens by Night

Diane Cook and Len Jenshel presented an alluring series of exposures from gardens around the world, captured during the darkest hours of night. The soft light from the moon casts a diaphanous glow on the beautiful landscapes in the images. Gardens, curated carefully to be visually pleasant, calming and intricate, show a hidden power at night.

Fuling and Changing China

I’m acquainted with the modernizing landscape along the Yangtze River from my own travels, but gained fresh perspective from the images captured by Anastasia Taylor-Lind. Her presentation ‘Fuling and Changing China’ uncovered an engaging and striking portrait of the people, structures, and natural beauty of the region.

Ms. Taylor-Lind journeyed along the river learning about the displacement of families during the Three Gorges Dam project, documenting their struggles and achievements.

In addition to her work in China, she showed photos of her experience documenting the search for supermodels in Siberia, and also portraits of the women participating in southern Russia’s ‘Cossack resurgence.’

Alison Wright and the Human Spirit

Alison Wright could be the most amazing storyteller, both through pictures and her personal narrative, that I’ve had the pleasure of listening to. Her travels have taken her everywhere, and her fearlessness shines in all of her work. The dangers she encountered have strengthened her – she was told she would never walk again after suffering a terrible injury in a motor accident in Laos, but a few years later she was back behind the camera, working during the disasters in Haiti and New Orleans, and eventually returning to Asia to visit the doctor who saved her life.

If only all of us who love photography could be as blessed with unfailing curiosity and the will to exercise it as Ms. Wright is.

on Cooking

I am a fumbling amateur in the kitchen. I can deftly boil pasta, sleepily scramble eggs, and drunkenly burn popcorn. Anything past that is an adventure.

A few weeks ago I signed up for a food delivery service called Blue Apron, which provides the all ingredients and recipes to make 3 meals a week.

My first few meals with Blue Apron have been, to understate it, a Fucking Miracle.

Here’s a rundown on several of the dishes I’ve prepared:

Sea Bream with Tomato Jam, Green Beans and Black Rice. This was my first whirl with B.A., and I felt like a crazy Franken-chef setting out all the ingredients. My doubts evaporated at first bite. The tomato jam was sweet and I could eat it on anything.  I usually torture rice, but the right amount of butter and lemon saved this batch.

Linguini with Cod, Fresh Peas, and Spring Herbs. This was delicious, and with my extensive pasta boiling experience, a breeze. The cod was kind of sticky in the pan, but it transitioned admirably to the plate. Mint and basil floated a nice aroma, complemented by red pepper flakes.

Roast Beef with Horseradish Sour Cream & Heirloom Carrots. I’ve never cooked roast beef before in my life, and I didn’t know carrots came in colors other than orange. With the accompanying mizuna salad, this plate scored lots of ‘sensibly healthy’ points. The carrots were stubborn in the oven but the beef roasted perfectly.

Chicken Legs with Green Ball Cauliflower, Seared Grapefruit & Yogurt Sauce. This looked the prettiest of the dishes I’ve made, but beauty is skin deep – I ruined it. I inadvertently put enough garlic in the Yogurt sauce to murder Dracula, and the bitter grapefruit was difficult to slice. The chicken… survived. Micro Celery added flair to the mistakes.

on What Went Well

I stumbled on the discipline of ‘positive psychology’ in my reading about gamification, and it has gone on to be a very satisfying subject to study. I started with the primer ‘Optimal Functioning,’ a short introduction, and went on to read ‘Flourish’ by Martin Silegman.

Positive psychology suggests that the best approach to psychological health is not just analyzing negative emotion. Looking for causation and suggesting remedies to depression or anxiety doesn’t enhance ‘wellness’ in the impacting way that actively seeking and drawing out positive thoughts and feelings does. 

A suggested exercise is the ‘What Went Well’ activity. According to Seligman’s studies, people who write down three things that ‘go well’ every single day, with a short explanation of why, are much more likely to experience positive emotion on a regular basis within a month of beginning the practice, than those who don’t participate.

The entries don’t have to be richly detailed, and you aren’t expected to have three major life events every single day – but by recognizing the good, small things that occur on a regular basis, optimistic outlook and positive energy can grow significantly.

I’m writing this post because four months into the ‘What Went Well’ experiment, I’m  more consistently in a good mood, regularly having positive experiences, and more actively engaged in my own day-to-day well being. 

For example, something that is going well for me today – I’m sharing the concept of positivity with anyone reading this blog. I highly recommend the W.W.W. practice, and hope that some readers will give it a try.

on the Boston Bombing

A week before the Boston Marathon bombing, I was volunteering at a ten mile race in Washington D.C. 

I spent the morning at the finish line of the Cherry Blossom 10 miler, giving medals to the elated finishers of the race. Thousands of people ran the circuit around the Tidal Basin, past the blooming trees, enjoying the Spring sun as it rose over the river. 

There was no notion of danger, no way I could conceive of the violence that would rattle a similar event just a week later in a city not too far away. There is no way to prepare for such madness, no avenue of avoidance to strictly follow. Ugliness exists, and it struck Boston. 

My deepest condolences go out to those affected by the violence, and my sincerest praise to those who finished the race, and those who helped apprehend the criminals. 

As details emerge about the case, the prevailing question seems to ask why young men raised for a decade in America, sharing our values and apparently excelling in matters of school and community, why would they suddenly, desperately pivot toward extremism? Why would they strike at the city that they lived in?

There are no easy answers. 

Herman Hesse on Trees

This has been blogged on Brain Pickings and several other places, but it pops into my mind often when I’m outside walking and looking at the trees, so I wanted to share (for Earth Day):

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. . . . Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

Herman Hesse