Nobel Prize Lecture -- Maria Ressa, Co-Winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize

I heard Maria Ressa interviewed this morning as part of an International Women's Day event. The bad news (the embarrassing news) is that I've never heard of her before. Somehow, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to two journalists last fall didn't hit my radar screen. The good news is that now I have heard of her and listened to her impassioned plea for truth in journalism, destruction of the disinformation machine, and reining in of social media.

After the brief and impressive interview this morning, I went in search of her Nobel lecture to learn more. Wow!! She is articulate, impassioned, and persuasive. And she is courageous. It is one thing to plead for the protection of truth in journalism in "the West," where you might suffer significant bullying both online and IRL. It is a whole different thing to make that plea in a society where going to jail for what you write and say is a reality. 

Ressa is of course critical of countries like her native Philippines that regularly threaten journalists with imprisonment or government sanctioned violence. She tearfully listed fellow journalists who have recently died or been imprisoned around the world. But Ressa reserves her strongest criticism for the tech algorithms that come out of Silicon Valley. She calls it a behavior modification system that encourages fear, hate, and bigotry in the service of surveillance capitalism than monetizes our clicks.

I can't begin to do justice to her powerful speech. I plan to come back to it here whenever I find myself wondering if Facebook is really so bad. 

Quote of the Day -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For age is opportunity no less 

Than youth itself, though in another dress, 

And as the evening twilight fades away 

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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According to the Poetry Foundation, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the most widely known and best-loved American poets of the 19th century. He achieved a level of national and international prominence previously unequaled in the literary history of the United States and is one of the few American writers honored in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Book Review: Reading People

Reading People by Anne Bogel is essentially a "Cliff Notes" to popular personality frameworks. Bogel takes a tour through The Five Love Languages, Keirsey's Temperaments, The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, The Clifton StrengthsFinder, and The Enneagram. My primary mission for this book was to learn about the Enneagram because I am constantly encountering references to it and felt mystified.

I did learn enough about the Enneagram to fake my way through a conversation, but much to my surprise, I learned a lot more about Myers-Briggs. I first encountered Myers-Briggs several decades ago in a workshop at work. Since then, I've taken the test several more times. My results always come out the same (INTP) and my feelings about it haven't varied much over the years. 

I have no trouble with the N (big picture versus facts) and the T (driven more by reason than emotion). I tend to be an ambivert but I'm OK scoring as an introvert. But I have always struggled with the P/J. In fact, I can never adequately even describe what they are. Not surprisingly, my P/J score is almost evenly split -- 51 to 49 almost every time I test. And that is the area of my life where I am most conflicted between how I think I should be and how I am.

Reading People gave me valuable new insight. Bogel described the cognitive stacks (how we process information and make decisions) that go with each different type. I'd never encountered this discussion of cognitive stacks, before. I read the descriptions before I looked at the stacks, and low and behold, my cognitive stack is definitely INTJ. And the two stacks (INTJ and INTP) are completely different. No wonder my results always left me feeling conflicted!

I can only say, thank you Anne Bogel. The book in general was delightful to read, succinct and friendly, informative without being academic. And you helped me come to terms, finally, with my Myers-Briggs. Worth the price of admission!!

Quote of the Day -- Carl Jung

Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.

-- Carl Jung

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According to Wikipedia, Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961), was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religious studies.

Quote of the Day -- James Clear

You can't double your intelligence in one hour, but you can use one hour to write something twice as clear. And ideas that are easy to read and easy to understand will make you seem smarter. The better you communicate, the more intelligent you appear.

-- James Clear

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James Clear is a widely respected speaker and writer who focuses on habits and self-improvement. His best-selling book Atomic Habits has sold over 5 million copies.

Quote of the Day -- Samuel Johnson

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

-- Samuel Johnson

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According to Britannica, Samuel Johnson was an English critic, biographer, essayist, poet, and lexicographer who was one of the greatest figures of 18th-century life and letters.

Book Review: Wish You Were Here

People who write book reviews are careful about spoilers -- either avoiding them or warning about them beforehand. In the case of Jodi Picoult's Wish You Were Here, everyone who writes about it is very careful not to spoil it for other readers because the unexpected turn it takes is such an important part of the experience. So I won't spoil it, other than to say that the turn was huge and made all the difference for me.

In Wish You Were Here, Picoult provides a nuanced exploration of the personal impact of COVID-19 from several points of view. Although this book feels very different from most of her other work, that nuanced exploration is very much Picoult at her best. She looks at survivor guilt experienced by those who are largely untouched (like me) side-by-side with the daily trauma felt by health-care workers. She spends more time than usual, for her, in examining romantic relationships. At times, this book began to feel like a romance novel and I almost put it down. 

Parent-child relationships are central to the story. As she peels back the onion of the fraught relationship that Diana, the protagonist, has with her mother, Picoult takes her on a twisted, often painful journey of self-discovery. Forgiveness and redemption ultimately enable Diana to find her way in the world, but I confess to finding the outcome equal parts sad and uplifting. 

This isn't Picoult's best work but even her "above average" is definitely worth reading.  

Quote of the Day -- bell hooks

Many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.

-- bell hooks

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According to her New York Times obituary, bell hooks' incisive, wide-ranging writing on gender and race helped push feminism beyond its white, middle-class worldview to include the voices of Black and working-class women. Her work included over 30 books, and encompassed literary criticism, children’s fiction, self-help, memoir and poetry, and it tackled not just subjects like education, capitalism and American history but also love and friendship. She died in December 2021 at the age of 69.

Book Review: American Nations

I'm a sucker for a book that tackles a "big story," that synthesizes disparate information across time and space to develop a theory explaining the seemingly unexplainable. The book cover of In American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North American depicts the territorial and cultural divisions that Colin Woodard lays out in his book. He traces the history of how each "nation" was settled and describes the underlying values that motivate its citizenry. 

I'm a native and inhabitant of "Yankeedom," and Woodard's summary rings true -- emphasis on education, pursuit of greater good for the whole community, faith in the potential of government to improve people's lives. What I didn't completely understand is why other "nations" don't share these values; why their heritage emphasizes different, even diametrically opposed beliefs and moral virtues. 

Woodard provides a unique lens for viewing key events in our history and highlights the "life and death" battle that Yankeedom and the Deep South continually fight for control and for the ascendancy of their world view. Each considers the others' success an existential threat to their way of life. Each battles, with varying degrees of success, to form coalitions with the other nations to achieve that control.

Understanding the root of a problem doesn't necessarily solve the problem, but it goes a long way toward appreciating how we got here. I'm sure there are holes in Woodard's arguments that astute students of US history will find, but overall, his characterizations ring true and explain so much about the divisions we are experiencing today.

Quote of the Day -- Henry David Thoreau

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

-- Henry David Thoreau

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According to Wikipedia, Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.