"Persistence wears down resistance" but at what cost?

This morning a tweeting wander across my Twitter home screen looking something like this:

PaulCarterJr @Mike_Wesely #QUOTE "Persistence wears down resistence" ~ K. Sparks

I retweeted it asking the question "but at what cost? " and this started a dialog between me and @Mike_Weseley about the costs, and it has inspired me to write this post

I expect "K Sparks", whoever that is, was trying to be encouraging to the downtrodden to not give up. That's an admirable sentiment in a situation in which the downtrodden would like to be victorious at all costs.

However, if the downtrodden would like to be victorious while still have a relationship with their opponent, they must be mindful of what their persistence costs their relationship. There are many contexts in which someone doesn't really care about their opponent or about the state of their relationshp after the conflict. In that circumstance, persistence perhaps force and perhaps violence are appropriate methods of achieving the outcome.

A partner's persistence to a point of view or chosen action can create resentment or be perceived as abuse. While the resistor may acquiesce, they may well bear ill-will toward the persistent one.

Even in a business setting, persistence can be viewed as insubordination.

Consider the battle between Water and the Rock. Eventually, perhaps over many years, the Water's persistence wears down the Rock's resistance, leaving the Rock worn slick or torn to pieces.

I'm not saying don't be persistent. I'm saying be mindful how you use it and what outcomes you want in the end.

Happy Mother's Day!

I spent my morning sitting on my patio out front, drinking coffee and enjoying my flowers. The calla lilies shown on the right were part of my mother's day present from my kids.

I have to sit out front because my deck (which is 14 feet off the ground) is slated for demolition and reconstruction and has been deemed by the family engineer (my husband) to be structurally unsafe.

Later my morning filled with fresh baked blueberry muffins, cards, hugs, kisses and presents. I also got iTunes gift cards, a lovely rose bush (which I'm about to go plant) and a new lilac bush. Life is good.

Happy Mother's Day all you mommies out there! I hope your day is as wonderful as mine as been so far.

Going to World Premiere of "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler"

I've been invited to go to LA to attend the world premiere of the next Hallmark Hall of Fame movie "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler"!!  Here's a link to the movie details on the Internet Movie Database.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010278/

It stars: 

• Anna Paquin - Best Supporting Actress Oscar Winner in 1993 (at age 11) for The Piano (Just as an aside - Holly Hunter won best actress that same year for the same movie)
• Marcia Gay Harden - Best Supporting Actress Oscar Winner in 2001 for Pollock (She was also nominated for her role in Mystic River in 2004 but didn't win) 
• Goran Visnjic - plays hottie Dr. Luka Kovac from "ER"
• Paul Freeman

It's based on a true story of a Polish woman who saved 2500 Jewish children during World War II.  It looks like a great story.

I understand that this event is a bit more low key than what outsiders think of as a Hollywood movie premiere, but as my good friend Barb says "It's an excuse for new outfit, a manicure and a massage." 

It's all happening on April 13.   I'll write all about it when I get back.  I can't wait!

Getting ready for the Oscars!

Hooray for Hollywood!  

Ok... I don't know that it's "hooray" exactly, but I do love to watch the glam. of the Oscar night festivities.    In prep for the Oscars, one must of course have:

•  the nominees and the categories
  
• ballots for you and friends to cast their votes while munching food and sipping wine
  
• and a summary of the movies in the top categories (see below)
• wine and food
• 106" screen on which to project all the Red Carpet and Award night action.

Here are a quick summary of some of the top nominated movies (courtesy of the summaries at Oscar.com that I had to painful to find, cut and paste here)  Please see oscar.com for a more complete list of nominated films and details for each.

Enjoy!

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

 

Benjamin Button's life begins at the close of World War I, when he is born with the body of an old man. As the years pass, however, Benjamin discovers that he is gradually becoming younger even as he grows older in experience and wisdom--a situation that informs his relationship with the lovely Daisy, who reenters his life periodically as they grow closer together in physical age.

 

FROST/NIXON

 

Following his 1974 resignation, Richard Nixon withdraws from public life until talk show host David Frost persuades him--with the help of a sizeable payment--to participate in a series of television interviews.  For Frost, the much-anticipated event offers a chance to establish himself as a serious journalist, while the disgraced former president regards the interviews as an opportunity to reestablish himself on the political stage.

 

MILK

As the emerging Gay Pride movement gathers force in the 1970s, it finds a champion and a public face in San Francisco camera store owner Harvey Milk.  Leaving his closeted life in New York behind, Milk moves to California with his lover and soon turns his efforts to politics, campaigning for a spot on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors--a quest that will make him the country's first openly gay man to be elected to public office.

 

THE READER

In late 1950s Germany, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg begins an affair with Hanna, a woman in her mid-thirties. Hanna's past contains a dark secret, however, the revelation of which, in the decades following the period of his first experience with love, will both shock Michael and force him to confront his country's history.

 

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

 

An eighteen-year-old from the slums of Mumbai finds himself competing on the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," where the questions he must answer offer a look back at his earlier life. The show's host, however, insists that he must be cheating and takes steps to force young Jamal to admit that a boy from such an impoverished background could not possibly possess the knowledge necessary to win the show's top prize.

 

CHANGELING

When single mother Christine Collins's ten-year-old son, Walter, disappears, she finds herself at odds with the corrupt Los Angeles Police Department of the late 1920s, whose primary interest lies in preserving its own reputation. As the increasingly distraught Christine is subjected to brazen fraud and mistreatment by the police, she finds an ally in radio televangelist Gustav Briegleb.

 

THE DARK KNIGHT

 

Gotham City appears to be heading toward a relatively crime-free future, because of the efforts of Batman, District Attorney Harvey Dent, and Lieutenant Jim Gordon, and Bruce Wayne hopes he will soon be able to abandon his secret identity. The arrival of the terrifying Joker, however, whose actions are motivated solely by his desire to outwit the Caped Crusader, forces Wayne to continue in his role as the city's best hope against the powers of evil.

 

DOUBT

The arrival of a progressive priest at a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 leads to a confrontation with the tradition-minded nun who serves as its principal. When Sister Aloysius suspects that Father Flynn may be taking an excessive interest in the school's first African-American student, she responds with a headstrong determination that is either a necessary defense of an abused boy or a heedless condemnation of an innocent man.

 

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

Following her most recent stay in rehab, recovering addict Kym arrives at her family's home for her sister Rachel's upcoming wedding. Troubled and self-absorbed, Kym upsets the wedding plans with her constant need to focus attention on her own problems, sparking the emergence of the family's barely concealed tensions in the days leading up to the ceremony.

 

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD 

Frank and April Wheeler live a life of suburban plenty that seems on its surface to represent the essence of the post-World War II American dream. In reality, however, the pair are haunted by the thought that they have betrayed their youthful dreams and are trapped in a conventional lifestyle that falls far short of the more bohemian existence they had imagined for themselves.

 

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

When American friends Vicky and Cristina meet a charismatic Spanish artist while staying in Barcelona, they agree to fly with him to Oviedo, where Cristina and Juan Antonio begin an affair and the soon-to-be-married Vicky wonders if she has chosen the right future. Their romantic idyll takes a dramatic turn, however, with the arrival of Maria Elena, the painter's tempestuous ex-wife.

 

Are children's carseats really necessary?

Tonight I watched an interesting TED video featuring economist and author of one of my favorite read "Freakonomics",  Steven Levitt, asking "Are children's carseats necessary?" http://tinyurl.com/4tdhtw

Being the mother of three kids, the oldest of whom is 11, I've used car seats a fair bit.  Best Beloved and I have even discussed whether or not 7 year-old Krash needs to be in a booster of some kind still.  He's only 63 lbs but he's a whopping 4'8", plenty tall enough not to strangle in a regular seat belt especially when he's sitting in the very back seat of my Honda Odessey which rides a little higher than the regular seat.  

Princess Pink, now 4 and 38 lbs, rides in a booster with a 5 point restraint but after watching this video, I wish my van had the integrated booster seat that some other vans have.

I guess I will breath a little easier knowing that he numbers are in Krash's favor (he thinks he's way too big and too old to be seen riding around in a booster).

What do you think?

I am such a lame blogger!

Oh, man!  There's a lot to learn about making an interesting blog...  I visited Lizze's site "Cheerio Confessions" and I am humbled.  I just don't think I devote enough time to this little endeavor.  OK so I work as a middle manager in a large company, try to keep up with the activities of three young kids, tweet 5.6 times per day (per MrTweet), blog once a week, and have a social life too.

This site is so bland!!   I'm clearly falling down on the job!    

New commitment mythical, readers!  I will attempt to put some better content and eye candy out here.

Loss for words over co-worker's loss of baby.

 I say I'm at a  loss for words over my co-worker's loss of her baby today.  Actually I feel like I need to write about this because I just don't know what to do with the sadness.

Ana is a thirty-something woman I work with, who had a relatively uneventful pregnancy.  Her baby was due last Thursday and the doctor decided that if the baby wasn't born naturally by today, then she would have labor induced.  Ana and baby had a stress test yesterday in which the medical personnel check the baby's heart beat and the number kicks by the baby, etc. to make sure that everything was OK.  They also checked to be sure Ana was doing OK.  All was well and the labor induction was scheduled for today.

Ana had left a list of over 70 co-workers who were to be notified with all the specifics about the baby when the day's activities were closed.  Her manager, a thirty-something father of two very young children, had agreed to send what was expected to be the happy news about weights and measures.  Instead, he has the unhappy task of notifying the 70+ folks who were waiting for news from Ana that this morning the doctor found the baby had no heartbeat.    

A life ---  who is has been growing and thriving for 10 months, who was much anticipated by many, who was fine yesterday by all metrics available outside the womb --  is gone just like that.

When I heard the news, I was so sad I couldn't catch my breath for a moment. 

My heart goes out to Ana and her family.  I wish I could help syphon away the overwhelming pain and sadness she must be experiencing right now.  

Blended Reality in Communities vs. Neighborhoods

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. " —Ferris Bueller

The little genius (or rather writer/director John Hughes) was right.  Life does move pretty fast, and it seems to be accelerating every time I turn around.  The times (like now) when I can just sit and enjoy the weather and write seems fewer and farther between.  On the weekend there's always a dance lesson, or a swim lesson, or a club to rush the kids to.  On the weekdays we are off to school and work with snippets of daily happenings filling in the gaps.  As we strive for quality time with family and friends, I am taking stock in what I do each day to make deposits in the emotional bank accounts of my loved ones.  I am also looking at the ways others make deposits of affection and goodwill with me.

I've discovered I rely a bit to much on email and twitter to keep me connected with those I care about.  I've also discovered that they are doing it too.  And then I thought, perhaps that's just how it has to be.  We are so busy that we have to find new ways to stay connected because we can't always be together when we might want to be.  

It might be crazy schedules which keep us apart.  It might be family duties with kids and even aging parents which keep us apart. It might be a mismatch in the ages and genders of our children that make family get togethers less harmonious.   Whatever the reason, using electronic means - email, Twitter, Facebook, SMS txt messages, whatever -- to stay up to date on what's going on in each others lives is a way to keep the relationship alive until there's a better match in our blended realities.  

Children are not always little.   Jobs are not always demanding (ideally anyway).   Spouses aren't always on the road, or whatever.  

I have a close circle of friends who live in another city than me.  I am jealous of the full, rich lives they have together when I cannot be with them. I know I'm missing out on some many little things, but we've found ways through email and Skype and occasional real-world visits to stay connected  on some level and to continue to care for one another as only best friends can.   

It's a little scary to actually write that --- I hope they feel that way about me -- I know I feel that way about them... but who knows where I stand with real world visits only 1-2 times a year and phone and email in the intervening times.    I guess this is the trust we must put these long distance relationships... and these blended-reality communities.

It occurs to me words "neighborhood" and "community" are sometimes used interchangeably today.    Getting clear on the meaning of the words seems important as we all come to grips with our new blended realities.  

A neighbor is someone who is in close proximity to you (geographically).   A neighborhood is a collection of someones in close proximity to you.    That definition implies two or more people with some common geographical  interests but not necessarily emotional ties   That notion reminds me of the old adage about good fences making good neighbors... it's good to share proximity but it's better to understand our boundaries.  Neighborhoods and their neighbors have a subdivided notion to them.

The word "community" doesn't have a variation to denote a singular member.  It implies one cannot have a community of one.  It also implies a one-ness  of a group ---  

• comm-unity = common unity?

An older definition of the word gave a notion a community being physically located near one another.  

Technology has allowed for communities to exist across long distances.  Technology has allowed communities to continue to thrive as digital diasporas.

So we come back to my neighborhood.  We are a collection of homes and homeowners who have a geographically based association with one another.  Our walls and fences keep us apart.  

Our desire for community, common unity, brings us together.  And now technology can help us build communities where once only neighborhoods were possible.

We can have neighborhood discussion boards instead of coffee klatches (because we now drink our coffee in our cars or at obscene hours of the morning while we're quite unpresentable for social calls).  These have the added advantage of being public and more inclusive of even our husbands.

We have email addresses to communicate asynchronously when it's convenient for us when the kids are in bed or other occupied in safe, fun activities.

Just recently I learned that it was a good idea to add my neighbors to my LinkedIn connections, and my Facebook friends, because at the end of a day when I've been running at Mach 2 with my hair on fire and I find I have an email or a message scrawled for me --- my emotional bank account, my good will bucket, my happiness meter overfloweth.  Even electronically, it's nice to be thought of even if it's to pass along a joke.

Being connected to my neighbors means I can help them through their troubles big and small and it means their resources may be my resources if I've built up enough credit with them.  

Being connected in online kinds of ways give us new ways to loan a neighbor a cup of sugar, a little virtual sweetness in a life that's already moving pretty fast.

Time to make dinner.   More musings later.

So much to say.

It's been nearly a couple of weeks since I've published anything out here and I'm sorry.   I have 3- 4 drafts I'd like to get published this weekend.   I'm going to struggle with wanting to do that because the weather here is wonderful 62 degrees at midnight in January in the Midwest is sweet gift!) 

My notes are all over the board having been written in 10-15 minute intervals over the last couple of weeks.  I need to edit them and stitch them together.  Watch this space for more on 

• the autism spectrum and mirror neurons
  
• community vs. neighborhood 
• Twitter, Facebook and other social media

More soon.

Threads Rewoven - A Thing A Week

And so it begins... I've just finished reading 16 habits of highly creative people and I'm going to start living #4 with this blog... "Creative people embrace challenges.".

Best Beloved, in an effort to encourage my writing, has challenged me to my own version of "A Thing a Week" just like Jonathan Coulton did in 2006, just as whimsical but not so musical. We are fans of several of his pieces including Code Monkey and the mash-up When I'm 25 or 64. It seems like it might work for me too. So let's see where this Thing goes. It could make for an interesting year.

This idea was not just thanks to Jonathan Coulton. It's also thanks to Stephen King and Charles Dickens. I recently listened to an unabridged audio version of King's "The Green Mile" which was originally a novel published in serial form. In his own acknowledgments, King tips his hat to Dickens, much of whose work was published serially. The technology required that it be months even years between Dickens’ installments. I find myself living in an age in which technology will allow me a publish an idea even before its time which is what makes this exercise so scary. Best Beloved and I were finishing up our Christmas wrapping at 3am on Christmas morning when the idea of me publishing serially came to him. BB said, "You develop your children's stories serially and refine them with each retelling. Why can't you publish that way?" And so it begins.

I don't know if blogging is the best format for this but I'm going to give it a try. This activity will be a little weird for me because I generally don't like to show people my writing. And while I'm still doing this largely anonymously, many of you know who I am in my real life. Now I'm asking you to be my witness, to hold me accountable for being disciplined about my chosen creative outlet, and most importantly to comment on my work, with the goal to helping me improve (my story, my style, my "voice"). Please be gentle, dear reader... I totally understand Anna Nalick's lyrics:

"2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song

If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,

Threatening the life it belongs to

And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd

Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud

And I know that you'll use them, however you want to"

I'm a little afraid to do this because I'm worried that the ideas won't keep coming. Some days it seem I have so many ideas filling in my head-- some which are fleeting and some which tease me as they dance around the other more serious thoughts going about their business in my brain. Somedays the well is dry. When I expressed this fear at 3am, BB reminded me that some of JC’s thing-a-week works were real stinkers too. It worked for him, it can work for me.

I worry a little about the intensity of the words clawing to get out of me. Sometimes I carry big feelings around in my heart and in my gut which seem to need to purged before they eat me from the inside out. Is it weird to have that drive to write like that? I've always wondered if happens to other writers... (I read something about that same drive in Madeline L'Engle - she described it as a story begging to be told - and having to get the story down on paper in order to get any peace from it.)

Singer/song-writer, John Mayer sings, “Say what you need to say.” It seems important to distinguish between what I need to say and what I just want to say. Help me with this too, dear reader.

I think some of this stuff swurling (Yes, I know that's not the correct spelling but it's a play off of url... ) in my mind might be something not to say aloud but I think it might be the stuff of some good fiction. I hope to get some of that out here to get some feedback from you, on it. It could be it’s only a good idea when it’s in my head, but in the bright light of day it’s not worth the effort. So watch for opportunities to tell me if my characters are the least bit believable and likeable --- or not.

Here’s to an interesting 2009.

Fact or Fiction?

I found this story both sad and interesting. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081228/ap_on_re_us/books_holocaust_memoir

I guess this guy wrote a book that was supposedly pretty good (Oprah and others liked it anyway-- I haven't read it and I guess I won't get to read it). He sold it to a publisher as a memoir and it was discovered that it was in fact not a memoir but fiction. So, it's not going to be published and the publisher is demanding their money back and Jewish educators are up in arms, etc. etc.

They've all lost sight of a really important fact (at least I think it's a fact) and that is that the story was good ---Supposedly it was heart-warming, hopeful and hope-giving. None of that has changed really. So correct the dust jacket and inform the consumer it's fiction! Readers will still read it. The publisher will still make money. Perhaps even it will prompt more people to become educated in Jewish history so they will know where this book as gone astray from the facts.... Or better yet, have someone write a companion book correcting all the mistakes...

This could be just like several works of fiction that have had folks riled up for years (Dan Brown's book title escapes me presently)...

Mirror Neurons shape our reality, learning and interaction

I read a couple of tweets from @hyblis several weeks ago about mirror neurons and it started me down the path of thinking about mirror neurons and how they shape our reality.

From Wikipedia: "A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal.^[1] Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself acting. These neurons have been directly observed in primates, and are believed to exist in humans and other species including birds. In humans, brain activity consistent with mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex."

The thing that fascinated me about mirror neurons is that they fire in a person when they observe someone else being touched and it is the touch neurons in the skin that veto the input of the mirror neurons. That has to be a learned behavior.

I filed that little tidbit away for future pondering and moved on to something else.  Then a few days later while I was practicing my Mandarin I found myself trying to feel how the words should feel if I'd said them the way my coach, Jiang, had said them. The experience was both tactical and mental/visual. Eureka! I was trying to pull the data created by the mirror neurons to help me properly pronounce the words!

It seems everywhere I looked there was a little reference to mirror neurons and I found myself stopping to read all kinds of things

As an aside -- I think it's interesting how subjects like that can be out there seemingly invisible until someone we know tell us about them -- and then we them everywhere.  I was that way about forsythia bushes for years -- seeing them but not taking much interest because I didn't have any context with which to connect them in my thought stream.  But I digress

It turns out that there is a fair bit of discussion and debate about the role of mirror neurons in language acquistion.   There was a recent Nova episode on mirror neurons that was pretty interesting.

Some research suggests that the mirror neurons not only allow you to experience what the other person is experiencing but you may actually feel what they feel emotionally. "Mirror neurons can send message to the limbic or emotional systems in our brain." Does this scienfictically explain the Hallmark moment?

I bumped into a fair bit of discussion about mirror neurons and how they function (or malfunction) in people with autism.  It seems that their mirror neuron system is impaired in some way.    I found a lecture by @marcoiacoboni (video podcast from the UC-Davis) titled
Hypothesis on the Link between Mirror Neurons and Autism

Since listening to his lecture, I've connected with him on Twitter and learned he has a new book titled "Mirroring People".   I'm going to pick it up today.  I'm anxious to read the chapters on autism and language learning.   I'm also anxious to see if he's looked at the role of mirror neurons in VR and social media "stickiness"

Here are some key quotes I've been playing with:

"Heathy human beings are intensely social. We invent ways to connect with one another."

"Deep in our cells we are meant to be together. There would be no point in having a mirror system if we were not meant to interact with one another."

V.C. Ramashandra (another researcher in the field) says - Some time ago in human evolution mirror neurons got dramatically better and as a result, human development accelerated because we didn't have to wait for hundreds or thousands of tiny evolutionary changes and natural selection. We could adopt successful strategies within a generation and we didn't have to experience a failure to learn from it.

This discovery should have great implications on education, autism therapy, stroke victim therapy, artificial limb development and virtual reality platforms.

The subject is probably something I'm going to prattle on about for some time to come.