Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 231

Here are two excerpts from a book I recently read, "Raising a Strong Daughter in a Toxic Culture: 11 Steps to Keep Her Happy, Healthy, and Safe," by Meg Meeker:

You might say, “My daughter refuses to show affection. She treats me with contempt. Far from nurturing her little brother, she’s nasty to him. She’s even mean to her friends.” I know, but read on. No matter how much her needs are hidden or how she behaves outwardly, the desire to give love and be loved still lies deep within her—a constant yearning. And this should give you tremendous hope, because beneath the toddler having temper tantrums, or the angry middle schooler who says she would rather text on her phone than talk to you, or the tattooed teenager who thinks she’s a rebel, lies a heart that is still tender. It may be buried under anger, disappointment, sadness, or jealousy—and that’s okay. Your job as a parent is to gently chip away at all the barriers she might erect around her heart. But always know that her heart is still there and that she still desires to give love and to be loved. You can’t—and don’t need to—control everything she does. Life will inevitably leave a few scars on her. But if you understand her constant, fundamental longings, you will eventually understand each other and your relationship will shift—sometimes dramatically—for the better.

No father is perfect. Every father messes up. But every dad is a giant to his daughter, and every daughter is the most forgiving person he will ever know because she needs him more than she needs anyone else. What a daughter cares most about is seeing that her father is trying to be a good dad to her. You are her first love, and every kindness you extend to her—every time you wipe away a tear, or listen to her, or acknowledge her as important to you—you are strengthening her sense of self. And she will never forget you or your example.

Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 230

Here is an excerpt from a newspaper article I recently read, "When Manhattan Was Mannahatta: A Stroll Through the Centuries," in the New York Times:

Ecosystems, actually. Manhattan is something like one percent the size of Yellowstone. Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres and it has 66 ecosystems. Mannahatta had 55.

It’s an interesting thought exercise to imagine what might have happened had the United States been colonized from the West, instead of from the East. We might have decided to make Manhattan a national park. We would be coming to New York for an entirely different sort of wildlife.

Hard to Believe

Faith is hard.  I run in largely secular circles, which are ambivalent if not antagonistic to traditional spiritual practices.  (Notable exceptions are my church community, of course, which is wonderful, but also my Muslim barber, with whom I have deep religious conversations and graciously share points of agreement and disagreement.)  Socially, the water I swim in, as it were, does not willingly point me to the divine, and in some cases seeks to repel me.

I’m also older.  A wide-eyed youthful lens has given way to the hardened perspective that comes from observing life in all its messiness.  The good guy doesn’t always seem to win; in fact, sometimes the good guy is stomped on or passed over or misunderstood.  The story rarely resolves as quickly or neatly as you imagine, and in fact often metastasizes into something quite messy and tragic.  I am more familiar with evil – the evil in me and around me – with how long it’s been around, and just how entrenched and insidious it is.  How can an all-loving and all-powerful God allow such injustices?

What Matters More Than Truth

I'm not sure what is more common these days: complaints about how polarizing our public discourse has become, or anger at how people who choose to see the merits of "both sides" are not condemning the "other side."  That's...not good.  Although it may feel nice in our wounded state to lash out at others and win accolades from our peers, this state of affairs does not bode well for unity or progress.

And maybe that's the point.  Who wouldn't say they're for unity and progress?  But, in a diverse and messy nation, who is willing to do the hard work to achieve them?  Maybe it makes sense to accept that our best way forward is to tend to our wounds and feel better about ourselves.

Lazy Linking, 232nd in an Occasional Series

Here are some things I liked lately on the Internets (all coronavirus-related, natch):

232.1 Warmer weather will slow COVID spread but not by enough for us to be less vigilant @harvard bit.ly/2Thtegp

232.2 When running, while both are helpful, staying away from people > wearing a mask @outside magazine bit.ly/3fR1Pvg

232.3 Proof that language adapts fast: there's already a growing canon around COVID (incl "the Miley," a great example of Cockney rhyming slang!) @conversationus bit.ly/3bFGVMj

232.4 @jamapediatrics: school closures for children's safety must be weighed against deteriorating mental health outcomes for many kids @npr n.pr/2WE1lRw

232.5 1st great stay-at-home hit is the perfect dedication for my next anniversary mix tape youtu.be/pE49WK-oNjU

Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 229

Here is an excerpt from a magazine article I recently read, "Sundar Pichai (WG02) Wants to Change Your Life," from Wharton Magazine:

One piece of advice I might offer, and it took me some time to learn this myself, is that doing things well is more important than doing things fast. It can be hard to maintain that perspective in a fast-moving industry like tech, but when I look back, some of the most successful products were not first to market. So the best advice I can give is that when you’re working at scale, adopt a long-term view, listen to feedback, and make sure you get things right.

Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 228

Here are a couple of excerpts from a book I recently read, "K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches," by Tyler Kepner.

A major league pitcher is part boxer and part magician; if he’s not punching you in the face, he’s swiping a quarter from behind your ear. If you ever square him up, you’d better savor it. Even in batting practice, the world’s best hitters tap harmless grounders and punch lazy fly balls. In the heat of competition, every hit is an exquisite anomaly.

The ethics of spitters and scuffed balls offer a window to a kind of logic that seems convoluted, yet makes perfect sense to many in the game. To Keith Hernandez, whose Mets were flummoxed in the 1986 playoffs by Houston’s Mike Scott, the method of subterfuge is everything: do something illicit away from the field—corking a bat, injecting steroids—and that’s cheating. Do something on the field, in front of everyone, and get away with it? As Hernandez wrote in his book, Pure Baseball: “More power to you.”

Running While Black

Maybe I should, but I can't bring myself to watch the video.  Ahmaud Aubrey is dead, and I am shook. 

I run in the inky darkness of the early morning hours, darting down alleys and through public spaces.  Lately, I've run with a black mask and dark bandanna covering my whole head except my eyes.  Yet the only danger I worry about is turning an ankle or riling an unsuspecting animal.  Outdoor running is an important activity for my sanity.  It is health, fresh air, escape, thinking time, daydreaming time, interacting with the built form of my beloved city.

Asher will not enjoy such a privilege.  And that pains me to the core on so many levels.

Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 227 (1 of 2)

I am only two-thirds through Ron Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton," but wanted to post one extended excerpt for your reading pleasure, and much later I will be done with the book and will share other passages.  This portion is presented with commentary, in true "TSFABPTLFAT" fashion, although I can't resist repeating the old saw that "history may not repeat itself but it often rhymes."  Enjoy.

While Washington meditated the fate of Citizen Genêt that August, Philadelphia was beset by a threat far more fearsome than the French minister appealing to the American people. Some residents who lived near the wharves began to sicken and die from a ghastly disease that shook the body with chills and severe muscular pain. The red-eyed victims belched up black vomit from bleeding stomachs, and their skins turned a hideous jaundiced color. The onset of the yellow-fever epidemic, the worst to have befallen the young country thus far, has been traced to many sources. The disease had ravaged the West Indies that year, and an influx of refugees after the slave revolt in Santo Domingo may have introduced it to Philadelphia. A wet spring giving way to an uncommonly hot, dry summer may have helped to spread the disease. Sanitary conditions were atrocious in many parts of town, with residents dumping refuse into clogged, filthy gutters and drinking water from wells contaminated by outhouses. 

 

I May Cry Next Time We Hug

No matter what good TV we’ve been binge-watching, which funny memes we’ve laughed over, or how much self-care we’ve practiced, there’s no sugar-coating that this has been a trying and traumatic season.  The global pandemic has claimed the lives of loved ones, filled us with dread over both personal harm and financial loss, and laid bare entrenched inequities that have devastated our most vulnerable households and communities.

As if that wasn’t enough, we’ve been forced into isolation from one another and from the outside world.  Maybe we’ve made up for it by connecting with loved ones and work colleagues via video-conference, but no matter what the platform is, it is an inferior substitute for real human interaction.  Even worse, our worry over how contagious and deadly COVID-19 leaves us hiding behind our masks and nervous about physical proximity.  The few times we are out and about, taking a stroll in our neighborhoods or doing our weekly grocery run, we viscerally tense up when someone approaches us, averting our faces and doing our best to stifle our own sneezes and coughs.  We are social animals, and now we have to avoid human touch, and it is leaving us simultaneously distressed and depressed.

The on-ramp to this crisis may have been sudden, but the off-ramp will likely take time, as we phase in different aspects of normalcy to avoid a flare-up.  But, someday, maybe soon, we’ll be out and about again, and able to circulate and connect and, yes, hug.  And I’m already bracing for the likelihood that that human touch, with all of the affection and assurance and connection that that touch represents, will open a floodgate of emotion.  Grief, emptiness, and pain, to be sure.  Hopefully also relief, affection, and hope, too.  Whatever are the feelings those hugs will release, I look forward to those hugs.