Category Archives: Miscellaneous Musings

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Winter Solstice (But not really)

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The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year. In our calendaring system, it also marks the first night of winter.

But in many ancient European calendars, the solstice marked mid-winter. In Gaelic calendars, for example there were eight major calendar markers – though it’s disputed how greatly each was celebrated.

The eight markers were made up of the two solstices, the two equinoxes, and then four cross-quarter days – the days halfway between the a solstice and an equinox. These markers divided the year into eighths and governed what is now referred to as the Wheel of the Year.

We essentially still have eight year marker days, but they’ve shifted names and meaning.

Groundhog’s Day, for example, is essentially the cross-quarter day between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Today, Groundhog’s Day marks the middle of winter – will the groundhog see his shadow? But more traditionally, it – or more properly Imbolc marked the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

I’ve never been quite clear on how the Solstice went from representing the middle of winter to representing the beginning of winter – perhaps it’s just one of those things, like the Great Vowel Shift.

Also, there was an interesting piece yesterday claiming that this year’s solstice was, in fact, the longest night EVER. Pointing to the continual slowing of the earth’s rotation, the article estimated that every year’s solstice was negligibly longer than the last.

Of course, that could only make me think of Office Space’s Peter Gibbons reflecting that “every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.”

But, it turns out the original article is not quiet true. They quickly posted a correction, clarifying that while the earth’s rotation is trending towards slowing down, there’s actually quite a bit of year-to-year variation.

And by “quite a bit,” of course, I actually mean changes so miniscule that nobody without a properly calibrated device of some sort would ever know the difference.

In this graphic you can see the average length of a day charted over time. As you can see – maybe – “the longest night in Earth’s history likely occurred in 1912.”

So that was the longest night ever.

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Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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Getting to the end of the year always seems a bit of a struggle.

There may be warm delights and holiday cheer, but there’s also ever shortening days. Ever increasing darkness.

Faded, dreary skies.

It’s like the world holds its breath, just waiting for the end.

Waiting for a few moments of peace and silence.

Come January, folks will have their energy back. They’ll feel rested, refreshed, and ready to tackle life’s challenges.

But right now, we’re all just slouching along, desperate to put down our load.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
I’ve had too much processed sugar

Yeats could have written.

Indeed, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, with toys, and books, and more holiday parties than I can count.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
If I could think clearly it would be at hand

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Would not be enough to give me rest
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards the new year to be reborn?

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Organic or Institutionalized

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There are many healthy tensions in civic work. One I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is the tension between organic processes and institutionalized processes.

Both have benefits – organic processes feel more genuine, more creative, more tailored for the moment. Institutionalized processes feel more efficient, established, and well-resourced.

Of course, both have drawbacks – organic processes tend to be more disordered, institutionalized processes more hierarchical.

Organic processes tend to be perceived as less strategic, which may be a downside, but a misstep in an institutionalized processes is often assumed to be intentional.

I like the tension between these processes. I like the interplay between each approach.

Perhaps our goal, as individuals moving through the world, shouldn’t be to commit to one approach or the other, but rather to embrace the tension between the two.

If you’re following an institutionalized process, ask what you might learn by loosening the process a little bit. If you’re following an organic process, ask what you might learn by formalizing it.

Really no approach is perfect. Things will go right and wrong either way. But there’s something in that middle ground – innovative and organic, but institutional and efficient.

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The Grind

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There’s an important moment when strength training and getting into heavier weights. It’s just about halfway into the movement – when you’ve gotten past the initial push but haven’t made it to the smooth sailing of the top.

That middle ground is the toughest.

It’s somewhat cartoonish, actually. Everything seems normal as the initial effort gets you started, but then – you just stop. Midway. Stuck. It may be impossible to move the weight any higher.

That moment feels like an eternity. In my mind, I look at the weight, I look at myself…and I look at the weight. I have a whole inner dialogue about whether I’ll be able to get the weight to move any further. Do I have it, or is this it?

The world ceases.

But, really, I’m just standing there silently, straining to hold a weight in midair. Trying to figure out if I can make the weight go up, or if I should just let it down.

It’s a subtle, but important decision.

You see, trying too hard when you don’t have it in you will almost certainly lead to injury. It’ll almost certainly slow progress towards your goals. It is foolish to push past your capacity. If you don’t have it, you don’t have it.

Better then to just walk away.

But you shouldn’t be a quitter, either. The only way you’ll get better, the only way you’ll get stronger is to push yourself as hard as you can. If you stop whenever you get tired, you’ll never get anywhere. You have push through the discomfort and give it all you’ve got.

It’s a fine line between these two states, but you learn to feel your way through them. Every day is different and every workout is different. A weight that feels manageable one day may as well be the weight of the world the next.

You just have to feel it out. See how it goes. Do your best, but know when to walk away. You may not get it today, but you’ll probably get it to tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that.Just keep pushing. Grind through. Wait for the right moment, but never back down.

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The Gift of Not Giving

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One thing most people don’t need is more stuff.

While there are, of course, many members of our society in desperate need of basic items, but those of us fortunate to have a middle class lifestyle generally have more than we need already.

I’ll save a diatribe on luxury goods for another day – stuff, you see, is a category all of its own.

It’s not a new pair of shoes or the latest gadget. It’s those miscellaneous items you don’t know what to do with but which you can’t bring yourself to throw out because they’re still in good condition or you hope they might be useful someday.

I have a whole box of miscellaneous wires.

I have a plastic lizard I’ve had since I was 10.

I have old protest signs, tchotchkes from miscellaneous events and many, many things that I’m not quite sure where they even came from.

There might be things I need, but I don’t need more stuff.

And yet…

I’ll be out and about town and I’ll see something that makes me think of someone. Wouldn’t they enjoy that? I think. Wouldn’t that be a nice gift? And then I get distracted. In a bout of temporary insanity, I mysteriously transform into the consumer capitalism wants me to be, and all I can think about is how I should really spend money on this random, ultimately worthless item that isn’t worth the tree needed for its packaging.

So I try to have an intervention with myself. Is it really something the person needs? Perhaps they would be glad to receive a gift, but in a year, would they find it in a dusty corner and find themselves straining to remember where it came from?

Nobody needs that.

But rather than just walk away, my new strategy is this: I tell people what I don’t get them.

I’ll see something amazing that my niece would love – a person-sized dinosaur, perhaps – and I’ll text my sister. I didn’t just buy this for you!

Sometimes I’ll take a picture.

And ultimately, this accomplishes everything it needs to – the person knows you were thinking about them, you mutually enjoyed the item’s existence, and then you moved on. No space or money wasted. It’s very environmental.

I like giving practical gifts, sure, but stuff?

Who needs it.

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Overthinking Letter Closings

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I have a very distinct memory of being taught in grade school that one ought to properly close a letter with the claim, “sincerely.”

I went with the term for awhile but ultimate dropped it because every time I finished a letter I thought to myself, “Really? Did I really mean everything sincerely?”

For sixth grade that felt like a high bar.

Of course, checking your sincerity is ultimately for the best – if you are not sincere about the contents of your letter, that ought to call in to question your whole purpose in writing it.

But, having something of a penchant for hyperbole, I also found myself overly concerned with little details. If I sincerely wrote “I will always remember…” then decades later suffered from dementia, would that negate the whole sincerity of the letter I had innocently penned as a child?

I found this very concerning.

So perhaps you can understand why I stopped using the term. My intentions were sincere, but, I suppose, I didn’t feel comfortable holding myself to that sincerity indefinitely.

Years later, I noticed I had slipped into a seemingly casual replacement: thanks.

Particularly in the workplace this expression seemed apt. I was often asking people to do things and I was, generally speaking, sincerely thankful for their attention to the matter. And I am, have no doubt, all in favor of thanking people.

But this closing, too, came to wear on me.

I started signing off with “thanks” on most correspondence. Not only when I had something to be thankful for, but when those I was writing to probably ought to be thanking me, or when thanks, frankly, had nothing to do with it.

Not only did this make the “thanks,” seem shallow, the habit began to strike me as one of those things that would today make some click-bait list of things women ought to stop doing in the work place.

That is to say, I said thanks as a way of diminishing myself.

While women, of course, can do whatever they damn well please in the workplace and beyond, I did find myself drifting from thanks as my go-to sign-off. Thanks should be reserved, I decided, for times when I am particularly thankful for something.

For the last many years, I have settled on “best,” as my general sign-off. I like that it is positive, yet appropriately vague.

When I am feeling particularly meaningful, I upgrade this to, “all the best.”

I’m not really sure what it means to wish someone all the best, but I imagine sending someone all the best things in existence. Rainbows and puppy dogs, perhaps. Whatever you’re into.

I can’t commit to my sincerity, and I’m skeptical of my thankfulness, but I feel confident that whoever you are I wish you the best – however you define that for yourself.

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Perfect Circles

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In many cultures around the world, circles have been used as images of harmony, completion, perfection.

I have a vague recollection of a teacher once telling my that this is because circles are so sweetly symmetrical, though I honestly don’t have the expertise to tell you why the circle is so revered.

Perhaps, though, what I find most beautiful about circles can be seen in a force-diagram.

That is to say, what I find beautiful is the answer to the question, why does something travel in a circle?

Circular motion, you see, is the result of two perpendicular forces. One force, inertia, pushes an object in motion to continue in a straight line. Another force, say, gravity or the tension on a string, pulls the object inwards.

One force points towards the center of the circle, the other points tangential to the circle. And it is the conflict and synergy between these perpendicular forces which causes the circular motion to form.

It’s important to note these forces aren’t opposing. An object affected by a force pointing in one direction and an equal force pointing in the opposite direction would go nowhere. It would appear static despite the two very real forces pushing on it.

But circles form from perpendicular forces. At each moment, the object moves a little bit this way and a little bit that way, at the whim of two forces which, perhaps, seem to have little in common at all.

But the object in question traces out a beautiful, perfect arc.

Symmetry from different forces.

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Scaling (not) Up

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When people talk about “scaling” they seem to generally mean “scaling up.” This is often used particularly within the business context – how can we scale up our business model to serve more customers? Or, as perhaps the more skeptical add, to make more money.

“Scaling up” is also prevalent within the non-profit sector – how can we broaden our reach? How can we connect more people with our services or convince more people of our message?

Scaling up is, perhaps, a litmus test, which divides strong companies from the weak. Great idea, I’ve heard people say, but will it scale?

It is, perhaps, nice to do something at a small, local, level, but if you can’t effectively scale up, conventional wisdom seems to say, there’s not really much point. Or at least, the conversation then turns into a (worthwhile but secondary) debate over whether it’s okay to improve one life rather than many.

But is scaling up really the only way to go?

I’m not intrinsically opposed to scaling up, but I question the assumption that it’s the only way to go – that success and upwards scale are inextricably linked.

As someone recently commented to me, perhaps some efforts could benefit from scaling down.

I am particularly intrigued by what I can only describe as scaling laterally – connecting local work in one place to local work in another place.

Scale, I suppose, is at its essence a navigation problem. How does information, or perhaps commands, get from one place to another?

The typical model of scaling up tackles this problem more or less effectively. Some centralized governing body oversees a network of smaller entities. A well articulated company brand or character can greatly help in making sure that all the pieces are working together, but it tends to be a very vertical solution.

Perhaps that is the easiest solution, and perhaps it is the best solution – I am certainly in no position to judge.

But it is not the only solution.

A central governing body is not inherently necessary. A vertical structure is not inherently necessary. What’s necessary is that information can get from point A to point B. And this information needs to flow in a timely enough matter that the two can truly communicate.

…But what kind of scale is that?

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Morning

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I love a good, quiet, fall morning.

When the air is crisp but heavy coats not yet necessary. When the morning light slants through the changing leaves, painting the world in a mix of autumn colors.

The wind whistles, the leaves rustle. It is quiet and still, but not quiet at all.

The squirrels are panicking, the birds are chirping. The world is so very much alive while calming down for the quiet death of winter.

I love a good, quiet, fall morning.

When it feels like the world could just be still forever. A smooth pond cherishing the tremor of a falling leaf.

The rich morning sun keeping the darkness at bay.

The coldness approaching but a touch of warmth still in the air.

That moment of indecision, a penny in the air, waiting with baited breath for the season to turn.
I love a good, quiet, fall morning.

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Probability and Free Will

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I am not, I suppose, a good person to debate free will with, because I am heavily biased in its favor.

I expect there is little anyone will ever say, do, or discover that will shake my opinion. A world without free will is a world I cannot abide.

To be fair, I imagine that no one will ever really know if free will exists. It is one of many deeper truths which elude our control. But, in the absence of true knowledge, I have to choose – if I may – a paradigm to operate under.

And I chose free will.

Benjamin Libet’s study of neural impulses famously found brain activity before the conscious decision to move. This arguably proved free will was a myth – the brain makes an impulsive decision and our consciousness efficiently rationalizes it.

While there are neuroscience reasons to be critical of this claim, more generally, I don’t find it compelling to argue that advanced brain activity proves a lack of free will.

I suppose, though, that this is much in the definition of free will.

I don’t think of free will as a carte blanche dictum that allows a person to act in any imaginable way regardless of their context or experience. Rather I think of free will like this -

If you flip a coin, there is a 50% chance it will land heads and a 50% chance it will land tails. No matter how many times you flip the coin, this probability will remain the same. The coin doesn’t care. Every flip will have the same odds.

Free will is the ability to affect that probability.

Perhaps a person has, if you will, factory settings. Default rules that govern whether you are more prone to fight or to flight. Those deep instincts can be difficult to overcome, but, they can be overcome.

Perhaps you can’t change every instinct you have, and perhaps you don’t always take the path you would have liked. But you have the ability to effect the probability of the outcome. It doesn’t have to be a 50/50 split.

And that’s free will.

 

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