To Avoid Stress, Stop Screwing Up

Posted on October 22, 2018 by DJB
Willpower

Willpower

I had a “What the heck?” moment recently when reading a book on willpower.  I came across the line, “The best way to reduce stress in your life is to stop screwing up.”  As my children might say, “Well, duh…”  Of course, if we didn’t get ourselves into stressful situations, we could reduce stress.

But if you’ll bear with me for a moment, I think authors Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney have a good point.  They were arguing that we should think about ways to set up our lives so that we have a realistic chance to succeed.  “Successful people don’t use their willpower as a last-ditch defense to stop themselves from disaster, at least not as a regular strategy.”

The entire book is built around the premise that all of us—even the most successful—have a limited amount of willpower to expend every day and that we use the same resource for many different things. So it is important to think about how we can use our willpower to set ourselves up for success.

“Each day may start off with your stock of willpower fresh and renewed, at least if you’ve had a good night’s sleep and a healthy breakfast.  But then all day things chip and nibble away at it….Consider some of the things that happen in a typical day.  You pull yourself out of bed even though your body wants more sleep.  You put up with traffic frustrations.  You hold your tongue when your boss or spouse angers you or when a store clerk says ‘Just one second’ and then takes six minutes to get back to you.  You try to maintain an interested, alert expression on your face while a colleague drones on during a boring meeting.  You postpone going to the bathroom.  You make yourself take the first steps on a difficult project.  You want to eat all the French fries on your lunch plate but you leave half of them there, or (after negotiating with yourself) almost half.  You push yourself to go jogging, and while you jog you make yourself keep running until you finish your workout.  The willpower you expended on each of these unrelated events depletes how much you have left for the others.”

If I put things off or set goals for myself that are unrealistic, pushing me into situations where I have to expend my stock of willpower, that’s not a recipe for success.  Instead, I’ve increased my level of stress.  However, Dutch researchers have shown that people with good self-control “mainly use it not for rescue in emergencies but rather to develop effective habits and routines in school and at work.”  People with good self-control generally have less stress.

“They use their self-control not to get through crises but to avoid them.  They give themselves enough time to finish a project; they take the car to the shop before it breaks down; they stay away from all-you-can-eat buffets.  They play offense instead of defense.” (emphasis added)

Consider how you would (re)structure your life to avoid putting yourself in situations where self-control is an emergency rescue reaction.  What changes would be necessary for you to play offense instead of defense?

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

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Perseverance and Passion

Posted on October 15, 2018 by DJB
Grit

“Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth

If you are like me, you may have been told “You know, you’re no genius” at some point in your life.  During her childhood, Angela Duckworth heard that phrase over and over again from her father.  Years later when she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship—often called the “genius grant”—she was able to savor the irony of being told that she wasn’t smart enough, and yet being recognized on an international stage for work that was cutting-edge and transformational in the field of psychology.  Duckworth was compassionate enough not to lord this over her father.  But she did write a book based on her studies which makes the case that for those who have a calling, who challenge themselves every day, who get back up when they are knocked down, perseverance and passion matter more than talent.

Grit:  The Power of Perseverance and Passion is the 2016 book that resulted from Duckworth’s life and studies.  The fundamental insight that guides her research is “Our potential is one thing.  What we do with it is quite another.”  Early in the book she recounts the time she left a job at the high-powered consulting firm McKinsey to teach seventh grade math in the inner city.  There Duckworth came to see that we are all distracted by talent.  She was naturally attracted to those students who were “quick studies” and seemed to have the intellect and skills to succeed.  But as marking periods went by, these were not necessarily the successful students.  Duckworth became interested not in what made people smart, but what was needed to be successful in life.

What she found is that people who are successful over time have a passion.  A calling.  It may take time for that passion to evolve, and they may explore several pathways before landing on the one that sticks.  But having an inner compass, the “thing that takes you some time to build, tinker with, and finally get right, and that then guides you on your long and winding road to where, ultimately, you want to be” is critical to success.  And then you have to persevere, in the face of the inevitable failures, to reach your goals.  Duckworth notes:  “Enthusiasm is common.  Endurance is rare.”

There’s a lot to unpack in Duckworth’s book, including how experts practice differently from others, with a deliberative focus.  They make it a habit, with daily rituals.  Or how pessimists have permanent and pervasive explanations for adversity that “turn minor complications into major catastrophes.”  Hope and modeling a growth mindset, it turns out, are keys to perseverance.  Duckworth looks at how to grow grit from the inside out, ways to build an organizational culture that focuses on perseverance and passion, and parenting for grit.

Skyscape at Villa Panza

What is your calling?

Basketball coaching legend John Wooden captured the need for both perseverance and passion when he said:  “Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”  One of my favorite stories in the book is from another sports coach who, as a philosophy and English major, has a special appreciation for the power of words.  Each year he has his team memorize three different literary quotes, handpicked to communicate a different core value.  The first team value is “We don’t whine.”  The corresponding quote, courtesy of playwright George Bernard Shaw:

“The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Duckworth challenges us to cultivate our interests.  Develop a habit of daily challenge-exceeding-skill practice.  Connect our work to a purpose beyond ourselves. And learn to hope when all seems lost.

That seems like smart—perhaps even genius-like—advice to me.

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

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The Power of Words

Posted on August 27, 2018 by DJB

Former President Obama’s recent summer reading list reminded me of how much I pick up fresh insights from seeing what books others recommend.  When I finish several months’ worth of reading, I’ll pass along my takes on those works to anyone who cares to listen, simply because I believe in the power of the written word.  Writer Cheryl Strayed said she was seven years old when she understood that, as Margaret Atwood wrote in her poem Spelling,

 “a word after a word after a word is power.”

According to Strayed, the power of those words she read at age seven, “wasn’t the sort of power we associate with politics or world affairs . . . It wasn’t the kind of power we talk about when we talk about destruction or physical force. It wasn’t about defeat or domination or control. It was about a deeper, older, truer sort of power, one that calls upon the original meaning of the word, which is derived from the Latin posse.  It means, quite simply, to be able. It’s a definition of power that’s about doing and creating, about writing word after word after word on the page.”

Earlier this year, the National Trust Council visited Oxford, Mississippi, where many of our members demonstrated the power of words by making a pilgrimage to Square Books—one of the country’s best-known independent bookstores.  I love the quote from Rebecca Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby included on the store’s bookmarks, because it speaks to the special power of the written word:

“The object we call a book is not the real book, but its seed or potential, like a music score.  It exists fully only in the act of being read; and its real home is inside the head of the reader, where the seed germinates, the symphony resounds. A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.”

We learn a great deal by what others tell us about a book, but you have to read it to understand the power, get it in your head, and have it beat in your chest.  With our children on the west coast in August, we recently gathered on California’s Monterey Peninsula for a week’s vacation.  Given that we were less than a mile from historic Cannery Row—and having heard good things about this book from others—I dove into John Steinbeck’s 1945 novel that helped make this street of old sardine factories and marine laboratories famous.  Cannery Row was a delightful read, especially since I walked daily among the buildings and places that inspired the characters of Doc, Mack and the boys, Dora Flood, and Lee Chong. The connection between story and place took that book into my head and helped it beat in my chest. The book focuses on life as it is and celebrates community, while also acknowledging the loneliness of the individual. Steinbeck’s descriptive language and imagery—“What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?”—are as sharp and inspired as one would expect from a winner of both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.  Key to much of this book, as well as his classic The Grapes of Wrath, is this strong sense of place.

 

Steinbeck Monument

Steinbeck Monument on Cannery Row

 

Places that we save and celebrate are full of stories, both real and inspired, that tell much about us as a country and as individuals.

If you’re reading anything that has gotten into your head, is beating in your chest, or is powerful to you, please share it with someone. James Baldwin said in a 1963 interview with Life magazine, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.  It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”

Sharing is fundamental to connecting with others. Connecting with others is fundamental to a balanced and productive life. Share the power of words.

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

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Not Your Summer Reading List

Posted on August 23, 2018 by DJB

Summer reading lists can be fun. I’ve enjoyed compiling my annual list since I started this blog ten years ago. I also enjoy reading lists developed by others, as you often get insights into both great new books and the thoughts of the individual who passes along recommendations. My criteria for good summer reading lists include:  they must be focused on a short period of time when the compiler is away (e.g., for an August vacation), and the reading can’t be too heavy, as there are 10 other months to read tomes about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

What follows is not a summer reading list.

I’ve fallen so far behind in updating readers about the books I’ve found interesting, challenging, refreshing, and—yes—troublesome that I’ve decided to take a Twitter-like approach and provide two-four sentence summaries of everything I’ve read between Memorial Day and Labor Day this year.  Since I can’t remember the order in which I read them, I’m listing them in alphabetical order (by author).  Let me know if you find one or more books that pique your interest this fall.

Bad Stories

Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country by Steve Almond

Bad Stories:  What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country by Steve Almond.  I began the summer with this work by the co-host of the Dear Sugars podcast and found it a coherent look at our current moment in history in America.  It was recommended by our former rector and Andrew’s godfather.  Almond makes the strong case—using examples from Moby Dick and other classics of literature—that we’ve made bad decisions as a country because we’ve told ourselves bad stories for a long time…and “bad stories arise from an unwillingness to take reality seriously.”  Highly recommended.

Evicted:  Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.  This very impressive study by MacArthur Fellow Matthew Desmond is an important new work about poverty in 21st century America and the role of corporate America (both major financial institutions and small mom-and-pop rental firms) in driving housing policies that put profit first and people last.  Desmond’s research—coupled with real-life stories based on his years of living among the individuals he profiles—demonstrates vividly that evictions from homes often lead to a cascading of events that can trap people for years. The National Building Museum in Washington has a companion exhibit that runs through May 2019.  Highly recommended, especially for those interested in social justice issues in America.

UTC HQ

United Therapeutics Corporation’s Silver Spring Headquarters

Evolving Ourselves:  Redesigning the Future of Humanity—One Gene at a Time by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans.  Juan Enriquez was the keynote speaker at a conference I attended in July, and you can watch his TEDx Talk for a general summary of the key themes of Evolving Ourselves.  This wide-ranging look at how humans are changing the course of evolution for all species challenges one’s thinking on multiple levels.  The authors begin with a reminder of the scene in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman’s character is told the future is “Plastics” and then move forward to make the case that a similar scene today would use two words:  Life Code. While I may have understood one-half or less of this book (should have paid more attention in those science classes) this is still highly recommended, unless you believe the earth is only 10,000 years old (because in that case this book would make your head explode).*

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.  These two Harvard professors have spent twenty years studying the decline of democracies all around the world.  Their research shows that more often than not, it is the slow decline of institutions such as the judiciary and press that lead countries to move from democratic to authoritarian governments.  This accessible book is highly recommended, and perhaps should be required reading for the entire country at this point in time.

Hero of the Empire:  The Boer War, A Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill and The River of Doubt:  Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard.  I read and enjoyed both of these short, fast-paced books by best-selling author and story-teller extraordinaire Candice Millard.  The Churchill book starts slowly and doesn’t show the future prime minister in a flattering light, but it soon becomes a page-turner about a period of history that isn’t that familiar to me.  The Roosevelt story is amazing, especially when one thinks of the likelihood of any of our recent president going through such an arduous journey of exploration (i.e., highly unlikely).  Recommended.

Longitude by Dava Sobel. Now some 20+ years old, I came across this small book at a conference on geographic information systems and thought it was an intriguing topic:  a lone genius bucks the scientific establishment of the 18th century and figures out the “longitude problem” by building a clock that worked at sea.  John Harrison’s story, as told by Sobel, is part of a series of books I’ve read over the past year or two about the scientific advances that helped shape the modern world.  Once Harrison’s marine chronometer helped sailors determine exactly where they were at sea, everything changed. If you like to see how earlier eras addressed complex problems, and you enjoyed books such as The Invention of Nature and The Age of Wonder, this is a book for you.  Recommended.

The Nature of Parties

The Nature of Parties from Cannery Row

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.  I read this short novel for the first time in August during a week on the Monterey Peninsula, and found it delightful. Steinbeck’s language is superb, focusing on life as it is and celebrating community while acknowledging the loneliness of the individual.  I keep returning to the line, “What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?”  Recommended.

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.  This seemed to be a good year to re-read this American classic about the collision of the Haves and the Have-Nots during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.  The author Ursula K. Le Guin said it best when she wrote, “So now, if somebody asked me what book would tell them the most about what is good and what is bad in America, what is the most truly American book, what is the great American novel . . . a year ago I would have said—for all its faults—Huckleberry Finn. But now—for all its faults—I’d say The Grapes of Wrath.” Highly recommended as a stark reminder of what we can be—both good and bad—as a country.

Beach Reading

Beach Reading

Now I’m caught up.  Happy reading in what’s left of the summer.

More to come…

DJB

*I also wanted to read this book to see if I could understand the work of one of our neighbors here in Silver Spring:  United Therapeutics Corporation.  The authors mention that UTC—at the time of the book’s publication—used technology developed by Synthetic Genomics, Inc. to “begin humanizing pig lungs—a project that could eventually help save the 200,000 people who die every year waiting for an organ that never comes.”  I love the fact that UTC has developed a big corporate campus, with fun and innovative architectural design (seen above), right in the heart of downtown Silver Spring.

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Pacific Grove-by-God

Posted on August 21, 2018 by DJB
Lone Cypress

Lone Cypress (photo credit: Claire Brown)

For several years I’ve regularly traveled for work to Monterey, California, a small coastal city some two hours south of San Francisco. So when we went looking for a west coast destination for this year’s family vacation, I suggested we check out the Monterey Peninsula.  Now that we’ve wrapped up a week-long visit to Pacific Grove—next-door neighbor to the city of Monterey—we’re just coming to realize how much we’ve seen and explored in this new (to us) part of the world.

Let’s begin with the coastline, the attraction to visitors for thousands of years.  I awoke every day shortly after 6 a.m. and went for walks of as much as two hours along the well-used (and well-loved) Monterey Bay Coastal Trail.  Pacific Grove’s portion of this 18-mile trail, which follows the path of the old Southern Pacific Railroad train tracks, hews close to the water and rock-strewn coastline, while Monterey’s comes inland a bit to incorporate Cannery Row, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Fisherman’s Wharf.  My walk often began before sunrise and was shrouded in fog.  Thankfully, Carmel Coffee Roasters in downtown Pacific Grove opens at 6 a.m. seven days a week, so I was well fortified with java.

Harbor Seals at Pacific Grove

Harbor Seals at Pacific Grove

 

Pacific Grove Coastline

Coastline along Pacific Grove (photo credit: Claire Brown)

Monterey’s submarine canyon is in such close proximity to the shore that the bay has deep, cold, nutrient-rich water all year. This brings all types of marine mammals and sea birds close to the shore.  I enjoyed watching the harbor seals lounge on the rocks and along the beach at the Stanford Marine Institute, listening to the sea lions bark from their perch along the rocks in Monterey, and tracing the flight of a wide array of birds out for their morning breakfast.  I would stop and read along the way and found that Pacific Grove and Monterey have done a good job of capturing the stories and people from their diverse histories.  It was on one of these markers that I learned that Pacific Grove developed an Episcopal camp-meeting history in the 1880s and that Monterey had a very diverse workforce in the commercial fishing and canning industries. That led one wag to suggest that you could tell Carmel-by-the-Sea, Monterey-by-the-Smell, and Pacific Grove-by-God.

Pacific Grove Panorama

Pacific Grove Panorama (photo credit: Claire Brown)

We also took advantage of the coastline for a day trip down to Big Sur along California Highway 1.  This coastal road—famous for its stunning views—did not disappoint.  Along the way we stopped to take in the Lone Cypress (technically on the 17-mile road at Pebble Beach), the famous Bixby Bridge, and McWay Falls, a beautiful waterfall that fell into the ocean at Big Sur. We happened to go on a simply glorious day, with no clouds or fog and a California-perfect 80 degrees.

Bixby Bridge

Bixby Bridge (photo credit: Claire Brown)

 

DJB at Bixby Bridge

DJB at the famous Bixby Bridge

 

Lone Cypress

Candice and DJB at the Lone Cypress in Pebble Beach

 

McWay Falls

McWay Falls

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is the major tourist attraction in the area and after a visit it is easy to see why.  They have crowd-pleasers (how can you resist the feeding of otters and penguins) mixed in with educational exhibits (don’t miss the live-narrated films) and secluded tanks where one can sit and marvel at the amazing creatures found under the surface of the Bay. We spent an entire day at the aquarium and felt we’d only seen a glimpse.

School of Fish

School of Fish at the Aquarium (photo credit: Claire Brown)

 

Jellyfish

Jellyfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium

As we were leaving Pacific Grove on Saturday morning, Claire and I took in a Whale Watching tour on the Bay.  It was a wonderful three hours, where we saw a humpback whale breach the water in a way that takes one’s breath away, countless dolphins looking so playful as they swam by, sea lions that came up to give our boat a close look, and sea birds too numerous to capture in a blog post.  Very memorable.

Sea Lion

Sea Lion comes in to inspect the Whale Watchers

 

Dolphins in Monterey Bay

Dolphins seen on our Whale Watching tour

 

Humpback Whale Dives

A Humpback Whale Dives into the Monterey Bay

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take the family over for a behind-the-scenes tour of our National Trust site, the Cooper-Molera Adobe, which will reopen in about a month after three years’ work to reimagine this hub of Monterey history, commerce, and agriculture.  The Barns at Cooper-Molera are already busy hosting special events, and the new bakery and restaurant, along with the re-interpreted historic adobes, will soon be ready to greet the public.

Of course, this couldn’t be a Brown vacation without great food. Two Pacific Grove restaurants became favorites, as we visited both twice over the course of seven days: Passionfish and Jeninni Kitchen + Wine Bar.  And after taking Claire back home to Oakland on Saturday, we had a culinary feast at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, this time in the downstairs restaurant. (Our first visit a year ago had been to the upstairs cafe.)  Here’s a description of what is intended for the restaurant, from the Chez Panisse website:

“From the beginning, Alice and her partners tried to do things the way they wanted them done at a dinner party at home, with generosity and attention to detail. The Restaurant, located downstairs, is open for dinner Monday through Saturday, by reservation only. The fixed menu consists of three to four courses and changes nightly, each designed to be appropriate to the season and composed to feature the finest sustainably sourced, organic, peak-of-their-season ingredients, including meat, fish, and poultry.”

We found it to be one of the most thoughtful menus—and meals—we’d ever encountered. It was delightful, and we were pleased to share it with Claire and her friend Blair, who joined us for parts of the vacation.

Steinbeck Monument

Steinbeck Monument on Cannery Row

Finally, I went on something of a John Steinbeck kick while in Pacific Grove.  I’d begun to read The Grapes of Wrath on the plane ride out to California, as I’d decided this was a good time in our history to revisit this classic tale of the best and worst of America. But while in Pacific Grove, we stopped in a wonderful independent bookstore and I picked up a Steinbeck Centennial Edition of Cannery Row, the short novel/poem on accepting life as it is and putting the highest value on “the intangibles—human warmth, camaraderie, and love.”  Or, as Steinbeck writes early in the novel, “What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?”

Nature of Parties

“The Nature of Parties” by John Steinbeck from “Cannery Row”

Reading Cannery Row proved to be an unexpected joy in a vacation full of joy and thoughtfulness.  I’ll let Doc’s last words in the book close out this remembrance:

“Even now,

I know that I have savored the hot taste of life

Lifting green cups and gold at the great feast.

Just for a small and a forgotten time

I have had full in my eyes from off my girl

The whitest pouring of eternal light——”

Family along Monterey Coast

The Browns along the California Coast

More to come…

DJB

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Think Slow

Posted on June 25, 2018 by DJB

Our 15-year-old nephew—a budding musician—was in town this past weekend, so I took him to the House of Musical Traditions in Takoma Park. There he could see every type of musical instrument known to humankind (plus some) and, frankly, it gave me an excuse to play a few good guitars.  Not that I don’t have good guitars at home.  Later in the day my nephew had a chance to see and play my two prized Running Dog guitars made by luthier Rick Davis.

Playing my Running Dog

Playing one of my Running Dog guitars (photo by Claire Brown)

Davis was profiled in Tim Brookes’ 2005 book Guitar:  An American Life, where the author seeks to replace a badly damaged first guitar with a hand-crafted one “for the second half of my life.”  He writes that as he nears 50 years of age, he finds an itch that can only be scratched with a new guitar.  And as Brookes notes, “Guitar makers even have a word for these baby-boomers-who-always-wanted-to-be-great-guitarists-and-now-have-the-money-to-indulge-those-dreams:  dentists.”

“Much later, after the guitar is finished, Rick will refer to ‘the eternal and infinite capacity of the consumer to confuse making a purchase with falling in love.’ I should have known better, I suppose—but then again maybe not. First guitars tend to be like first loves:  ill-chosen, unsuitable, short-lived, and unforgettable. I’m not sure I ever want to get to the point of making a rational decision about a guitar.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about decision making at key junctions of life.  Like Tim Brookes, there are some things—guitars among them—where I don’t want a rationale decision model to get in the way of my emotion. But we face many decisions that require serious thought and calculation. Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, would suggest that we let our emotions make all types of decisions where a slower, rational model should come into play.  There is a recurring theme in Kahneman’s book that “many people are overconfident, prone to place too much faith in their intuitions. They apparently find cognitive effort at least mildly unpleasant and avoid it as much as possible.”

We put too much stock in the fact that we’re confident we’re making the right choice.  We put too much stock in our emotions.

“Subjective confidence in a judgement is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that this judgement is correct.  Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it.  It is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you than an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.”

When important decisions have to be made, I’m trying to take the time to step back, work through the crux of the matter, set aside emotions, and push back against a quick confidence that I’ve reached the right answer.  Thinking and decision-making—deep thinking around critical moments in your work, career, or life—requires time.

Think slow when you should, and have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

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Would You Rather Be the Ornithologist or the Bird?

Posted on June 18, 2018 by DJB

As our recent board meeting came to a close, I’ve reflected on how we communicate at these times to trustees, colleagues, stakeholders, donors, long-time acquaintances, and new friends.  Over the course of four days, we provide written updates, make formal presentations, discuss our goals, share experiences, and—at our best—turn those opportunities for communication into meaningful, insightful stories.

Carmine Gallo notes that prominent neuroscientists “confirm what we’ve known for centuries: The human brain is wired for story. We process our world in narrative, we talk in narrative and—most important for leadership—people recall and retain information more effectively when it’s presented in the form of a story, not bullet points.”

To be effective, stories must connect on a human, emotional level.  Sometimes that requires that we break out of the “rules” to find the right point of connection. Writer Colum McCann in Letters to a Young Writer, notes that while grammar is important in writing, it isn’t the be-all and end-all when we try to communicate.  There’s more we have to get across than just grammatical structure.

“Writers feel the grammar rather than knowing it.  This comes from good reading. If you read enough, the grammar will come.  In the end it’s the language itself—the shimmyshine of it—that matters so much more than the manners the grammar police want to put upon it.”

I like the thought of the “shimmyshine” of the language serving a larger purpose.  In the same essay, McCann notes that, “On occasion we write a sentence that isn’t, in fact, correct, but it sings.  And the question is:  Would you rather be the ornithologist or the bird?”

In written or spoken words—in telling our stories—let’s strive to be the bird.

Songbird (credit: Science Daily)

Songbird (credit: Science Daily)

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

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