Moving to Tumblr

After some thought and consideration, I have decided to move my blog over to the Tumblr platform. No further posts will be made here. Check out my new site at:

http://clifhirtle.tumblr.com

Novel

I was chatting with a good friend today and it occurred to me that just 1 year ago I did not even know this wonderful, thoughtful friend of mine who has become such a positive force for change in my community.

How could I have possibly predicted just 1 year ago how I would meet this individual who would become such an inspiring, thoughtful colleague over the past 6-9 months? How could I have possibly known how so much might change over the course of just a scant 12 months (a near complete reversal of finance and health and emotion and perspective)? How could I have foreseen how close I would now be to moving beyond these destitute walls, to the near-same place I lived long ago, with newer, wiser eyes showing me just how much I might have missed the last time around?

But it is more than that really.

For how mistaken can we sometimes be in assuming we know just what lies ahead? How foolish to propose we have already experienced the best of this life, merely from this tiny, singular place we are now? How arrogant to settle upon the conclusion that this life is anything less than a wonderful work-in-progress, this ultimate potentiality?

I have heard the author Jack Canfield frequently say that life is like driving car across country in total darkness. You can only see as far as your headlights at any given time, but so long as you have a big picture, a map of where you want to go, you will eventually make it to your destination, even if you can only see as far as your headlights are shining right now.

I always liked that analogy, even if I have not always trusted in it at different points in my life. For the passions I feel, the strengths I wield, the perspectives I draw upon I know never really left me, I simply stopped listening to their voices long just enough to forget how far they got me already... and how far they have to carry me still.

Life a novel: pages penned, ink fresh, a masterpiece in progress.

What are you going to write next?

Inertia

The only thing impossible is this world is not learning something incredible when you walk to the edge, push a bit harder, go beyond your comfort zone. The mind is elastic, the heart in motion, neither intended to sit idle, hardened by habit or molded by monotony, but rather to continually evolve and expand by exposure to new experiences and the vast wonder of this playground we call "earth."

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.

Helen Keller

FastTrac Day 1

It has been a long time since I wrote here last, yet it feels like only yesterday. Amazing how fast a summer can go by. But befitting that on the sunset of my first FastTrac class tonight that I should dive back into jotting down some thoughts. If this class is any indication, there will be many more to come.

First thing is this, here is a class on business that mirrors much of what an entrepreneurship/startup biz class might cover, yet...

1. Costs less
2. Brings in actual, local business people to tell their story
3. Focuses on real end-products with direct WIIFM for participants (tested business plan)
   
4. Directs participants to collaborate, work together during/after class
5. Provides 1 coach for every 2 students (1:2 vs 1:50 class ratio)

In tandem to Josh Kaufman's Personal MBA and Seth Godin's Alternative MBA concepts, I wonder what it is about these concepts that is so hard for most colleges and classrooms to grasp...

• Cooperation over competition
• Mentors over lectures
• Real-world biz stories over outdated textbook case studies

In the very first 3 hour class session, I heard at least a 1/2 dozen inspiring stories of folks who simply went out and did something, perhaps failed, but continually persisted in pursuing their passion to create a real systems that generate greater value and efficiency than the status quo could ever dream of... often with little more than handful of partners.

Never apologize for being small, the biggest ideas often emerge from the smallest in size.

Give

Wonderful thought stumbled upon in the coffee table reader this week...

You have only what you give. It's by spending yourself that you become rich...

Give, give, give - what is the point of having experience, knowledge, or talent if I don't give it away? Of having stories if I don't tell them to others? Of having wealth if I don't share it? I don't intend to be cremated with any of it! It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world, and with the divine.

Isabel Allende

from This I Believe

Routine

Great quote from BZ this week,

It's the awareness of the routine, the point when you know exactly what's coming tomorrow, it is that point that is the real killer."

I could not agree more. The curious mind finds no solace in the same-old songs. Perfect is more than practice alone. Human beings are not meant to live out their lives under fluorescent lights and concrete walls. There is a reason prisoners leave worse than when they arrive. It is the same reason we have more employees than entrepreneurs, more jobs to make a living than living to make jobs, more two week vacations than lifelong adventures.

It is about the stories we teach. The priorities we place. It should not take a lifetime of servitude to have the freedom to break with routine, to revel in the unexpected, to marvel at the unknown.

StatusQuo

How far do you go to protect what you have?

The outcome of today's freshly-negotiated State employee contract proposal should not have been surprising. I have known the rules for some time.

Yet I was shocked walking out today. Not at the level of give-backs expected, but rather the level to which negotiation went merely to protect the status quo, the same things, the same attitudes, the same costs that placed a system under water to begin with. While simultaneously sacrificing the benefits, the security of those who come on board with fresh ideas and strong work ethics because, ultimately, they have something to lose if they do not produce.

It is a sad reality when any organization gets to the point where the only measure of contribution is the number of hours you have watched pass by, the number of years you have done the same thing. Are we so out of touch with employee contribution that we cannot identify who has performed what service, at what cost, with what results?

Privilege

Love this...

The ancients are right: The dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of it, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege."

- Marilynne Robinson

Trust

A little Emerson for the evening...

In self-trust, all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be,--free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, "without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution." Brave; for fear is a thing, which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the presumption, that, like children and women, his is a protected class; or if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; so is the fear worse. Manlike let him turn and face it. Let him look into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin,--see the whelping of this lion,--which lies no great way back; he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth defy it, and pass on superior. The world is his, who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance,--by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.

Emerson
The American Scholar

Roots

The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles.

Mahatma Gandi

Disobey

Just out of mandatory diversity workshop at work. In this the presenter played back a media "expose" intended to demonstrate how racism still exists in society. In the piece, ABC News takes over a diner, places a blatant prejudiced man behind that counter, has a series of Hispanic actors come in and be refused service, called illegal immigrants, etc in the presence of average customers, and then watches how customers reaction to the situation. The intent being to prove the existence of racism by showing how the vast majority of people will either do nothing or agree with the man behind the counter when placed in the situation.

It is also a completely inaccurate depiction of anything to do with racism.

It represents the very kind of unscientific, overly-simplified major media fear-mongering that the American public has been inundated with for generations. It approaches a serious issue with a cavalier experimental design that makes a mockery of the very cause it is trying to draw awareness to.

The fact is that such a social scenario confounds a number of different variables yet attributes them all to the most visible attribute about the customers - namely that they are Mexican. In fact, it is discriminatory in and of itself by focusing so much attention to only one attribute.

Race, class, fear of safety, and, most critically, fear of authority are all present in this situation. I have mused on this before in prior posts and we have seen it depicted in countless social experiments: the majority of people when placed in awkward or potentially harmful situations, even when they may have a direct impact on the outcome of events, will not stand up, will not follow their better sense of conscience due largely from fear of authority, being ostracized, etc.

Stanley Milgram's studies of obedience at Yale in the 1960's. Phillip Zimbardo's prison experiments at Stanford in the 1970's. The examples of people unable to follow their better judgment when confronted with perceived authority are simply terrifying in itself. We see this in virtually all societies, generations, and organizations.

The true challenge of most societies is not forcing blind obedience to authority, but encouraging civil disobedience to it.

Gandhi said it much better, "The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within."

We need a society of people not trained to obey authority by a military with bullets, but trained to question authority via their own sense of conscience and confidence in themselves. We need citizens not asked to blindly pledge allegiance to symbols, but pledging engagement to higher ideals that are continually evolved through open dialogue and debate.

The real tragedies of our shared humanity are not resolved by attacking them in direct response. We do not solve the world's problems by naively attributing cause and effect to the first, the easiest, factor that emerges before us. We begin where and with who we are at this moment. We begin by first becoming consciously aware of the limitations of our own minds, of our own tendency to simplify by stereotype, to categorize by classification, to continually break things down into their most elemental forms. We progress by understanding how to think critically, both about our wold and about our selves.

The same man above once said, "The only devils in the world are those running in our own hearts. That is where the battle should be fought."

It is only by seeing both limits and possibilities of our shared humanity that we come to that critical point where we are free to focus our energies on those things we want to manifest in the world versus those we do not.

Belief

"The power of belief, in a sense -- it's one of the strongest of all," he said. "And like religion, if you strongly believe in something, it comes true and it becomes a reality. In acting, I find that as well. If you believe it, you discover a truth and it's quite spiritual.... Along that path, in discovering that character, you discover a lot about yourself."  

- 1994 interview with Heath Ledger

J.Allison

Beliefs are choices.  No one has authority over your personal beliefs.  Your beliefs are in jeopardy only when you don't know what they are.  Understanding your own beliefs, and those of others, comes through focused thought and discussion.  Most public dialogue is now propelled by media outlets owned by a dwindling number of multinational corporations.  A healthy democracy needs ways to bypass gatekeepers so we can communicate with one another directly, and perhaps even find common ground. 

Jay Allison

"This I Believe"

Drive Slow

How to make the most out of driving 2.5 hours for 1 ski run in the
worst snow conditions ever:

Stay hungry enough to enjoy a great meal with good friends.

Stay long enough to catch a sunset pour out over the mountains.

Drive slow enough to chase a full moon lighting up the night
clouds.

Fire

I am hurricane. I am mind fire. As I awaken to the light of this day I feel this pulse in my veins quicken, these pupils dilate, this mind come alive. I take this potential for infinite thought, of insatiable curiosity, of open-eyed wonder, and I make it my possibility. I embrace this day as all that I may ever have, all that I have ever had. I define myself here and now. I keep this mind open to the lights of others to shine upon it. I step into new worlds and understandings. I evolve from more than self, but ceaseless wonder of a wider world. I take these experiences with me down this road. I am not alone. I am, by pages turned, through sights perceived, connected to all who came before and all who come after. I leave my mark, yet I carry these experiences with me as timeless companions. In so, I am manifestation, I am amalgamation, I am the eternity of this moment.

Jump

This weekend I jumped off an ice cliff while skiing. 

It was no accident and, after doing so, I felt more liberation than any jump, mogul, or vertical incline ever provided before.  

Why? 

Because it scared the hell out of me, because every inch of my defined limitations screamed, "impossible"... yet I did it anyway. 

I cannot explain euphoria I felt the rest of that day, I cannot explain how I was OK with nearly breaking an ankle further down the trail, I cannot comprehend how a little ice in the woods could have impact it did.  But it did so for Jay too so I cannot claim to be crazy. 

What I do know is that there are times in life we can feel out of touch with our better selves, when it takes an act so apart from the confines of our predefined limits that we elevate our awareness and appreciation for things that much higher.  I would not have dreamed of jumping off an ice cliff in the middle of an unmarked trail on the last run of the day before that moment, but in that moment doing so was all that mattered. 

Charles DuBois once said...

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Just love this.

broken state

It sounds almost funny, except it is not. For the past year I have been trying to pay my taxes. Not for a few months, not even for half the year, simply the entire year. What stands in the way of fulfilling this basic duty? CT General Statutes Section 12-130:

failure to send out any tax bill shall not invalidate the tax.

Take a gander at this fine piece of work. It almost makes sense... for a second. Then you read down further. "Ohh... there's what I need, I can click the little 'click here' link to see what I owe." Except that clicking on that little "click here" to look up current year taxes bring up simply, "page not found." So you are back at square one.

Translation?

We, the city tax office, have every right to totally F-up your taxes, duck behind the curtain for cinematic appeal, pull them out of a hat with a silver bunny, then go on vacation for the entire year... oh but please know that it is still your responsibility to pay your unknown sum by an unknown date in lieu of undocumented taxes.

There are few things in life that thoroughly and completely confuse me beyond any hope of comprehension, few things that appear totally broken by their mere nature. Congratulations city government, you just made the short list.

ice

I hiked up Ragged Mountain today. Just a small little mountain. Nothing like the big White Mountains I ran through as a kid in NH. But today, but this morning, it was enough to soothe a busy mind.

On arrival, I found I missed the hiking group I was to meet. Habit would have had me turn around and go home. I did not know the trails. I had never been here before. There was snow on the ground. But in lieu of a tiny little recurring dream, there was little choice but to climb.

I could say I hiked alone, but for a few friendly escorts to the top from a fluffy malamute husky and a very excited, very cold black lab. They struck me as a bit of an odd couple, the lab whimpering and squirming about, the husky quiet, observant, and paced. The talker and the walker. They made for good company, even if they were just using me for my sandwich.

The trail I took ended up running the ridge of the mountain, up the left, over the lake, then rounding up each side of the mountain to the top. I ran. I hiked. I breathed. I ran some more. I passed a couple others. As I passed the second ridge to the peak, I took a minute to absorb the scope of the snowy ground, barren trees, and quiet sky all around. It struck as me as quite strange how little of nature's sanctity we leave left in our busy lives. It was the last part, that quietness that I had forgotten the importance of, of the omnipresence and power in a mere moment of nature's silence. It came before me. It will last long after. I would have continued on with the rest of the groups I saw on the way up, but for the tranquility of the moment. It seemed only right to savor it well. Who knows if I should step on this path again? Opportunity beckoned.

I glanced over the rolling hills to Mount Southington and it's snow-covered trails. Then off the right to the UCHC. But it was not the hills that caught me this day, but kneeling down, the magnificence of the detail under my feet that took my breath away. There, frozen in one beautiful moment, a layer of water flowing over the rocks at cliff's edge, a thin layer of ice floating mere centimeters off the jagged surface. Hovering. Floating. Like a smooth, transparent skin to the rough and hard points of the rocks beneath. I pressed one section only to feel it creak and shatter under my touch. Caught in the moment, I stared at the random creation for some time. The intricacy of it's ice bubbles, the dryness of the rock beneath. Perhaps we are to this nature not so different anyway, hardened souls covered in a fragile skin or fragile souls isolated by the hardened stone we build around us? Just perhaps.

I spent some time at the top staring not out, but in.

Coming down the other side there were many points where the path got icy. Places where you could really fall hard. I found quickly that in such places you can walk softly and try to go around or you can set back and leap over with everything you have got. I walked softly coming up, so I chose to leap ahead coming down. Even if you don't know where you are going to land, sometimes just the taste of temporary flight is worth the consequence of any landing. I missed only a few times. That I would bleed a few fingers, but not break any legs was good enough a result.

True, in this hike there was much more, but where would we then end? The wonder of getting lost in the woods? The beauty of an uncertain destination? Or a magical reservoir, golden field, forest limo, or hiker hieroglyphics? Such are stories for another day. For today, on this day, what lies within, what we need without, truth be, is enough.