fooWare!

I recently watched an interview with Josh Waitzkin about his book “The Art of Learning”, and his explanation about “the beginner’s mind” really resonated with me, and I’ve become a real convert to this idea. The concept of putting yourself into the frame of mind of a novice, in order to put aside any bias in order to progress your understanding. The more I think of it, and the more I put it into practice, the more I find benefit in the proper application of the beginner’s mind.

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Have you ever said something, which then sparked a thought in your head that clarified how you perceive things? That happened to me earlier today, and gave me a new perspective on recent events.

As I was riding the train to work, I popped a quick status update on Facebook:

Felt good to explain to Benjamin why today is a holiday, and who Dr. Martin Luther King is. Hopefully we take another small step to fully achieving his dream with each generation.

Nothing earth-shattering. But after I posted it, I noticed my choice of verb. Even though Dr. King died in 1968, my mind considered him still in the present. I used is, the present tense of the verb “to be”. And that seemed to make sense to me. You can point to a time before a person lives, when they are living, and after they have lived. When someone has died is a specific event, a certain point in time. But the verb “to be” is different, in a sense it speaks to the spirit of a person. Even after they have died, they still exist in memories, photos, letters, descendants, even Facebook posts.

The same thing happened to me recently after my sister passed away a couple months ago, shortly before Thanksgiving. At a gathering with my wife’s family, someone asked me if I had any brothers or sisters. Instinctively, my first thought was, “Yes, an older sister and a younger brother.” I paused just a second, because I wasn’t sure that was still an accurate answer. But my next thought was, “Yes, I have an older sister and a younger brother.” Even though my sister has died she was, is, and always will be my older sister.

It brings just a touch of comfort. That instead of thinking of death as an extinguishing event, to continue to think of a person in the present, in terms of who they are and a continuing impact that they can have on life.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke, “Profiles of The Future”, 1961 (Clarke’s third law)
English physicist & science fiction author (1917 – )

There’s an AT&T commercial I’ve been seeing lately which features snapshots of people using their smartphones (the Blackberry Torch in these cases) in different situations. “It says you like soft rock.”, “It says so-and-so bought the same dress.”, “It says it’s the second switch on the left.” And amazingly the lights go on thanks to what their Blackberry Torch “said”. Just like magic, right? I don’t think so…

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As if my last blog post didn’t give you the impression, I’m pretty dependent on mobile devices. My iPhone (formerly my Blackberry), my iPad, and my laptop are all tools I depend in for my professional life, and I also find they help me significantly in my personal life. My brother takes a slight different approach, commenting “And I don’t even have a smart phone yet. I personally think it is ridiculous to pay another $30/month for something I don’t have/use now.” His comment illustrates another side of what Chris Brogan writes about on the American Express OPEN Forum about the “mobile divide”.

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I’ve been using a Blackberry for 5 years. From the start, I was a typical Crackberry addict. Twenty-four/seven, I had my Blackberry. Over time, I used 4 different Blackberry models. At one point, my wife asked me what would happen if she took my Blackberry and flushed it. I told her another one would grow back in its place.

So how did I shift to the iPhone? And how does it compare for me to the Blackberry which I had gained such dependence?

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One of the people I follow on Twitter, @ccseed, tweeted a question earlier today “What was the best class you ever took, at any level, and why?”. My answer to this was short (limited by the 140 character limit on Twitter, “Aerospace Propulsion, senior year in Eng. at SU. Very challenging, coupled with very motivating and encouraging professor.” I wanted to take a minute to tell the rest of the story.

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An interesting side effect of the connected world, the emergence of the citizen journalist. I’m not the first one to make this observation; consider the reporting of the US invasion of Baghdad as reported by Salam Pax in his blog Where is Raed?. Blogs have allowed anyone to report “the news” as they see it, in their corner of the world, from their perspective.

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I did my civic duty earlier today, and cast my vote in the presidential election, as well as the local elections and ballot questions here in Massachusetts. And I have to say that as I did, what was most important to me was the act of voting. Regardless of your political persuasion or choice, whether I agree or not with your choices or reasons for choosing, what matters most to this democracy is your participation. I listened to the debates, I did my research, and I made my choices. I hope that many many of my fellow citizens did the same thing.

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Here in Boston, it’s a beautiful day. Perfect spring weather, warm in the sun and cool in the shade. But I’m working my cha-cha off because of three different major projects, each with critical deliverables this week. Blood pressure spikes everytime the Blackberry buzzes. Worked 70+ hours last week, expect in the 80s next week, have only had two days this year I haven’t done any work. My wife and son are in FL with her family for Passover…I gotta get out of Dodge…

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When U2 released “The Joshua Tree”, it was a pretty cool album. It was 1987, sophomore year at HHS for me…

It was so cool, I thought, I want to go find and see the Joshua Tree. It’s not shown on the album cover (I checked to be sure). Nobody told me there was more than just one…way more…

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