Tag Archives: social media

Countering Contempt

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I’ve heard Arthur C. Brooks before. I apparently didn’t pay close enough attention.

Perhaps I saw that he was president of a think tank that tilted away from my ideological proclivities. Or, like often happens in life when you first encounter something that will later possess greater meaning—you pass on it once, or several times.

Book TV, which broadcasts on C-Span 2 each weekend, is what the network bills as “television for serious readers.” It’s 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors discussing their works. For someone like me who gravitates towards that genre, it’s a place I usually end up at some point each week.

After Words is a feature where one author interviews another nonfiction writer about a book they’ve written and it usually has a thematic orientation. This week, Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) interviewed his friend Arthur C. Brooks about his latest book, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt. Actually, I think the show was taped earlier and likely, I was viewing the rebroadcast.

Arthur C. Brooks’ new book about countering contempt.

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Writing Newsletters

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Thanksgiving’s gift of an extended respite was a welcome one. No tutoring, insurance, and only one chance to sub at a nearby high school.

I read, tag-teamed in the kitchen with my better half on some amazing plant-based meals rooted in simplicity: I had my evenings free, which has been rare since September. Thursday, we drove into Maine’s snowy western mountain region for time with Mary’s family.

Western Mountain splendor.

Grief is “a process.” The idea of grief proceeding neatly through “five stages” has been imposed upon those grieving, thanks to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Fifty years ago, she described a progression of emotional states experienced by terminally ill patients after receiving their diagnosis. Because of her “theory,” those who mourn are often inflicted by well-meaning people with the belief that we should be “getting over” our sadness and loss. If it were only as simplistic as passing through five stages.

I’m not going to debate the veracity of Kubler-Ross’s framework. Others have already done that. But Mary and I know better than most that grief doesn’t proceed in an orderly fashion, even if some wish it would. Grieving people will always mourn the loss of someone special and loved, like we loved Mark. Continue reading →

Acting Human

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Humans require interaction. Some have posited that our need to connect is as necessary as food and water. It’s how we’re wired. Isn’t it odd how so much of our socialization now occurs in the digital realm, rather than face-to-face?

Technology always gets offered up as a worthy surrogate. Facebook has become the default portal where all of our so-called humanness gets played out—touch, taste, success, beliefs, even end-of-life drama. This has become our new “normal.”

Maybe social media and our lack of time spent in the presence of other humans signifies some higher order evolution. I’m guessing that it doesn’t, since studies indicate there are more lonely Americans than ever before.

Staring at a screen isn't human interaction.

Staring at a screen isn’t human interaction.

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Parenting Skills

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Whatever happened to that tried and true, time-tested axiom about children—that they were to be “seen and not heard”? Apparently, it went out the window with many other common sense conventions from yesteryear.

On Saturday, a local restaurant owner basically told two stupid parents unable to control their toddler that it wasn’t acceptable for their kid to scream and carry on for 40 minutes in her restaurant. And of course, social media—whose biggest claim to fame is that it gives a platform to dolts with opinions not warranting the light of day—has been flooded in typical lynch mob-style, with tirades from “internet moms” against her via Facebook.

Screaming kids ruin restaurant dining.

Screaming kids ruin restaurant dining.

Note to parents (yes, you doltish “internet moms”) of young children; your kids aren’t the center of my universe, especially if I’m eating in a restaurant and your kid’s acting like a brat. Address the boorish behavior like an adult, or take the kid out of the restaurant. Don’t leave it up to the owner of a busy diner to deal with your lack of parenting skills. Continue reading →

My Truth is Better Than Yours

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Boiling every political argument down as being either conservative or liberal is a limiting critique—a binary straightjacket, so to speak. This kind of posturing has poisoned the current political well for sure.

What it’s also done very well is to create an undeserved smugness on one side, or the other. Where this smugness often gets exhibited in these heady digital days is on social media platforms—Twitter and Facebook, mainly.

Like the other day. Continue reading →

Do You Have the Knack?

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There is a narrative that says that the dawn of the 21st century has brought significant changes to our structures of work and economics. I won’t dispute that, but I’ll also say, the old way of doing things is still firmly entrenched and pushing against the status quo requires considerable effort and savvy. Even then, swimming upstream is hard.

Social media regularly serves as the 21st century’s equivalent of snake oil. Broad claims about the “new frontier” often reveal, when you look beneath the veneer that The Who were right; “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Not always, but often enough to know that things still are oriented to a certain way of conducting business. Continue reading →

Things I’m Working On

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How often can we start over again? Two times? Five times?  Fifty? I don’t know if there’s a definitive number.

Being able to begin anew is a skill we’re all going to have to cultivate. It’s not natural and works against the instincts and the cultural prescriptions that most of us have imbibed. Those messages framing our personal stories began in school and probably before; often, they are working against our own best interests. Continue reading →

Get-away Day (day 3)-Wrapping it Up

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NEW13HRCLogoSideBarFinal days at conventions, or get-away days, drawing on a baseball term, are always transitional. Up to that point, attendees are engaged, focused on the tasks, keynotes, and workshops at-hand. On get-away day, there’s a subtle shift that takes place. Everyone starts thinking of things back at the office—the things you’ve put off or put on hold—and if you’re staying at the Samoset, or off-grounds, like I was, you have to make sure you’re checked out and the car is loaded before commencing your final day of conventioneering. Continue reading →

Getting the Most Out of Your Convention Experience

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MEHRC logoEvery May for the past four years, I’ve been attending the Maine HR Convention at the Samoset Resort, in Rockport. The reason this has become a must-attend event for me is that year after year, this week-long HR-centric convention continues to deliver value. I’m not sure why I wasn’t attending before then.

While I’m not able to spend the entire week in Rockport, I always try to pick the best two days for me and stay over, and then hit a third day’s workshops and events before making the drive back home.  Continue reading →