The current national and international bickering over Iraq really saddens me, because it shows how easy it is to let disagreement widen into a serious rift between friendly nations. There has certainly been a lot of heated transatlantic rhetoric these last months, and too little of it has been focused on common goals and purposes.
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Transatlantic rhetoric
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National Novel Writing Month
NaNoWriMo is a seriously cool project: You sign up, and the idea is that during november 2003, you’ll write a novel. To make it easier, there are no quality restrictions, only quantity: You must write at least 50.000 words. I LOVE the idea. This means no agonizing over insignificant details. It means you can’t procrastinate and delay. You’ll have to get down and write!
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Book review: Flow
Everybody knows the state of Flow. Flow is when you’re engrossed in doing something. You may forget time and place. You may forget to eat or sleep. You’re doing what you’re doing, and your entire attention is focused on that.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote a book about it back in 1990, based on many years of research into happiness. And the book is excellent. No other book I’ve read discusses human happiness (and unhappiness) so clearly and fluidly.
So what is it that makes us happy?
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Rebuilding the food pyramid
The Scientific American has an excellent article about diet. It explains in detail what’s wrong with the old food pyramid (you know, the one with meat and fats at the top and carbohydrates at the bottom), and gives us a new and improved version. Excellent stuff.
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Book review: The soul of a new machine
Writer Tracy Kidder won a Pulitzer prize in 1982 for The soul of a new machine. It’s the true story of a team of engineers at Data General who are designing the next generation of micro-computer.
I first read the book ten years ago, while I was still at university, and while it’s still an excellent read, my perspective on the story has changed completely.
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The ultimate test for Open Space meetings
Harrison Owen has written an article about an Open Space meeting held in Rome, where fifty Palestinians and Israelis gathered to talk about themselves, their future, and the possibilities of peace.
It was certainly not easy, but hope emerged from the meeting. Which is a testament to the ability of Open Space meetings to bring out the best in people.
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Quote
Few of us can understand any longer the enthusiasm of Caliph Ali ben Ali, who wrote: “A subtle conversation, that is the Garden of Eden.” This is a pity, because it could be argued that the main function of conversation is not to get things accomplished, but to improve the quality of experience.
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow
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The importance of stories
Stories and storytelling have played a major part in three of the books that I’ve read lately.
It’s interesting to see the ancient art of telling stories used in such different settings as change management and child therapy.
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Values as clear goals?
I’m currently reading Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The book is about that state of consciousness where everything just flows. Where the gears mesh smoothly, there are no distractions, you loose track of time, and it feels really good.
You can achieve flow at work or in your free time. Concert violinists and mountain climbers can find flow, but so can school teachers and assembly line workers.
In one of the early chapters, he lists the requirements for flow, one of which is “clear goals and feedback”. It’s easier to enjoy what you do when you immediately know if you’re doing it right. Which is bad news for many people in the workplace, because quite often, the actions we take in the workplace does not have clear goals or fast feedback. Often we won’t know for days or month whether what we’re doing works.
But there’s a way around that, and I think it revolves around values.
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Quote
What I “discovered” was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow
