Last night we watched a Prime movie entitled Words on Bathroom Walls. It’s a story of a young man who gets diagnosed with schizophrenia (I’m not giving away the plot). It’s all about the challenges of the mental illness and how it affects relationships. I highly recommend it.
Leadership – Meditation 1
I’m taking my meditations public. The first series comes with the topic of leadership. I’m not sure how many installments of this there will be. I’m writing what comes to mind, without a filter, to really get to the essence of the topic.
It occurred to me a few years ago that everyday folks have different ideas about the makeup of leadership from their chosen political figures. So I’ll start there.
Leaders should have plans.
They should be able to communicate plans in a way that brings people on board with the plan.
They should know what came before them, within reason. Policy, people, and history mean something when you’re a political leader.
They need the higher order human capabilities, like empathy, compassion, and emotional maturity.
They need a thick skin to see past the ridicule or anger from their opposition.
They should be able to engage a topic without anger or resentment.
The Art of Reading

The other day I opened my Goodreads account and was a bit shocked by a number sitting there on my profile, 212 books read. How could that be possible? I’m 43 years old and have only read 212 books. That’s a disgrace. An abomination. I was going to be a writer. How could I possibly be a writer having only read 212 books?
On average, I read about a dozen books a year. Not a large amount and certainly not my potential. I’m picturing Jordan showing his rings when I say I could read double, triple, quadruple that. Last year I had a goal of reading 30. I was on track into August, but fell off due to pandemic fatigue. Too much information being pressed upon me. If you’re looking for statistics, the average number of books an American reads a year comes to 12, a dozen. I’ve been stunningly average. On the other side of that average, several friends of mine haven’t read a book in years. I know of at least one individual who claims to have never read a book. The median is four books, according to that study. Four is better than none.
In a very modern, industrial fashion, Goodreads asks readers to set a goal for their annual book consumption. The inverse Reader’s Anonymous group asks it’s users to stake out a finish line, but there’s no personal pan pizza or other reward waiting at the end, only the boastful notification that your friends will see on the platform, Jason reached his 2021 reading goal. Of course, that goal better be larger than the average or all will be diminished and forgotten. Set yourself up for failure. Get beyond the “to read list” teetering next to the recliner and start thinking in shelves, rolling carts, and other meaningful book storage.
Some users of the platform have goals so high that their totals seem like Babel in the dark sky. How could one person possibly read 250 books in one year. We are not reading by candlelight in 1890. We have Netflix and binge, the golden age of television, mobile gaming, social media drama, coffee to brew, and NY Times crosswords to complete. There’s simply not enough hours in the day to read that much, almost a novel a day. That’s a backbreaking lift. A John Henry steelwork tale. But then you look at their “read list” and realize they’re not using live ammo, but firing blanks. They must be librarians reading all the teen novels in a row, from A to Z, so as to give quality recommendations to the youngins crowding their reference desk. First name Dewey, last name Decimal.
I read other mediums, like blog posts, news articles, tutorials, guides, comment sections on social media (eek). So why would a book, a non-fiction one be better than say a YouTube series or even an author on social media ranting about the topic. The depth a book can go, plumbing the bottom of any field’s depths, for one. Data might hold the answers, but the book delving into the interpretation of the data will always be more useful than the raw numbers. A central point of language and sharing, books open doors that might not have existed prior to their reading. Imagine being a novelist and never having read contemporary fiction. You might start your first page with phrases like, “It was a dark and stormy night,” or “Call me, Ishmael.” Now imagine being a chemist having never read about the noble gasses. Or a programmer having never read about data types or algorithms.
When I was young, books were the escape from hot summer nights spent listless in the humidity. My flashlight illuminating the pages of C.S. Lewis or the adventures of a hobbit, last name Baggins. This isn’t some sort of attack on modern media or how things used to be better in the past, only that my perspective of books shaped themselves out of the lack of options in the past. I was a product of the 80’s and 90’s, where books held ground, standing up against all other forms of entertainment.
But are books the right answer today?
I was reading a Twitter thread the other day where someone mentioned that books do not get vetted for truth in the same way a journalist might attack a story’s premise. Of course, they’re talking about non-fiction books, but it made me pause for a moment and question these books I read and how I put so much weight into their words simply because they’re smeared onto a page with some high powered printer. So it’s OK to question what comes out of book. It’s not gospel (even gospel isn’t gospel!).
There’s also this argument by Andy Matuschak that books don’t work. They’re the wrong medium, especially for a technically savvy society. They’re old tech that needs to be abandoned for something better. He argues the time we spend reading might be better spent with some other medium or another way to interact with the knowledge set of a non-fiction book. We have apps that can teach us things in a much more psychologically proficient way. We can step away from the inked page in favor of a rigorous scientific approach to learning and likely retain much more than we would have only consuming the written word.
I feel I should say something about technology books. I’m a programmer, by will alone. I sought out the knowledge outside of a degree and work as a developer in a full-time role. I did so by reading some books, but mostly I read the documentation and watched videos. I connected with understanding by seeing others perform via video. The books I read helped solidify what I had seen in those videos and also experienced on my own, but technology has limits in the written form. Theory and best practices can stay true for a very long time on paper, but technology books often wilt over time. The version outpaced the book and the methodology in the book becomes antiquated. My experience has been to keep hold of the tomes that strengthen understanding behind patterns and practice, but let go of the ones that talk of encounters with the programming language version.
Fiction though. That’s different. Last year I read a Blake Crouch book called Dark Matter. It’s a page turner. I started the book mid-week, a twenty minute session to get the premise and into it a bit, then devoured it on a Sunday. I spent six to seven hours reading. It was fascinating and I felt like I was being transported into a world where the story’s multiverse really existed. It wasn’t laborious or exhausting. In fact, I think the time spent imagining this world, letting the words turn into images, strengthened my psychological well-being afterwards. It’s relaxing to use a Sunday to hallucinate with the words.
Fiction can be therapeutic.
It can also bring empathy to the forefront. We step into the world of a character who we might not otherwise identify and we see the similarities. We can empathize with their destiny, even if it’s awful. We might be a black slave like Henry Shackleford in The Good Lord Bird or a Russian former person like Alexander Rostov in A Gentleman in Moscow. These characters are very far removed from my own experiences as a white man living in middle America. Nevertheless fiction gives me an opportunity to open myself to their experiences.
Sure there are instances (and I’m not discounting them) where authors have delved into a narrative not inline with their heritage. One such instance comes to mind from the author of the novel American Dirt. She wrote about Mexico but hails from Puerto Rico. If the author has an honest look into the past, the reader can come away with solid experiences that can shape their perspective.
What more can we ask of reading? We’re looking to shape our reality in some way from any book we read, whether it be fiction or non-fiction, we want the pages to uplift us in a way we didn’t encounter before reading it. We want the knowledge to apply to our work, life, or perspective. We become better for having read it. Either in our pursuits or in our mental health.
I’ll leave this musing article with this thought. There’s the saying that boils down to quality over quantity. It is possible we could find ten awesome books for pleasure and profession and likely be set for life, if we never veered from our own small piece of the world. But the more knowledge, perspectives, and writings we experience, the more we give ourselves a chance to grow. We can read dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of words written by strangers on forums, Twitter, or Reddit, but how does the quantity of those words shape our life? Some may be meaningful and valuable as a result, but most will drift away, like a tide receding into the darkness of night.
Living through a Pandemic
I rarely thought much about viruses prior to COVID 19. SARS and Ebola were always flittering on the fringes, stories in my periphery, but never a focus. Then COVID happened. A worldwide pandemic that swept away all sense of normalcy, compounded by a president and administration in the US that spread misinformation in the virus’ early days, appeasing Wall Street and anti-maskers, rather than tackling the virus.
I haven’t caught the virus. I know some who have, locally and abroad. In the early days, I thought about keeping a journal regarding the virus, lockdown, and complications of the pandemic, but that quickly grew tiresome. Instead I’d like to share what lockdown was like for me. If it’s ten years from now, will I remember weeks spent at home? And I’m not complaining, just recalling for the future.
Sometimes I wouldn’t go outside all day except to get the mail.
My truck that often emptied it’s tank at around the two week mark often takes six to eight weeks before I need to refill.
My daughter graduated from fifth grade, into sixth, a completely different school, and never once touched feet to linoleum in that new school, at least so far during her first year.
My work, where I started in September 2019, went remote in March 2020 and I’ve now spent more time working remote than I ever did in the office.
I received a promotion in December, where I lead a team of developers and other staff members. All our correspondence happens via slack chat or in zoom calls.
I haven’t sat in a restaurant since April of 2020, when I visited a restaurant with my brother and parents in Indiana — restaurants were shutdown in Champaign during that time.
I learned to work with wood the summer of 2020, building many shop projects, and a few small pieces of furniture.
While I had been somewhat learning to cook prior to COVID, I’ve taken a keen interest since.
Books provide a great adventure. I even went back to hardcover, with the occasional Kindle digital book.
Board and card games give us hours of fun.
Video games preserved what little social life I have left.
Masks worn everywhere. The blue surgical were my later go to. I’ve bought a box of 50 every couple months. My wife gets hers at work.
Sports have all been played in empty stadiums, including at the college level. Those first few months of the lockdown saw little realtime TV, as all sports were stopped. News was one of the only options.
Awaiting the vaccine like it’s some sort of mystical cure-all.
We currently lose thousands of people each day to this virus. There are still videos and stories of obtuse shoppers refusing to wear masks. Some cities have implemented fines for not wearing them. Illinois currently has the state on zoned lockdowns, we’re in a lockdown phase that only allows takeout from restaurants and essential shopping.
The vaccines developed in record time give us all hope that this part of our lives will be behind us. I know my family will welcome that with a huge sense of relief. If you lost someone to this virus, I hope the future holds you in it’s embrace and you find comfort from that pain.
Black Lives Matter
They do. I’m posting this to document my experience learning about the movement and to help me understand the plight of the black community in America.
I have personal experiences that I could share, but in deference to the way the movement would rather whites step aside and allow black voices to be heard, I thought a better approach would be to update this page when I come across an insightful resource, be it a video, article, tweet, or some other media online.
Likely the best source, the website of the movement.
https://blacklivesmatter.com/resources/
Twitter accounts to follow (found in the Trayvon toolkit on the BLM website):