Many A Slip

That moment before you lose your shit.
That moment before you censor yourself.
That moment before you cast your vote.
That moment before you take that bite.
That moment before you lean forward.
That moment before you walk away.
That moment before you turn around.

Take that moment and stretch it ouuuuuuttttttt as if you control time, as if you are the queen of making clear choices. As if your mind has always had the right answer and your body has always been poised to make the perfect move.

To enjoy the delusion that everything you decided was right for you in that moment. To squash the idea that you made a mistake.
Or the opposite.
To know what's done is done is done and everything else is spin.

Carl & Marissa: Some Thought Experiments

I'm reading Broca's Brain, Carl Sagan's book of essays on the 'romance of science'. It's always been a struggle for me to get through non-fiction but this is a great read and I'm congratulating myself on keeping up with it. Here's an excerpt:

"...We might therefore one day travel to the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy and return in a time of a few decades measured on board the ship - although, as measured back on Earth, the elapsed time would be sixty thousand years, and very few of the friends who saw us off would be around to commemorate our return."

Not 'none' but 'very few'.

Hahaha Carl, you're such a kidder. You're kidding aren't you Carl? 

Carl? Are you there, Carl? 

You're freaking me out Carl, stop it. 

....Carl?....

*************

On Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to ban working from home.

As a professional:

When I'm not traveling I work from home and I love it. It helps my process. I'm disciplined. I meet all my deadlines and on most days I don't turn in rubbish.
If Mayer was my boss I'd want to strangle her. 

At the same time, I also agree with this article: '3 Reasons Marissa Mayer Has Made A Smart Move' 

Even though my job is creative and needs peace and quiet, I've felt the drawbacks of working far removed from my colleagues, where the kick of working for a common goal gets diluted. It's difficult to feel part of a team when you are geographically separated for 80% of your teamwork activities. I'd be lying if I said it didn't affect the end-product.

In that sense, I'm tempted to think that Mayer might be onto something here (plus, to make an assessment of her decision from a business point of view, one might need to study the circumstances at Yahoo! that prompted this decision. It could hardly have been a random act to make its employees' lives miserable. I mean, who is she? My ex-boss?).

As a working woman, who doesn't have children and can't speak for those who do: 

Do I feel her decision is anti-women? In spite of that bloody 5-star nursery next to her office, I might be tempted to say no, I don't think her decision is anti-women (insensitive yes, anti-women no). 

I've always been suspicious of this culture of 'supporting' women by tailoring their professional lives to allow them to be mothers & wives. 

Call me paranoid but I find it sinister to promote the idea that women can & must do it all (i.e. be rocket scientists at NASA & Mother India all in one). 

It puts an unrealistic amount of pressure on women, propping us up to be failures no matter how hard we try. 

So here's a thought experiment in 2 parts: 

What would happen if a woman (or a man, for that matter) had to choose between profession and parenting? Wouldn't we have to question what we've come to assume is axiomatic? (The axiom being: we can 'have it all'/ 'having it all' is helpful to us as individuals & as a community.)

Part 1: What if Yahoo!'s decision influences work cultures across the professional world and there comes a time, when it becomes less demonic & more normal to choose one over the other?

Could it be that a woman (or a man) will be free of the pressure to have it all, do it all and be some impossible version of the 'complete woman/ man'?

Could it be that women (and men) might actually be happy being one (professional) or the other (parent) without a sense of loss or having 'missed out'?

Part 2: What if we reject Yahoo!s decision and there comes a time when we have to embrace the 'having it all' trope in every possible way?

Could it be that more men might become equal stakeholders in the child-rearing process (and women might actually let them)?

Could it be that workplaces alter & adapt themselves to support this 'having it all' trope (rather than banishing employees to their homes, where the messiness of raising children is not the organization's problem)?

We live in an age when we are expected to be all the big things: parents, consummate professionals, responsible caretakers of our aging parents, contributing members to our community. 

Is it realistic to be all of these, all at once? Do measures (like encouraging working from home) that allow us to be a million things at once, help us or harm us?

I still haven't figured it out. But until I do, I can't scream bloody (sexist) murder at Mayer.

********** 

(Another thought experiment: If Mayer was a male CEO, would the outrage target him personally for his life choices or would it focus on Yahoo! as an organization?)

(Additionally: There's something very creepy about expecting her to be a card-carrying feminist just because she is a head honcho. And then demonizing her because she's not.)

***********
Slightly off-point but connected : Read about the feud between Rebecca Walker and her Pulitzer Prize winning author mother, Alice Walker. It's the seamier side of what happens when a woman tries to make a go of both profession and motherhood and gets it all muddled up. Not saying all woman are unable to handle both. Not even saying that all women don't want to handle both. But here is a woman (Alice), who clearly couldn't and didn't and the consequences were painful for all parties involved.

The mother-daugher wars: Phyllis Chesler

"Rebecca: Trust me, a woman really cannot do both. The myth that we can is a dangerous one."

'Listening' According to The Vedas (not really)

It may not be news to you but:

There are two types of listening. In one type, information passes through a prism of comprehension...no, not a prism, some kind of internal transmogrification apparatus, where information is brutally converted into genres of thought & feeling we're more tuned towards (or our life-condition tunes us towards). Nothing new ever happens in this kind of listening, we learn nothing and are no closer to comprehending anything outside of us than we're able to look up our nostrils without a mirror. We find it easy to judge others from this place, because we can't tell how their story is different from ours. We are baffled by different behaviours because we never switch this apparatus of preconception off.

In the other type of listening, we're open. There is no apparatus. Information flows into us and lights up new spaces of darkness and we go: "Oh! I never looked at it that way!" The world is then an easier place to navigate, it's easier to decide when to care and when not to. It's more difficult to invalidate someone else's feelings or world views; harder to call them 'stupid'. It's easier to let go of 'shoulds' and concentrate on what's fun. It's easier to learn no matter how old we get. The panic of bafflement gives way to the thrill of exploration.

So...like...what I'm sayin is...When I crack this, I'll give you a buzz.

Stupid Mantras

Live each day as if it's your last.

Really? Do you know what would happen if we actually did that? Lived every microsecond with the spectre of our mortality, our looming deaths? Fear would paralyze us into Tussaud versions of ourselves. Or we'd poop. Like, constantly.
And because we'd be pooping constantly, we'd have to consume constantly. Pooping, consuming. Pooping consuming. Pooping, consuming. The spiral would continue until our bodies were completely destroyed and we dropped dead in a pile of our own waste. Imagine how many years of productive life we'd have cut short because we tried living each day as if it were our last. Imagine the plight of the person who finds our corpse and has to clean up after.

Tell me, is that a risk worth taking?

What do you think happens next?

******

Note: The above corresponds to this blogger's personal views. If you find any ideas or words objectionable please direct your complaints to: http://www.parnasse.com/drwww.shtml

Transformation

*This post is dedicated to the crazy lady who taught me about the 'Eros' of her 'doodle'. Don't ask.
********* 

It's funny how things (and meanings of things) can remain the same while transforming every instant.
Like the famous soliloquy from Hamlet, which acquires new symbolism while retaining its original existential dilemma with the single exchange of the word 'be' with its syllabic doppelganger.

"To pee, or not to pee, that is the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles..."

"But tal to me, Hamlet, are you sooar?" ~ Horatio