Inside Bill’s Brain is a documentary series that invites us to see how Bill Gates thinks. Among the more remarkable practices is his long standing “think weeks,” where perplexed by a particular problem, he loads up a bag of books on that topic and takes off to a secluded cabin where he just thinks about that issue. Returning hopefully with a deeper understanding, a plan of action, perhaps even some solutions worthy of exploration.…
To hear this term is to presume something positive. It implies that things fit with one another, get along, are nice.
Yet in the field of psychology, complementary behavior may not always be as helpful as it sounds. It means you respond back to someone in the same way they did to you. For example, if someone yells at you, you yell at them.
By comparison, non-complementary behavior is responding to someone in a different way from which they acted towards you. …
It is my favorite word. To hear anyone of my three daughters call me “Daddy” is a delight, even when it is to register a complaint or voice frustration. There is an innate tenderness to the term that I never want to go away. I have never heard my daughters call me dad or father, although I’m guessing they use those terms whenever referring to me with their friends or teachers. …
Two weeks ago my daughter asked me for some help on a school math assignment. She was given an imaginary $100,000 to invest in ten stocks and track how they performed over the course of two weeks.
In selecting her stocks, she picked things she believed in or liked. She likes to listen to music, so she chose Spotify. She loves to read, so she chose Scholastic.…
There are so many things about life that are beyond my current understanding. Chief amongst these are the experiences of people whose backgrounds are different from my own.
I do not understand what it feels like to be the victim of an injustice or to perpetrate it.
I do not understand what it is like to be discriminated against daily, to patrol the streets, to fight in a war, to live in fear for myself or my family.…
It happened as the parade of cars drove through our town, our children’s teachers beeping and beaming as we waved.
It happened as I attended the virtual graduation ceremony at City College and read the students and parents’ supportive and proud comments and emojis scroll down the Youtube Live chat box for an hour.
It happened as I watched each episode of Some Good News, as each story chronicled one beautiful act of appreciation after another.…
My two favorite parts of “It’s a Wonderful Life” are both born out of crisis.
The first comes as there is a run on the Bailey Building and Loan, the small community bank led by the movie’s protagonist, George Bailey. Fearing insolvency the customers descend on the bank with the hope of withdrawing all of their money out of fear caused by the stock market crash.…
“In one word, write down how you are feeling right now.”
This was how I started each class over the last month at the two different universities where I teach.
Students were encouraged not to use terms already added to the zoom chat by another student. Some results were predictable. Anxious, tired, afraid, nervous, unsure – always made the list. More practical needs were also expressed – allergic, hungry – as were, albeit more rarely, the aspirational – hopeful, grateful.…
Yesterday was a mother’s day unlike any other. Under normal circumstances this would be a day where mothers would either be lavished with gifts, taken out to dinner, or maybe just given a break.
No doubt children and families did their best to try and cobble something together along those lines despite our current limitations.
To repeat a well-worn cliche, now more than ever, mom’s deserve the recognition that too often gets taken for granted.…
One of the defining American debates is the ongoing question of Public vs. Private. Another way to think of it is — what is mine vs. what is ours? This question runs through issues related to economics, rights, education, health, property and so on.
Some see these ideas of public and private mostly at odds. An example of zero-sum thinking (see here for a great summary of research on how this thinking plays out politically). …
There has been a lot of talk and some action about “opening” lately. Most of it has been focused on opening the economy, or more specifically businesses. Some are clamoring to get back to life “as normal” while others are concerned that such a move would endanger our individual and collective health. This debate, if you want to call it that, is taking different shapes depending upon circumstance, geography and is greatly affected by leadership of lack thereof.…
“What kind of tree can you fit into your hand?” —- “a palm tree.”
Each morning our daughter’s elementary school principal shares a taped video message. She concludes it with a joke submitted by a student – similar to the one above. This ritual is a new one, as previously the morning announcements in school did not include any joke telling.
While not privy to the reason behind this addition. My…
In the face of our current challenges, I’ve heard many echo my own feelings that our personal actions have been insufficient. This is especially true when we compare ourselves to others whose roles are deemed essential and actions heroic.
This sentiment at times comes when people reflect on their relative good fortune or privilege. But it is not limited to the lucky.
I’ve also spoken to those directly impacted by events.…
She drove almost 2,000 miles from Pennsylvania to Texas to deliver a truckload of eggs. On the way back, her freight was 29,000 pounds of berries – among whose final destinations was a Philadelphia hospital.
On a normal week my sister’s driving comes with its own set of risks. She has lupus and being in a truck is not especially good for her health – even though she does split the driving with her husband.…
It is early, but my frontrunner for word of the year is “essential.” We’ve heard it often lately in the context of “essential businesses.” But when life comes in a stripped down version it causes us all to re-evaluate what is essential for our own lives and what are the essential roles we play in the lives of others.
Two of my nephews work at a food distribution center and my sister hauls food across the country in an eighteen wheel truck. …
The speed of everyday life can make the strings that connect us invisible to the naked eye. When life grinds to a halt those same strings might as well be thickly knotted ropes.
Recently, we have seen these connections first in ways that frighten us. A virus can spread across continents, oceans, and states, while making the rest of the world stand still. The economic reverberations ring out from Wall Street but come crashing down on every storefront on Main Street. …
They came one after another. A work event I’d been helping prepare for months. Both universities where I teach canceled classes and would move the rest online. A trip to Boston with my youngest daughter for her first basketball tournament. Another local tournament for two daughter’s soccer teams. Then the postponement of the youth soccer season altogether. Then their basketball season. Then one’s theatre program, another’s gymnastics etc.…
Contagion is the second most popular movie on Netflix this year as people turn to this 2011 thriller for some combination of information and escapism. I watched this movie when it first came out and remember it as absolutely terrifying. But not for the reason you might think.
Yes, the physical effects of the virus that spreads rapidly across the globe are devastating and graphic (it is portrayed as exponentially more lethal and dangerous than the coronavirus.)…
In the the film, And Justice for All, Al Pacino gives an impassioned speech about the meaning of justice and its pursuit. He is defending a judge he knows to be guilty of a heinous crime and is part of a system he knows to be imperfect if not corrupt. He laments that justice is not the aim of a court proceeding, winning is.
Ultimately he must choose whether to pursue this objective or to sacrifice ego and reward. …
Recently, we took our daughters to go see the play, Come From Away. It tells the story of how the small town of Gander, Newfoundland came to the aid of over 7,000 passengers whose planes were forced to land as American airspace was closed in the minutes after the 9/11 attacks. They provided not only lodging, food, and clothes, but also comfort, compassion and love to the strangers who doubled the size of the town’s population for almost a week. …
In this interview, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, recounted what attributes are common among musicians. One that resonated was the idea of musicians having especially patterned minds. The term refers to the ability to remember and think in patterns. In music this comes in especially handy in remembering chord progressions, lyrics etc. For an average person, we might be able to recite the words to a song we know only if we begin at a familiar place, like the beginning or at the chorus.…
Over the last two weeks, I have spent more time on my back than on my feet. I cannot recall a flu that has hit so hard and lasted so long. While there were the usual aches and pains, nothing has been more persistent and debilitating than the constant state of fatigue and weakness.
There is a helplessness that goes with such weakness. You have no strength for much of anything — to stand, to walk, to eat, to read, to watch, to work, to talk. …
As many lament what they see as a lack of moral courage in our politics and society, it perhaps is helpful to take pause and appreciate how rare and special this particular type of courage actually is.
Over a hundred years ago, Claude Monet wrote “It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.”…
“That is very kind of you” I said to the man on the train who offered up his seat so I could sit next to my mother. I’m not sure why I used that somewhat antiquated phrase. Perhaps it is because I have been thinking of kindness a lot lately.
It began last month when my wife and I took our three daughters to see Little Women.…
As I walked my dog on a blistery January morning, I noticed that every block or two, bundled up children were being dutifully escorted to their street corner. Waiting for the bus to take them to elementary school.
It would be impossible to know the exact political orientation of the parents and grandparents who had risen early and braved the cold that morning. But given that particular Pennsylvania town’s voting history, one might surmise that it was divided politically. …
