Conversation. Serendipity. Inspiration.

To say the last few hours have been interesting would be to somehow shortchange the experience.

It started over lunch and conversation with a new friend. Proceeded to a sidewalk conversation with someone I didn't know from Eve. And concluded with a passing hallway conversation with a wise, old colleague. What's been most interesting, at least to me, is how conversation after conversation today, each with different people and each initiated by the other (not me), has revolved around a similar topic. It's as if each person was playing some scripted role in a play, a play in which I am participating but was unaware I was an actor. I almost feel like I'm walking through a dream or a movie. It's an odd feeling. I wonder if this is how Harold Crick felt in Stranger Than Fiction.

IMDB link here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420223/

So strange, in fact, that I could not help but reflect on them right after they happened. Which is rather ironic considering each of the conversations was about discipline in the practice of reflecting. This whole situation is made even more interesting to me in that I've been giving 'reflection' a fair bit of thought over the last few months. It feels rather like...serendipity.

The first conversation had me thinking about spiritual reflection and personal growth. The second had me thinking about philosophical reasons for reflection. The third had me thinking about the importance of reflection in academics and for learning.

Why reflection? Beyond appreciation, compassion and community? Well, one of the key pieces of the scientific method includes reflection. Philosophers spend careers reflecting on reflecting. Some of the most influential thinkers of all time - Socrates, Plato (Aristocles) and Aristotle - advocated for reflection. And the seminal writings in nearly every world religion give considerable credence to reflection. Yet for all this, it seems too few of us in this fast-paced modern world of ours are truly good at taking time to reflect, instead too plugged in to technology we often forget to be present in the moment. So I've been disciplining myself to regularly unplug and just spend time both in the moment and reflecting on previous moments, if even just for 20 minutes each day.



It is (and I am) a work in progress. But I'm now finding it easier to see how the events and situations and people and things around me connect to each other and to my own life. And it's helping me become more aware of how it all shapes my own thinking and worldview. To me, reflection feels inspiring...and I love feeling inspired. What inspires you?

The lady on the bus, and why I routinely unplug

On a recent morning on my trek to work, I decided to ride the bus. I've been doing that lately to get familiar with the bus system in the area, an area we recently moved to. And the weather's been dropping snow and leaving freezing ice patches on long stretches of the bike paths. So why not?

This morning, the bus was about half full with one person sitting in each two-person seat. They were all perfectly spaced apart, even along the ambulance style benches, like some invisible force was keeping them a few feet from each other. Turns out, that 'force' is called personal space and the preferred distance - at least in the United States - is about four feet apart.

But I digress.

I sat down - without 'noticing' the person lest I respond to some subconscious bias or prejudice and shy away or gravitate toward them; I like to put myself into different situations - and found myself sitting next to an elderly woman. After a few seconds of quiet she says to me, "I like your green coat." I thanked her and smiled warmly, briefly mentioning that a friend had given it to me and I was grateful for the warmth it was providing and that it was rather hip nowadays to have highlighter bright clothing.

Without missing a beat, she launched into a story about her late husband (who I surmised had been dead a great many years) who, clear back in the 1960s and 70's would sew extremely bright patches onto all his clothing. It was one of the things she found odd but also attractive about him - that he felt comfortable enough to stand out in a crowd. And he was always very noticeable skiing down the slopes. How she noticed that in Europe, people seemed to think all grey outfits were the hip thing at some point in time and how she liked all grey outfits as she thought they made her look royal.

I mentioned how I had noticed in the UK some 10 years back that men seemed to favor salmon and pink and purple shirts and ties and such, very different than what was popular in America at the time.

Again, without missing a beat, she ran with the conversation mentioning that she once saw Wes Welker wearing a salmon-colored jacket (or was it a pink shirt?) and how those around him teased him for wearing pink and how he was such a nice young boy and how "the thugs" on the NFL's New England Patriots protected him when he was on their team but how they'd ganged up on him and tried to hit him hard now that we was on the Denver Broncos team and how unfortunate it was that just because he wore a salmon-colored jacket that "the thugs, the worst of them being their head thug Bill Belichick" were now targeting him. And wasn't it too bad that he got another concussion and that he seemed to be getting old for wide receivers in the NFL and she hoped he retired after this year but wondered what he might do with his life after retirement and she would bet his wife would feed him almonds and he was such a nice and friendly and good kid and how she didn't really follow anything in the NFL and how strange it was that she knew all this stuff about the NFL and Wes Welker but he's such a nice kid, dontchaknow.

Denver Bronco's wide receiver Wes Welker in his salmon-colored jacket.

I guess she had a lot of conversation stored up. That was fine by me. She obviously was craving interaction with others. And I was happy to listen and interact.

We exchanged a bit more conversation before I reached my bus stop. I wished her a blessed day and she said she was glad for the conversation. She bid me adieu and called me Mr. Green. I bid her adieu and called her Ms. Grey.

I'm pretty sure none of this lovely interaction would have happened if I had had my bright red earbuds stuck in my ears listening to the news like I usually do on my way to work. But an interaction with my beloved bride this morning had me thinking and I thought it best to leave my phone in my pocket and just reflect (which is my typical evening habit on my way home from work). I'm sure glad I had that conversation with my wife this morning, listened to my intuition and unplugged from my routine. I don't want to become another zombie. Or lose my ability to interact with others. Face to face. Plugged in but alone. Worse yet, I don't want to get in the habit of fleeing from conversations with strangers.

I'm glad I unplugged. It was a remarkable thing. Because life, at its best and for all its shortcomings, is happening right in front of me.

Email overload? No way! I got this...(or not)

Yeah, I got this. N...no, no I don't.

You know you're buried in emails when:

1. you actively manage 5+ different email addresses
2. your main email has >2,500 UNREAD messages in the inbox
3. your email responses to threads have >10 items in a numbered list
4. you want to respond to most emails (but rarely do)
5. you obsessively check your phone or email program every time you get a notification of a new email
6. triage is the primary way you handle messages. Like:

• Newsletter? Sit on it for future reading (translation: you'll never look at it again. Solution: delete it. And if you only read about 1 for every 5 or more of that newsletter, unsubscribe).
• Close friend? Read it and want to respond. In reality you don't respond for much too long and your "close" friends start wondering if you really care. Solution: read the message then ring them on the tele.
• Boss or project co-worker? Probably going to get a response, just not as quickly as either of us would like.
• Forwarded message with funny pics of cats that look like Hitler? Nope, sorry. Gettin' axed.

Mashable Infographic: email today.

Am I an email addict? I used to be. But not any more. Now I'm more along the lines of apathetic, apoplectic (email) medic. Sure I check my email several times a day but I'm going to change that. And I don't hide from family or drive many miles while on vacation just to check my email.

So here's what I'm going to do about it. I'm going to start sending many fewer emails, only respond during certain times of the day, turn off incoming email notifications on my phone, and start making more phone calls. I'm going to unsubscribe from email lists, LOTS of them, even though I like getting many of the emails (at least, in theory I like it; good/interesting material!). Some habits are hard to break. On email threads with many responses in a short period of time, I'm going to wait for the flurry to die down, then respond with a single email that captures the most pertinent things I need to convey. Or I'll call you. I'm hoping this will help cut down on the frequent distractions. Even though they may be important messages that do need to be addressed, when the notifications pile in incessantly, they are still distractions...sometimes welcome, most of the time not. And they nearly always alter productivity on whatever task I'm working on.

So if you don't hear back from me within a few minutes regarding an email you've sent me, if you see I've unsubscribed from the email distribution list you curate or the blog you write or the newsletter you edit or the...(insert list here), don't be offended. It's not you. It's me. It's not that I don't like all this information. I just cannot conceivably find the time to read through all of it the minute it arrives in my inbox. I'll get to it, but only a couple of times a day. Yes, rich media is, well, rich with additional/supplemental info, but that's just the sort of stuff I'm trying to pare out right now. If it's important and needs immediate attention, give me a ring. I'd much rather talk with you for five minutes. After all, we can cover so much more ground in that time on the phone than we could in an email thread.

As much as I love electronic media, I really thrive on the personal interactions with you.

10,000 tweets in...

I've been doing this social media thing for some time now. I don't care much about finding as many followers as I can (I figure they'll come naturally within the course of conversations). I tend not to care much for the vast majority of the discussions on Twitter (infographic on what people tweet?). And I don't typically tweet out shameless, self-promoting, useless drivel. I find myself parsing through and gravitating to the conversations that touch on topics of particular interest to me. Do I care about Justin Bieber's troubles with his monkey? Uh-uh. Britney Spears' baby fat? Nope. What about the latest Harlem Shake video? Yeah, not so much (the first few were...fun...but after that, meh).

But here's what I DO care about - things like science, homebrewing, fishing and hunting, politics, relationships, family, friendships - all those things that crank my scooter, rev my engine, get my noggin' knockin'...basically things that mean something to me for one reason or another. And they almost always involve interactions with others.

So perhaps it's no surprise that my 10,000th tweet was part of a real discussion with a fellow scientist.

At least I'm not this guy.

Vivat necessitudines (long live relationships)...

My 10,000th tweet - part of a convo w/ a scientist.