Personal
Personal reflections, comments about things I've been doing, etc.
Igniting Dreams
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 02/23/2009 - 18:51I’ve been pretty busy with a project for Toomre Capital Markets for the past few weeks and my social media activity has suffered as a result. However, there are a bunch of different updates I would like to highlight.
A few days ago, Fiona and I made brief video about Hamilton Island. This is the Australian island that is look to hire a blogger, a job they’ve descrived as The Best Job In The World. A few days ago was the last chance to upload a video, and I tried to get our video in under the wire. Their servers were very slow, but today, I got an email that they had received the video. You can see it on their site, Aldon, United States – The Best Job In The World. In about eight days, they will announce the top fifty videos. Of that, eleven will be selected to travel to Australia for an interview.
Meanwhile, I’ve gotten two interesting emails about other opportunities for people searching for new jobs. The Network of Executive Women is currently accepting applications for undergraduate scholarships for women residing in or attending schools in Fairfield or New Haven Counties. The deadline for applications is March1st.
On a lighter note, I received an email from another group offering scholarships.
According to The Wall Street Journal, more than 70% of former Bush officials are out of work, and an online Poker training school is offering them free Poker lessons from non-partisan twenty-year olds earning 7 figures a year. To qualify, simply fax in a letter describing your former position in the Bush Administration, along with phone and e-mail contact information, to (623) 889-5670 to process a 30-day subscription to www.BluefirePoker.com.
Sure, these guys helped to dismantle the American economy – and gambled away our futures – now they may want to consider gambling for a living (legally of course).
For online communications, there are two important sites that I want to highlight. Most importantly, my friend Carol continues her battle with leukemia. You can read her story at Carebridge. Currently, they are looking for people that can donate platelets in the St. Louis area. If you can, please check out the Pheresis Donor Program at Barnes Jewish Hospital.
Another friend has just started blogging. Peter Howie is the Managing Director of The Moreno Collegium for Human Centred Learning, Research and Development. He has started the Moreno Collegium Blog.
His first entry is the President’s Report that he wrote for the Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Associations. It is a wonderful blog post, talking about "We are the ones we have been waiting for" and this is not the time for lone wolves. and promoting Moreno's dream of dreaming again to the world..
In and of itself, it is a wonderful blog post. Yet as I tie it into the fanciful dreams of blogging from a wonderful island, the very real dreams of being able to afford college, and especially the very hopeful dreams of winning a battle against leukemia, and so many other dreams, it becomes all the more powerful. In it, he links to Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’.
When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse.And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
I think of Carol. I think of all the people that are trying to fix her leukemia, who are trying to provide lights to guide her home and to ignite her bones, or at least her bone marrow to return to making the blood cells she needs.
Years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about his dream and for many people, the recent presidential election and inauguration in the United States was the culmination of this dream.
Yet as I think of Carol in her hospital bed, as I think of our economy as it struggles and the struggles of so many without jobs or without health insurance, when I think about the environment, and all the challenges ahead of us, I realize we are not at the culmination of a dream, but at the beginning.
There is so much more dreaming to do and I wish Peter luck with his blog and with The Moreno Collegium for Human Centred Learning, Research and Development that they may join with many to ignite bones, ignite dreams, and help others to dream again.
Postscript: As I finished writing this blog post, I received an email from one of my daughters, “This guy comes off as really crazy, but is probably one of the happiest people in the world right now. http://www.caboodleranch.org/About_Us.html”
Performance Enhancing
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/19/2009 - 08:31Where have you gone Joe DiMagio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you
It was about fifteen years ago that I pretty much lost interest in professional sports. A few years earlier, my eldest daughter had been born and we moved out of the city and away from our friends that would call us up and ask if we wanted to go see a Yankees or Mets game. The major league baseball strike of 1994 removed most of my remaining interest in professional sports as the illusion of it being about sportsmanship was removed illustrating that it was just another large entertainment corporation.
I’ve always liked buying local, so we went to some New Haven Raven’s games and greatly enjoyed the games. The latest illusion stripping event is the revelation that Alex Rodriguez, ‘A-Rod’, used performance enhancing drugs while he was in Texas. In interviews he spoke about his high salary and his feeling that he needed to perform at his peak for his new team and new fans.
Texan billionaire R. Allen Stanford is also accused of using illegal performance enhancements on his product, certificates of deposit similar to how Bernard L. Madoff is alleged to have used performance enhancements with his hedge fund.
Amidst all of this, I heard a report on NPR the other day about Don Meyer. A few days ago, courtside in a wheelchair, after he lost one of his legs in a car crash and fighting liver and intestine cancer, Coach Meyer passed Bobby Knight as the winningest coach in college basketball. Unlike Coach Knight, whose foul mouth on the sidelines in Indiana brought him national acclaim, many of us never heard of Coach Meyer coaching teams like the Northern State Wolves or the Lipscomb Bisons.
Yet perhaps, it is Coach Meyer that wears the mantel of Joe DiMaggio. Perhaps he is the coach that our nation should be turning its lonely eyes to. During the interview on NPR he seemed uncomfortable with the attention. For him, he was simply trying to be a good coach, helping the kids on his team go from a fifth place record of 13 wins and 14 loses to being tied for first place with a 20 and 8 record two years later. Coach Meyer spoke about simply trying to take life one game at a time.
Perhaps more importantly, he spoke about what it really takes to be a good leader. He spoke about being a servant-leader. Your role as a leader needs to be about serving the folks you are leading, and not about seeking glory for yourself.
For too long, our heroes have been performance enhanced characters like Alex Rodriguez, R. Allen Stanford, Bernard L. Madoff or Coach Knight. Instead, we need to be looking at a different type of performance enhancement, the kind that Coach Meyer does by simply helping his players be the best they can be, without taking any shortcuts.
Social Dreams and Blogs
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 09:32Years ago, I worked with an organizational consultant who was steeped in the Group Relations tradition, and through her, I developed an interest in the work of Wilfred Bion, Tavistock and many aspects of psychology and group dynamics. One area that particularly caught my attention was the work of Gordon Lawrence and others in Social Dreaming.
The idea is to share a dream in a social context, and instead of focusing on the interpretation of the dream, focus on the free associations to the dream to gain insight into social situations. It is with this in mind that I share three dreams that I had last night.
Only a snippet of the first dream remains. In this dream, I was participating in some sort of group and the group leader asked why I was not sharing anything. My reaction was that my thoughts were not well formed enough to be shared. Yet as I thought about the dream, I realized what really matters is sharing the not yet well-formed thoughts so that people could work together and we could all form even better thoughts.
To a certain extent, this is part of my philosophy of blogging. I perhaps do it best when I write about technology. I describe a project I’ve been working on, what works, what doesn’t, and then ask other people to share their experiences. Sometimes people share their experiences via comments, emails or instant messages and when this happens usually both of us learn more.
The same thing should happen, perhaps, for politics, education, and for that matter anything else that interests us. Yet this is very different from the dominant model. Newspapers, politicians and educators seem to believe they have to get it right the first time. They need to be the ‘sage on the stage’ and tell everyone what to think, instead of sharing information and encouraging people to think and to share their own thoughts. Perhaps the Internet will help change this model.
Yet this sort of change could have massive results, and it takes me to my second dream. In this dream, I am near a river that has been flooding. Coming down the stream are all kinds of object from the flood. Much of it household objects. I gather these objects out of the stream to repair and use. Another person owns some sort of market on the side of the river and is retrieving objects to barter or sell. I work out a deal with this person to gain access to the river across his property if I help bring in additional objects from the river for him. From this, I get to choose the five best objects that he has.
The final dream was also a water related dream. Instead of a river, I am at the shore of an ocean. There is a storm and the surf is high. Some people are out playing in the ocean. Off to the right there is a small cove, where the surf is not as high that seems fairly safe. Straight ahead is the expanse of the sea and the surf is rougher. People are playing in this surf as well, and at times people get pulled out to sea. Some get rescued, others do not. During this, a bright golden sandbar emerges going out into the sea, and some people go very far out on the sandbar playing safely. I know they are safe as long as the sandbar is there, but I know that the sandbar could easily shift and they could all be in peril.
Unlike the first dream, to which I have some clear reactions, my reactions to these later two dreams are less clear. What comes to your mind when you read these dreams? I’m perhaps more interested in related dreams, songs or movies that it makes you think of, or other things going on in our society, then I am in interpretations about what it might mean, but I welcome all comments.
Years ago, I worked with an organizational consultant who was steeped in the Group Relations tradition, and through her, I developed an interest in the work of Wilfred Bion, Tavistock and many aspects of psychology and group dynamics. One area that particularly caught my attention was the work of Gordon Lawrence and others in Social Dreaming.
The idea is to share a dream in a social context, and instead of focusing on the interpretation of the dream, focus on the free associations to the dream to gain insight into social situations. It is with this in mind that I share three dreams that I had last night.
Only a snippet of the first dream remains. In this dream, I was participating in some sort of group and the group leader asked why I was not sharing anything. My reaction was that my thoughts were not well formed enough to be shared. Yet as I thought about it, I realized what really matters is sharing the not yet well formed thoughts so that people could work together and we could all form even better thoughts.
To a certain extent, this is part of my philosophy of blogging. I perhaps do it best when I write about technology. I describe a project I’ve been working on, what works, what doesn’t and ask other people to share their experiences. Sometimes people share their experiences via comments, emails or instant messages and when this happens usually both of us learn more.
The same thing should happen, perhaps, for politics, education, and for that matter anything that interests us. Yet this is very different from the dominant model. Newspapers, politicians and educators have to get it right the first time. They need to be the ‘sage on the stage’ and tell everyone what to think, instead of encouraging people how to think and to share their thoughts. Perhaps the Internet will help change this model.
Yet this sort of change could have massive results, and it takes me to my second dream. In this dream, I am near a river that has been flooding. Coming down the stream are all kinds of object from the flood. Much of it household objects. I gather these objects out of the stream to repair and use. Another person owns some sort of market on the side of the river and is retrieving objects to barter or sell. I work out a deal with this person to gain access to the river across his property if I help bring in additional objects from the river for him. From this, I get to choose the five best objects that he has.
The final dream was also a water related dream. Instead of a river, I am at the shore of an ocean. There is a storm and the surf is high. Some people are out playing in the ocean. Off to the right there is a small cove, where the surf is not as high that seems fairly safe. Straight ahead is the expanse of the sea and the surf is rougher. People are playing in this surf as well, and at times people get pulled out to sea. Some get rescued, others do not. During this, a sandbar emerges going out into the sea, and some people go very far out on the sandbar playing safely. I know they are safe as long as the sandbar is there, but I know that the sandbar could easily shift and they could all be in peril.
Unlike the first dream, to which I have some clear reactions, my reactions to these later two dreams are less clear. What comes to your mind when you read these dreams? I’m perhaps more interested in related dreams, songs or movies that it makes you think of, or other things going on in our society, then I am in interpretations about what it might mean, but I welcome all comments.
Random Stuff.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 22:15Yesterday the weather was warm. At Church I listened to people talking about the thaw. The water on the ice is slippery, one person commented. Another spoke about hearing the ice melt off the gutters in the middle of the night. During the service a brief rain storm passed through. During quiet moments of the service, you could hear the tires of cars heading down the road as they splashed past. Last night, I tried to capture some of this as I fell asleep into some nicely turned phrases. I may have succeeded, but I fell asleep and forgot my words.
This morning, I woke early. I have a big programming project I need to spend a bunch of time on. So, much of the day was spent thinking in computer languages and not in English. When I got home, I kept working on the programming a bit. When I look at the screen now, equations and logic keep coming, and no good words for a blog post.
I search various blogs that I read, hoping for an idea. But instead all I find are sites with the ‘Exploit-Iframe.gen.c’ trojan on it. I’ve left a comment for a few friends for them to check this out.
On top of all of this, I am distracted. A friend is battling leukemia and for this too, words fail me.
I should try to read some of my emails. I should read other blogs. There is lots going on. Instead, I shall go offline. Tomorrow, I’ll probably do a lot more programming and we’ll see what comes for words tomorrow.
The Great Dance
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 02/01/2009 - 12:39Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. I start the first blog post of every month with the phrase “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit” harkening back to a hope of childhood that saying those words first thing in the morning of the first day of the month would some how bring luck for the month. The beginning of a new month can be like the beginning of a new year, in whatever calendar, or a new administration, a chance to hope again.
Yet hope can be a fleeting thing. I’ve been a bit out of sorts over the past week. My wife, Kim, has commented on it and I’ve been wondering what it has all been about. Have the incessant winter storms been finally worn me down? Am I struggling from season affective disorders? Is it a “Blue Monday” sort of effect? Are there other factors, new twist in our difficult financial situation? Could it be related to health, the endless coughs, headaches and other symptoms of the winter cold season? Could it be my continued struggle to find the right combination of medications to keep my blood pressure and cholesterol under control? Might it be concerns about residual affects of Kim’s battle with Lyme disease?
All of these seam reasonable explanations. However, most of these have been ongoing struggles. Was there something particular about last week? As I think about what is going on in the nation and the world, I see reasons for hope. Yes, President Obama has a rough road ahead of him as he tries to deal with the issues our country faces. Yes, wars continue overseas. Yes, the end of economic woes does not appear to be around the corner, but all in all, things in the world seem like they are starting to head in a better direction.
I remember years ago when Star Wars came out. I seem to recall a scene where the Death Star destroys a planet, and Obi-Wan feels and comments upon this disturbance in the force. Yeah, it’s science fiction, but I’ve often felt that we can sense something wrong, a long ways away. I’ve often had these feelings right before getting a phone call from my mother about some death or serious illness in the family. Perhaps, there was a disturbance in the force this past week that has somehow affected me.
I’ve often written about a mailing list of Group Psychotherapists that I’m on. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to meet one of the members face to face. Danielle Fraenkel is a dance/movement therapist from Rochester, NY. She was in New York City to care for her aging mother so my wife and I trekked into the city to have dinner with her.
It was a wonderful dinner. At the time, my eldest daughter, Mairead, was studying the holocaust, and Dani’s mother had lots of stories that would have helped make Mairead’s studies much more real and immediate. Unfortunately, Dani’s mother was too weak to speak with Mairead. However, Dani did give us a copy of a book, Samuel Mendelsson: A Man Who Must Not Be Forgotten. It was written by H. Alexander Fraenkel, who, if I remember properly was Dani’s father.
In the introduction, Mr. Fraenkel writes,
It may be that some of the many are still alive and will remember; it may be that others will learn about this Jewish gentleman, and – it may be wishful thinking – that someone may begin to think, and no more to hate.
Over the years, I’ve met others from the mailing list, and last year I went to the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) annual conference in Washington DC. There, I had the chance to have dinner with Carol Lark.
Carol is an art therapist in St. Louis. I had been talking about the possible uses of Second Life as a therapeutic environment on the mailing list. Carol had joined Second Life and was looking around. Over a wonderful dinner we talked about many things, including the potential for Second Life.
What had gotten me interested in the therapeutic potential of Second Life was a chance encounter I had had sometime earlier in Second Life.
I had been invited to a pajama party. May people in Second Life spend a lot of money on clothes there and had very nice pajamas. I had nothing notable. However, I did have the shape of a cat that I had received when I covered an art opening in Second Life.
So, I changed shape into a cat and ran around the pajama party, dragging a pillow behind me and tripping up even the most agile avatars. Everyone cursed that damn cat, but it seemed as if that was all part of the fun for everyone, so I only redoubled my efforts.
Afterwards, a woman named Gentle Heron, who appeared to be an agile and attractive twenty-something approached me and wanted to make sure that my feelings had not been hurt by all the curses and that it was, for me, as much part of the game, as it was for her and others.
I reassured her that I had a good time and enjoyed the role I was in. She then proceeded to thank me. You see, she is the head of the Heron Society, a group of people in Second Life dedicated to helping others with disabilities. People in the Heron society were going through the difficult task of processing grief over the suicide of a friend, and Gentle really needed a chance to just relax and run around like everyone else.
Gentle and I became good friends and I later learned more about her. In real life, she has advanced multiple sclerosis. She gets around with the use of crutches or a wheelchair and doesn’t get out that much. Second Life is a great tool to connect with others for her and through her, I have learned a lot about people with various disabilities. So, when Carol entered Second Life I made sure the two of them connected.
At the same AGPA annual conference, I attended one of Dani’s workshops. It is hard to find words for what a powerful experience it was, and I encourage everyone to try to get to one of her workshops if you can. With my thoughts about the disabled community in the forefront of my mind, I was very pleased to hear Dani talk about how she used dance and movement therapy for people of all levels of ability and dreamed of ways of bringing her expertise, through Second Life, to those who are very limited in their physical abilities, except when they are in Second Life.
Then, yesterday, it became all so much more complicated, as life is wont to do. The ripple in the force arrived. I received an email that Carol has acute leukemia. Carol, the ever loving kind and artistic therapist, has written a little bit about this part of her journey at CareBridge. CareBridge is a wonderful “nonprofit web service that connects family and friends during a critical illness, treatment or recovery.”
The unit she is in “has a grant to offer complementary/holistic medicine procedures to the patients on demand for free.” Carol describes “a guided imagery session” she sees “a distant horizon of women dancing with bare feet, all kinds of women, young and old form all over the world.”
Through the magic of Second Life, the physically disabled can dance, men can become cats or even women dancing with bare feet. We can join in the guided imagery and dance a dance of healing for Carol. Whatever your tradition or beliefs, please send prayers, kind thoughts, positive energy, or whatever you can in Carol’s direction.
With all of this in mind, I had an interesting discussion with my seven-year-old daughter Fiona. We were sitting in the car while Kim was trying to get some prescriptions filled. We were listening to the band Red Molly. It is a trio that we’ve often heard at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and it is one of Fiona’s favorite bands.
Fiona really likes their upbeat tunes, like their rendition of “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.” When the slower, more contemplative songs come on, she wants me to skip over them.
Yet I like some of their slower more contemplative songs, so we listened to “May I Suggest” which I suggested to Fiona was a very important song. She wanted to know why I thought it was so important, so we listened to the lyrics and talked about them a little bit, in terms of Carol’s battle.
May I suggest, may I suggest to you, may I suggest this is the best part of your life.
May I suggest, this time is blest for you
This time is blest in shining almost blinding bright.
Now amidst all the fear, pain and confusion that I imagine Carol must be facing right now, I suggested that this moment, now, just might be the best part of her life. It is a moment where her she will use all her skills to battle a horrible disease. It is a time that the words she gets a chance to write are an important gift to anyone that reads them.
More importantly, for each one of us, this is, or at least can be, the best part of our lives. This moment. Now. Simply by being in the moment and seeing the beauty around us, this can be the best part of our lives.
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
So, I worry about finances, health and just getting by from day to day. Yet I also join in the Great Dance, with Carol, and Gentle, and Dani, and Alexander and Samuel and anyone else who will join in. I hold on to the hope of a new month, a new year, a new administration, or simply a new day and a new moment, and I say “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit”.
