Road Trip
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 00:07After a day of work, it was an evening of driving through the dark and rain. There wasn't much to see, other than the lights of the Tappan Zee Bridge, of various radio towers, and the lights of various cities. We've checked into a hotel in Pennsylvania on our way to my niece's wedding in North Carolina.
The heating unit is making the whirring sort of sounds that are all too familiar in inexpensive hotels and outside the window, you can hear the trucks rolling by.
I don't have much energy to write this evening, and we'll see how much writing, or, for that matter, any other online social interaction I can muster over the next few days.
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 01/25/2012 - 19:52
Clarity
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 20:23It was foggy this morning as I headed off to work. Over night, a warm rain had fallen on the snow and there was a mist along side the road. I understood how the warm moist air over the remnant of the cold snow produced these vapors, but there still was something eerie about it. You could see objects through the mist, and often make out what they were, but not clearly.
I was on my way to a United Way breakfast. I knew approximately when and where it was supposed to be, but that was about all. The lack of clarity about the first meeting of the morning also added to my uneasiness.
As I drove along, I thought about a book I've been about social thinking at work. As a person with a background in math, computers, and logic, I like to have clear details about whatever I am working on. When I write computer programs, I have a clear idea of what they are going to do and why they are going to do it. Yet in social situations, things are very different. I may say one thing, expecting a certain result and get an unexpected result. I suspect that has led to some of my reticence in speaking my mind in various work related situations. I wonder how many of my more logically oriented friends run into this, either not thinking about the reactions to what they say at work, being surprised at the reactions and/or simply avoiding saying things due to a lack of clarity as to what the reaction might be.
I thought about the book, Social Thinking at Work, which a friend has sent me, and I've been reading a little bit of here and there. It seems as if these thoughts fit nicely with the ideas in that book.
Then, my mind wandered to an article I had read years ago from the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. It was entitled, "Our Best Work Happens When We Don't Know What We're Doing". It isn't about trying to do something that you don't know how to do, but about seeking to grow as the mind gets exposed to truth. To do that, we need to be at a place of unknowing in the moment, a place where we can sit back and wait to recognize the lessons we are hoping to learn.
Over the years, I've often gone to events where I don't know what to expect, where I lack clarity about the event and the outcomes. These are often times when I am nervous going to some events, but if I power through them, listen, and learn from the events, they turn out to be quite wonderful.
The United Way annual meeting breakfast turned out to be very much like this. I found the room was filled with many friends and acquaintances from work. These were good people who work hard to make the communities they live in better places. They are inspirations.
After the breakfast was over, I drove to the office, enjoying the sunshine and the clarity that the day had brought.
The End of the Smoke Filled Room
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 01/23/2012 - 20:48Sunday, I went to a meet and greet for Congressman Chris Murphy, who is running for U.S. Senate here in Connecticut. The event took place at the house of State Senator Gayle Slossberg. On the way in, I ran into Milford Mayor Ben Blake. Later, I ran into Woodbridge First Selectman Ed Sheehy, State Representative Paul Davis, as well as various Democratic Town Committee chairs from Milford and Orange, and a large assortment of politically active friends.
This wasn't a smoke filled room. There may still be smoke filled rooms in politics, but I suspect that the image of smoke filled rooms is overplayed. Politicians know that to win, they need votes, and that people vote. At least in a small state like Connecticut, most politicians are very accessible.
Now, I may have a warped view, because I've been active in politics for years, but I do believe that most people, if they want become involved in politics can, pretty easily. Unfortunately, too many people don't even vote, let alone take time to get to know the candidates.
Congressman Murphy gave a typical speech to the assembled group. Yet what particularly struck me was his ask to the assembled crowd at the end. He talked a little bit about money, but he is likely to run against a self-funding millionaire, and the money he could raise from this small crowd wasn't substantial enough make a big difference. Instead, this was a crowd of people who volunteer, who work hard for candidates and he acknowledge the importance of motivated campaign workers.
Yet what struck me most, was the final part of the ask. He asked for people who could help him craft policy. He recognized that there were a lot of bright people in the crowd who could help him come up with better ideas on how to tackle the problems our country faces.
Perhaps it was the setting that he could ask for something like that. Too often politicians buy into the myth that they have to know everything and have it all worked out, or at least presenting an image like that to the voting population. They have to use the scripted and tested sound bites that pollsters tell them they should use to get elected.
Politics is changing. Anyone can get involved and important discussions take place in living rooms and not smoke filled rooms. Chris Murphy is doing a good job of embracing a more open form of politics and I hope we see more of it.
The Snow Storm
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 01/22/2012 - 19:23It was a quiet Saturday morning. Looking out the living room window through the woods, I could see the occasional car heading up or down the street. They were few, far between, going very slowly, and still looked like they were slipping around. Fortunately, my morning meeting had been cancelled so I could stay at home and didn't need to worry about driving. Wesley, are large white half Labrador Retriever, half Great Pyrenees had spent much of the morning romping through the fresh powder.
In the early afternoon, as the snow was still coming down, we trekked up the driveway, onto the little path through the woods to our neighbor's house. The little path had been well worn by our dogs, by Fiona, and in previous years by other daughters that had lived in these houses. Our neighbor is of Scandinavian descent and has a hot tub behind her house. It felt like we were connecting with a tradition from years long past of neighbors gathering to enjoy hot tubs or saunas during snow storms.
We gathered in the hot tub to enjoy the end of the snow storm. I remembered a sauna that I had visited in Holland years ago. It was during a light snow storm, and we went from hot pools to cold water, the steam baths to dry saunas.
As the snow storm ebbed, a red tailed hawk flew to a nearby tree to perch and look for prey.
